Basement X

Alright, I read it the other day and I've held this in until now. Be warned, there be spoilers here.











So the biggest change up is this: it seems Barry Allen is not the Flash, nor does he have super-speed. And he tries to fix everything after learning his mother is alive by going to find Batman.


Only he finds out that Batman isn't Bruce Wayne. It's Thomas Wayne.

That was a pretty big and unique twist I felt. Really ties into all of the Thomas Wayne plots from the last few years of Batman by Morrison but I really like this.


Basically, the middle of the issue is all about Cyborg gathering all the heroes after tracking down Batman to vote on going in and stopping Wonder Woman and Aquaman before they destroy the rest of Europe. The Amazons have ravaged London and Paris is flooded and Cyborg wants to prevent any more.

It's basically a sort of 'roll call' for this world's heroes. You have Abin Sur, Shade the Changing Man and Enchantress as part of the Seven Soldiers, The Outsider, and then you have Captain Thunder (Marvel), who instead of being Billy Batson, is actually a combination of 6 kids who each have one of the powers and combine to form Captain Thunder. Also, Tawky Tawny turns into Battle Cat.


Overall, not a bad issue, but you're very much in the Barry Allen position by not knowing what the hell is going on. At only 5 issues I expect big reveals by issue 2, or no later than 1/2 way through issue 3. Otherwise I don't think there'll be enough time to wrap things up.

Sounds interesting but herein is why I loathe mega-events: even before this event has started, you needed to have read (at least) several other books to understand how Flashpoint is starting.

I have no clue where the Bruce is not Batman thing just came from mind you I'd been reading, and had bene up to date on Batman & Robin, Return of Bruce Wayne etc.. I only stopped reading them very recently. I also do not know what the Thomas Wayne plots are.

Why are Wonder Woman & Aquaman trying to destroy Europe?

Since when did Captain Thunder (Marvel) turn into a poor & ridiculous version of Captain Planet by requiring six kids to power his ass up?

I suppose what I meant by the Thomas Wayne thing is that it reminds me of Grant Morrison's Black Glove storyline that lead into RIP and Return, where it was suggested that Thomas Wayne was actually the villain, rather than some other long forgotten Wayne family member/wannabee type. That's what it reminded me.

Basically, the whole thing is an Elseworlds/Alternate-Earth story line. So having WW and Aquaman as conquerors is new, as is the Captain Thunder. It's all new takes on characters in this world, so that's why they're doing/made up like this.

As for the whys, we don't know yet. I assume in their respective minis or later on in the series we'll learn about that.

You don't need to read any other title to be ready for this except maybe Flash. We don't even know why it's like this. Basically it's DC's Age of Apocalypse, one day they wake up and it just happened. The only thing you have to know before reading this is that Professor Zoom is back and he's fucking with the past, changing things to mess with Barry Allen. Somehow he changed things and this was created, we don't know the full story yet.

And honestly, had you read Flash before this, you would still be at stage 1. The 'Road to Flashpoint' storyline was absolutely crap and has yet to really do anything to prep me for Flashpoint. So you're safe.

The Thomas Wayne thing did nothing for me. This is just a huge what if and I liked it better when it was called Age of Apocalypse.

I retract my statement. If this is how Flashpoint started out, and I don't need to have read any other titles beforehand than I can live with it.

I just hope the bulk, if not all, of the main storyline is kept firmly within the Flashpoint limited series. I know there will be (mediocre) tie-ins to other titles and that can't be helped but as long as the core of the story stays within Flashpoint I may be tempted to give it a shot