I’m a big fan of CW’s The Flash. If I’m being honest it’s the TV show I most look forward to watching week-to-week, and the show whose return I’m most eagerly anticipating. The end of last season ended with a game changing moment that seemed poised to shake up the show’s entire universe. I had learned enough about the world of Flash comics to know that they were probably going to incorporate the events of Flashpoint into season 3, so I decided I should read it.
One key difference between the comics and the TV series based on their characters is that there are far less restrictions on the use of the characters in the books. Geoff Johns’s Flashpoint ultimately incorporates a dizzying number of major and minor DC characters, the lower-levels of which are utterly unknown and of little interest to me.
The story of Flashpoint involves the Flash, in a bad moment, going back in time to prevent his nemesis the Reverse Flash from killing the Flash’s mother. This creates a ripple in time with drastic consequences across the DC universe. Wonder Woman and Aquaman are on opposite sides of a war that threatens the existence of humanity. Superman has been locked up in a government facility since his rocket crash landed on Earth. Hal Jordan has never become the Green Lantern. Most intriguingly, Thomas Wayne, not Bruce, survived the encounter with the mugger and became Batman.
There are Flashpoint volumes which tell this story from the vantage points of the other major characters, and it would definitely help to have the background filled in and the story fleshed out, but I’m not sure my bank account and my patience can handle it. As a standalone volume Flashpoint is mostly an intriguing possibility and not much more.