Flashpoint: The World of Flashpoint #2 – Review

By: Rex Ogle (writer), Eduardo Francisco (artist), Stefani Renee (colorist)

The Story: Hey Traci—what if I tell you the cards are saying we should hit a resort in Bermuda?

The Review: In theory, devoting an entire tie-in to exploring the Flashpoint world and all its various altered locales should have been the ultimate opportunity to go all-out in the creativity department.  Think about it: you have the entire DCU in your fingertips and you can mold almost any part of it any which way you please.  Such a title deserves both a writer and artist who can take advantage of this rare chance to just let their imaginations run away with them.

So how did we end up with such a dismally uninteresting series?  For one thing, Ogle burdens the story with a simplistic plot (Traci’s dad planning to blast away the Amazons and Atlanteans from a satellite death ray) that nevertheless forces Traci to act as quickly as possible.  This sense of haste makes her journey around the world in this issue incredibly rushed, randomly zipping into a scene and making her way before you even get your bearings.

As a result, you don’t get to see much of the world but at all.  Even when the captions indicate we’re someplace new, Ogle usually traps us within a very contained set (often indoors), making no difference in whether we’re hanging out in Brazil or Australia.  You’ll be lucky if you get even one panel showing the latest setting.  So yeah, while you do technically travel the world of Flashpoint this issue, I’d say it’s more of the View-Master tour than the off-road experience.