Flashpoint #2 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (writer), Andy Kubert (penciller), Sandra Hope (inker), Alex Sinclair (colorist)

The Story: Barry, I need you to know, if you don’t make it through this…this is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.

The Review: Unlike many comic book Events, Flashpoint intends to move fast (ba-dum­-tch!), as its story has been written to fit five issues instead of the traditional seven, and we’re already on the second.  Some see this truncation as a welcome relief from having to deal with Event-mania for a few extra months.  But it’s worth pointing out it also cuts down the time for proper world-building and pacing, which can be hazardous to such an important, large-scale story.

Here we do get some up-close, personal moments with the new, hardened Aquaman and Wonder Woman, being among the most integral obstacles/players in this story.  The encounter between Diana and the resisting Steve Trevor feels more profound and useful, since it reveals some developments to the Atlantean-Themysciran war, but Aquaman’s confrontation with pirate-Deathstroke is just an opportunity to show off his current inclination for violence.

Johns would’ve been better off had he cut down the amount of time we spend with the Flash and not-really-Batman; their scenes take up most the issue, and do little to advance the plot.  Basically, they spend half the time fighting (though you can’t really call it a fight, since it’s mostly the depowered Barry getting his butt handed to him) while dealing with all the “I don’t believe you, you’re crazy!” issues that come hand-in-hand with these altered-universe stories.

That’s all fine and necessary; the several pages Barry spends describing his past and the real world to Thomas Wayne are not.  It basically re-describes everything we already know, instead of moving on to some new points.  It also makes little sense how all this suddenly gets Thomas to place his faith in Barry; it’s hard to understand how someone that cynical can so quickly flip-flop from calling Barry a “delusional son-of-a-bitch” to believing that SOB can get his son back.

The problem is selling these moments with more credibility requires more time, which Johns can’t afford.  He even sets up a ticking clock of sorts as Barry’s memories start to adapt to the new reality, just to motivate the characters to act as hastily as possible.  And yet for all this haste, you don’t feel like you’ve moved very far forward on this story.  It seems like Johns wants you to assume there’s some high-stakes tension here, rather than showing it to you.