Welcome to the first installment of Flashpoint Friday! Every week up until July 30th, I will be bringing you a review of one of the titles related to the DC Comics Flashpoint event by Geoff Johns. This week, I’m looking at The Flash Rebirth and The Flash Vol. 2: The Road to Flashpoint. Both books play an important role in understanding what goes on in Flashpoint.
The Flash Rebirth, written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Ethan Van Sciver, is a six-part mini-series that shows us how Barry Allen deals with coming out of the speed force and back into normal life. A quick visit to The Flash museum with Hal Jordan shows us a little bit of Barry’s mental state. It’s like he’s been in a coma for years and is having a hard time taking in all the changes surrounding him. He seems unsure about being out of the speed force.
We learn more about the other speedsters and how Barry Allen helped them become the heroes they are today. Jay especially has a personal history with Barry and is really happy to have him back. Unfortunately, Barry wasn’t brought back to bring joy to his friends and family. The man who pushed him out of the speed force had something much more sinister in mind.
It doesn’t take long for Barry to realize he’s turning into the Black Flash and he becomes determined to get back into the speed force as a means of saving everyone he loves. Superman attempts to catch him, thinking he is just as fast as Barry and learns real quick that he isn’t even in the same league as the speedster (this was one of my favorite scenes in the book).
Justice reigns true in the end and Professor Zoom is defeated by not only Barry Allen, but the entire speedster team.
This book is important to Flashpoint because it shows us what put Barry in the mindset that he is experiencing in The Flash: Road to Flashpoint and it also introduces Professor Zoom as the lead villain.
The Flash Vol. 2: The Road to Flashpoint picks up after The Flash Rebirth and takes us up to the brink of action.
The first few pages show us Professor Thawne’s history and how he eventually becomes Professor Zoom (aka Reverse Flash). We get to see a lot more about who he is and why he hates Barry Allen so much. We also witness how Thawn planned everything out from murdering Barry’s mom to framing his father for it to little torments throughout Barry’s life (a push down the stairs here, a broken arm there…)
This is also where we learn about the 52 universes (sound familiar) from Hot Pursuit, and Barry Allen from another dimension. Hot Pursuit’s mission is to find and destroy a disturbance in the time stream that could affect all 52 universes.
Unfortunately, everyone realizes too late what the disturbance really is and we are left with a dead hero and another hero not thinking too clearly. While all that is going on, a big piece of the Flashpoint puzzle is revealed when Professor Zoom admits to killing Barry’s mother and causing other torments in Barry’s early life.
The last page doesn’t make much sense when Flashpoint opens, but it will towards the end “revelation” of it all. Keep it in mind next week when I cover Flashpoint!
See you next Friday when I look at Flashpoint. If you would like to read along, check out my Flashpoint intro post with the books and the corresponding week that I will be covering them. I’d love to hear your thoughts on each title and see what you picked up on.
