So, it’s finally over – Flashpoint ends today, and with it, the DC Universe as we know it. But every ending is just the beginning of something new, so I’m going to briefly discuss – since lebeau has already handled both books already – the beginning of the DCnU as well, including how DC’s same day digital release process treated me. As always, spoilers ahead…
What can I say about Flashpoint that hasn’t already been said before? It’s a lost series, a book that doesn’t know what it wants to be. It certainly isn’t an adventure story – every time a team is formed to deal with a problem, they collapse or fail immediately. Every attempt to become epic quickly backfires, every attempt to become post-apocalyptic is thwarted by the mundane. In service of a more fully realized story, this dedication to defying expectation might be noble; in Flashpoint, it just feels like padding to keep a simple story running for the proper number of trade-worthy issues.
After Flashpoint #2, I was legitimately concerned for the series. The last issue was scattered and uneven, trying to do a bunch of different things and failing at just about every single one of them. The book was torn between being a big action book and a big ideas book, and it was failing at both. Flashpoint #3, however, brings us right back on track, telling a clear, focused adventure story. Spoilers below…
read/RANT! 