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DC has released am image (click for larger) to mark the release of FLASHPOINT #1 today. You need to be a bit more versed in DC lore to know how entirely shocking this image is, but there is a monkey, and that’s always good. There are also different versions of Batman, Wonder Woman, and so on. Alternate universe, ho!

What we do know: FLASHPOINT, written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Andy Kubert, kicks off tomorrow, featuring the Flash and ushering in a slightly …”Different” world for DC. Which we’ve seen before but you know…it always works for a new generation.

Retailer Larry Doherty of Larry’s Comics in Lowell, Mass, himself no stranger to attention, went on yesterday’s “#comicmarket” retailing discussion to say that FLASHPOINT will be the book of the summer. Selected tweets:

allot of "smart" ideas in main story @TimAtMoreFun BUT the last page is the holy shit moment that #comicmarket has been waiting for in 2011. my “gut” said Flashpoint was going to blow. My “eyes” showed me I was wrong. publishers HAVE to get us advance looks. The amount of positive buzz that the last page of Flashpoint is going to generate tomorrow will carry the #comicmarket through the summer. Age of Apocalypse: were ALL the mini series good? Hell NO! Main concept was killer! Flashpoint will be same. have had calls, emails, DM’s all day asking if my entheuaism is genuine. Seems to be working for me. Were your customers happy with Fear Itself? Mine were barely. Flashpoint will hook them for at least the core series.


So there you go — buzz enough for ya?

1 COMMENT

  1. Given that DC is trying to sell this series based on one-sentence taglines, cover art, and extremely generic hype, I doubt that many people who are primarily looking for a well-crafted story will be inclined to buy it. Also, it seems referential enough to obscure DC universe stuff that casual fans and the kids won’t want to jump into it. Add in the prevailing idea that it’s all going to be reset in the last issue and won’t “matter” to the larger universe, that will allow the hardcore fanboys to skip it.

    I just can’t imagine who the intended audience for this series plus its seven hundred and eighty-three tie-ins (give or take) is.

  2. I just read the issue – it’s filled with mysteries and has something of Grant Morrison’s hyper-compression going on; lots of info revealed through glimpses and flashes. I liked it much more than expected given that the only event series I really remember liking was Batman: No Man’s Land.

    As for the last-page reveal – it’s true, it’s far from mindblowing, but it’s a neat capper to the many mysteries percolating in the main story.

    Nice Kubert art, too.

  3. In fact I’m guessing that whatever “reset button” they have in mind for the finale, it won’t end up being a clean one. Maybe realities will bleed together, maybe some characters will crossover… couldn’t say for sure, but I seriously doubt we’ll get the equivalent of “it was all a dream!”

  4. Has this been extended from 5 issues to 6 instead? I got email today from one of the digital companies. Can’t remember which off hand. But it said 1 ( of 6 ).

    Has this been confirmed anywhere?

  5. Is Grant Morrison’s multiverse series still on the schedule? What if Flashpoint is about the destruction of Earth-1, and Morrison’s series is actually the story bible for the company going forward. Now THAT would be a reset button. All the characters we know and love have been tweaked just enough that we don’t quite recognize them anymore, and they won’t be tied into each other as much, because Justice League won’t be taking place in the same universe as any of its members.

    Now, I haven’t read Flashooint and most of what I know about it has come from the hype. I’m just saying that if *I* were to create a DC mega-event that supposedly changes everything, this is how I’d do it.

  6. Yet more “This changes everything!!” hyperbole never really does, especially since this so-called ‘event’ is essentially the same old guys dishing it out anyway. And Johns has yet to deliver a satisfying endpoint to any event he creates. ‘Shocking last page twists’ are pretty much his stock in trade now.

  7. Having now been spoilt, the twist at the end of the first issue has been done at least twice before maybe three times.

  8. While I have no desire to pick up this mini, I’m in agreement that the end result will be some sort of reboot to the DC universe. Mainly because DC is holding off on releasing their new Who’s Who mini until Flashpoint ends, which would say to me characters will be getting lots of new/different back story/origins, etc.

  9. Well, we’re in the midst of DC’s 75th anniversary, which will play out through 2015 (Green Lantern #1).

    Considering what DC did during their 50th anniversary, and some of the amazing titles they produced (and some interesting experiments), yes, this could be another reboot.

    Earth 1? The one that just started with the popular Superman graphic novel? Or do you mean Earth-Zero/New Earth? If New Earth is destroyed, the others will be destroyed as well. Given all the trouble to sort out the current DC multiverse, I doubt DC would do that. Fine tune it, perhaps, or expand it.

    As for the story of Flashpoint, it’s always fun to read a “What If” story. Given that DC has a few empty slots on the “52” list, this could continue as a separate universe, just like the Injustice League. Matter of fact, DC could use this to launch a big “52 Worlds of DC” storyline. Allow creators to write a tie-in set in each universe, and then perhaps spin them off if those issues sell.

  10. “You need to be a bit more versed in DC lore to know how entirely shocking this image is.”

    This is the problem I’ve had with every DC crossover in the past decade.

  11. “@Charles Knight When and where?”

    That’s a bit hard to answer without spoiling it for anyone who does not want to be spoilt!

  12. I know it’s lame and cliched to go on about how this is just redressed AoA and everything…

    But it really is. Utterly uninteresting and missable. Surely the spin-off minis, mostly by creative teams with little or no track record aren’t going to do well.

    And the big deal spoiler isn’t particularly a big deal at all and will mean little to anyone who isn’t steeped in DC lore.

    I thought the new deal was to make all of the stories “matter.” If there is yet another reboot when this is done (which seems likely/possible given the wacky time travel antics)… it’s just more of DC chasing it’s own tail. Quit going back to tell stories… and move forward, please.

    And this is coming from someone with more DC on his pull list than Marvel, currently.

    I grew disenchanted with Geoff Johns’ work back around when he was stretched pretty thin on Flash, JSA, Avengers, etc. I stopped reading his stuff for a long time… all the way up until GL: Rebirth. I liked it a lot- it seemed like he had found his focus again… but now, a few years later, it seems like he’s spiraling out of control again.

    TL;DR- Flashpoint doesn’t seem to have a point.

  13. Personally, I’m less interested in whether a story “matters” than whether it’s interesting and entertaining. I’ll take a good alternate universe story over a bad game changer any day.

    The question remains: which one is Flashpoint going to be?

  14. someone wanna post what the spoiler is?

    The FLASHPOINT #1 last page spoiler can be looked up pretty easily if anyone wants to see it. DC fans are excited by it.

    SRS

  15. I was pleasantly surprised how good Flashpoint turned out to be. It teases enough to make me want to know more. I wasn’t blown away by the last page twist, but I thought it was good. It tells us that we can’t expect the typical reaction and thought process from ****** since its not who we know.

  16. I can’t imagine anybody being excited over that last page. Who really cares? A guy is going back in time and changing history no now ****** ***** is Batman. Bruce will again be Batman by issue 5. It’s like saying you were shocked by Magneto running the world in House of M. Did ya really think it would stick when time is fixed? Larry’s customers must be idiots if this gets them excited….

  17. A guy is going back in time and changing history no now ****** ***** is Batman.

    On that point: There are differences between alternate timelines, which branch off from the base timeline, and the idea that there are infinitely many alternate universes. A person uses a time travel machine to go to another timeline; to go to an another universe, he uses — an artificial wormhole? A quantum interface modifier? Or something else. If the number of alternate universes is infinitely large, then it includes all the possible alternate timelines that could be created. What the writer doesn’t have to do is figure out all the logical consequences of changing the past. He just sets up shop, and whatever similarities to the base universe that exist are coincidental. That’s something to consider when deciding what to do a story about.

    SRS

  18. Regarding complaints that it’s “more of the same”…sometimes I think the only thing more tiresome than event comics is the backlash against them. Of COURSE they go with tried and true story turns. It’s the very nature of persistent serial stories to comfort the reader with familiar situations garnished with a few novel twists and turns.

    Snide comments predicting the particulars of event comics (“You KNOW Spidey’s gonna be back”) reveal no more insight than guessing the bad guys are gonna lose in an action movie. It’s like saying, “It’s a TRICK!” at a magic show. Everyone knows it and you’re not special for guessing it. In fact, you’re missing the point: the performance.

    If you really want stories that “matter”, stop reading Marvel and DC right now. They’re not for you. What they deliver when they’re doing their job amounts to “the same thing, only different.” You should expect good writing…but within the parameters of of a persistent, shared universe where familiarity is a selling point.

    Personally I find that most event comics end up with unwieldy stories, too spread out for consistent quality. But I don’t begrudge them working with familiar ideas – heroes turned against each other, alternate universes, etc. I don’t get ticked off when they go back to the ol’ time travel well on Doctor Who either.

  19. Problem with this event is the performance. Marvel has already done this exact same storyline not once but twice in Age of Apocalypse and House of M. I have no problems with event comics with interesting storylines. This isn’t new or interesting. We’ve seen this performance twice before. No crossovers before this one have been such a direct rip off of something else. Flashpoint is exactly House of M and Age of Apocalypse and will end exactly the same way. A few things will hold over from the alternate reality and everthing else will revert back.

  20. While I don’t normally like or read Marvel/DC books, I was excited by Flashpoint because I love Barry Allen. I heard about the last page and thought, well, even if I don’t know DC lore, I know Flash lore, so I’d be ok. I read the last page and…while I’m familiar with the character because I read that storyline, too, I just don’t care. It’s a Flash event and the exciting last page hook is from another character’s book? I just don’t get it.

  21. That’s not a problem at all everything has been done already no ideas original it’s all about how it’s executed.

    You think Secret Invasion or Civil War were original ideas or events? they weren’t. People keep mentioning AOA and if this turns out to be of the same quality or better then i’ll be very happy. Because that was the last Marvel event that was actually good and delivered unlike all the one’s they’ve had since.

    Johns has a really good record with events and the idea of Flashpoint is very interesting. All that matters to me is that it’s good and from the spoilers and reviews i’ve read the first issue seems to deliver on everything that I want from an event.

  22. To stick with the magic show metaphor from a few posts back…

    Getting upset at Flashpoint for doing something with an alternate universe (same as Trek did back when with the Mirror Universe, same as Buffy did with the vampire-controlled universe), it’s a bit like getting upset that a magic show has a disappearing person act. Every magic show makes people disappear, but if they do it with wit and flair, you’re entertained and you have a good time. It’s how the tradition of stage magic works.

    Superhero comics have their own traditions, alternate timelines among them. If seeing them makes you apoplectic you’ve come to the wrong show.

  23. I was tickled by the Marvel Family reimagined as a Voltron/He-Man mash up. The Barry Allen stuff made me snore a little.

    Can’t say I’m hooked, but I think this series put a good opening salvo out there.

  24. “Regarding complaints that it’s “more of the same”…sometimes I think the only thing more tiresome than event comics is the backlash against them.”

    Actually, it’s more along the lines of the unrepentant grasping for significance from yet more story-telling mediocrity. And then complaining about the ones who’ve actually seen through these things. But hey, don’t let me stop you from spending your hard-earned money on more junk, because I’m not the one complaining now.

  25. I thoroughly enjoyed the 1st issue. And I thought the last page reveal was great. Totally unexpected. And it makes me want to read a certain mini even moreso than I already did. :)

    @Jer – yeah, I agree. Looks like a great idea for Shazam. At first I was thinking – who thell are all these kids?!? haha… (although, I still don’t know who 3 are) And the ‘Battle Cat’ was AMAZING! ;)

    I also really liked the new ‘metamorpho’.

  26. Matters, doesn’t matter, rehash, original, Blah, Blah, Blah.

    When you are critiquing a piece of entertainment, your first thought should be “Did I have fun?”

    If your gut answer is yes, and then you have to go seek out reasons to qualify your yes, stop typing. You’re missing the point about consuming entertainment. Enjoy the fun parts.

    Btw, I had fun reading this issue. Loved the falling down the stairs moment, Shazam’s portrayal and the last page.

  27. As far as I am concerned, Grant Morrison’s plot has become my DC bible. The more alternate earths they create, the easier it is for them to do anything they want with the characters, but it doesn’t make for an easy following. it sounds like Infinite Crisis on a smaller scale, with obscure bits and pieces. The cover art looks nice, but the one liner is lame.

    Simple words are: Not Interested.