Friday 15 July 2011

Flashpoint not setting my world on fire


flashpoint-logo

Let me firstly say that I was as excited about this event as anyone, every Friday I would be on the Source blog to see what the latest news for Flashpoint Friday was. I would scour the internet for any scrap of information I could find about Flashpoint and the books that span out of it. Admittedly I was concerned about the number of titles, but I had decided to cherry pick the ones that held an interest for me, and along with the main book I hoped to have a good understanding of what was going on.
My monthly books came and I picked out the first issue of Flashpoint, took myself off to my computer den and read the book through. I was sadly unimpressed; yes the revel at the end that Thomas Wayne was Batman was good but hardly shocking. Undaunted I put the book down and decided to read it a second time later that evening, the second read however did not change my original thoughts on the book.
I decided to wait until the second book came out and read both books together along with a few of the tie-in I had bought, sadly after doing this I was still of the same opinion that the book was good but it was not fantastic. I then began to analyse why I thought this way after all I had been desperate to get every bit of information that was available about Flashpoint that I could before the event started, and there was plenty of information out there to get. Sadly that I believe that is the reason why the book just hasn’t done it for me, I just don’t believe that the book has lived up to all the hype that was created about it before it came out. That is not a criticism of the Flashpoint book; because for me the hype was so great I don’t think any book would have lived up to my expectations.
The page depicts three desiccated hands breaking through the ground of a graveyard, one wearing a Black Lantern ring. The text reads: "Across the universe, the dead will rise. Green Lantern: The Blackest Night. Summer 2009"
Blackest night was for me the best event I have ever read, but what did I know of the characters involved, well to be honest very little. I didn’t read Green Lantern before the event; in fact Blackest night was at issue 3 before I bought the mini so coming in blind made the event that much better for me. The same can be said for Brightest Day, I bought both the bi-monthly books and just sat and read them, was there the hype for these books as there was for Flashpoint, if there was I didn’t see it so my enjoyment wasn’t hindered. Yes I got a few spoilers from listening to podcasts and reading blogs, but never too much that it spoiled my enjoyment of what I was reading.
The other factor that has also hindered my enjoyment of Flashpoint is the announcement that the DC Universe is to reboot, re-imagine, and re-start whatever you want to call it after the Flashpoint event is over. My hopes for Flashpoint was that some of the characters would bleed over into the DCU once event had ended, a Thomas Wayne Batman in the normal DC Universe would have been something I would loved to have seen once Flashpoint was over. Now with the re-boot this is unlikely to happen, so my interest in the these re-imagined characters has all but disappeared.
As a consequence of my disappointment with Flashpoint I have dropped all the tie-in books apart from World of Flashpoint which for me is the only tie-in worth getting, I will also stick with the main book to see how it plays out, as I have said the book is good but for me it’s just not great.
As for any in news that is coming out about the new books in September am I staying away from it, i am a little bit but I still have a look now and then just to get a snippet of info.

Have I learned my lesson that too much information could be a bad thing, it would seem not but I have high hopes for the DC re-boot event. You know I may have heard that before !

1 comment:

  1. Brutal deaths every ten seconds, I'm enjoying Flashpoint lots. Batman: Knight of Vengeance is, to me, spectacular. Unlike Blackest Night, which had some decent tie-ins but was generally very repetitive.

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