It has been over a year since an article has been posted to this site and a lot has changed in the world of comics since then.
One of the biggest changes that has hit very recently is the reboot launch[ref]DC has been quoted as saying that The New 52 is not a reboot, but that it is a launch. Here is how they define the difference: “A reboot is typically a restart of the story or character that jettisons away everything that happened previously. This is a new beginning which builds off the best of the past.”[/ref] of every single DC Comics title and the launch of several new ones. The decision was made by DC to reset all of their comics to issue number one in an effort to gain newer readers who might find it difficult to understand the complex DC Universe. For better or for worse this relaunch happened, and it was sparked by an event called Flashpoint.

After my lengthy leave of absence from this blog and from comic books in general I decided to dive back in head first by reading every Flashpoint related comic that I could get my hands on. I am fairly certain I have the complete list (sixty-one issues) and I started reading them in close to their intended order.

After reading the 19th comic in the Flashpoint series, the realization that the timeline presented within is a fleeting one hit me, and I stopped caring. The intricacies of the events within Flashpoint simply do not matter and I am not too keen on reading through yet another multi-verse shattering epic that leaves timelines and continuity in tatters.
The novelty of these alternate Universes always wears off pretty quickly for me and I am left caring only about the outcome of the over-all story. It is not because I lack patience or dislike long stories. I just fail to see the point in delving into a number of stories and characters that will be erased by the end of the series. I suppose if the story was compelling enough I would be interested, but honestly I found Flashpoint to be rather dull. And being that the Flashpoint event is meant to lead to a permanently simplified DC Universe, I’d rather not clutter up my head with a bunch of information that will soon be useless.

So there I was, 19 issues deep into Flashpoint. I had read mostly one-shots or part ones of various mini-stories, and that’s where I decided to give up and just get to the meat of the whole thing: Flashpoint itself. Five issues ending with an epic reboot of DC Comics… one they claim they will never revert. I went ahead and read the four-part Booster Gold story entitled Turbulence as well (issues 44 – 47) because it was a decent back up to the Flash’s story and tied in to the overall theme.

Geoff Johns did a pretty decent job with the main Flashpoint comic, although his cutesy, knowing-dialog between heroes still gets on my nerves. An example of this is in Flashpoint #3 when Batman grumbles and the Flash replies with “That’s the Batman ‘mmmrrr’ for saying something without saying something. Your son did it too. What is it?”. A small gripe perhaps, but it just sounds needlessly nostalgic.

By the end of Flashpoint I was a little surprised to see that the Flash seemed to have his memories kept intact since DC has been claiming no trapdoors, and I assumed this meant no characters would remember the original timeline.
Of course I could pick apart why it makes no sense that Thomas Wayne would become the Batman and a handful of other large plot-holes, but I feel this is not worth delving into since this was a temporary timeline. A quick distraction that leads us into a simplified Universe, less tangled by alternate realities and timelines.