Flashpoint: The World of Flashpoint #1 – Review

By: Rex Ogle (writer), Eduardo Francisco & Paulo Siqueira (pencillers), Roland Paris (inker), Stefani Renee (colorist)

The Story: I swear, if I had a dollar every time someone says “The end is near…”

The Review: With the main Flashpoint series driving itself through the plot as fast as it can, there hasn’t actually been much opportunity to get acquainted with this brand new world.  But even the handful of changes shown to us has been pretty juicy, making you (if you’re an altered-universe fan like me) eager to see more.  World of Flashpoint is meant to satisfy that curiosity, while at the same time deliver an important plot of its own.  This first issue delivers neither.

Setting aside the questionable decision to use Traci 13 as our guide, she simply hasn’t done a very good job of it.  She spends the whole issue in an underground bunker, except for a brief teleport to the streets of New York City, which aside from some petty street crime and panic doesn’t seem altogether too different.  Certainly, a couple kids stealing some food doesn’t feel like just cause for Traci to conclude “The world’s gone to hell.”

In fact, Traci spends most of the time repeating how doomed the world seems, without letting you see almost any of it yourself.  Besides, little of what she says goes beyond the major points you’re well aware of (e.g. the destruction of Western Europe and the UK by Aquaman and Wonder Woman, respectively), hardly shedding light on what else went wrong with this world.

Even worse, many of these tidbits (as revealed through a few vague anecdotes by Madame Xanadu) serve only to confuse you further as to how the world got to this state.  For example, she claims the original Justice Society never came together because “they were not powerful enough.  They needed someone…faster.”  Why the lack of a Flash made the JSA fall apart makes no sense; was Dr. Fate and the Spectre insufficient firepower or something?