Grant Gustin, the actor who plays the Flash in the CW TV show, has confirmed that the first episode of Season 3 is going to be called Flashpoint. For those who don’t know, Flashpoint is the title of a series from the Flash comics, and was also what began the start of the New 52 story arc, but I’ll come back to that in a bit. Gustin has come out and said that while the show will be taking inspiration from the comic, it will be going in its own direction: I’m going to tell you why that won’t work. Fair warning if you haven’t read Flashpoint, or seen season 2 of Flash; there may be spoilers.
Flashpoint follows the story of Barry Allen waking up to realise that his whole world has changed; his mother is still alive, his friends are at war or dead, and the Flash doesn’t exist. While Barry is the focal point of the story, we also learn more about the war between Wonder Woman and Aquaman, which started with Wonder Woman killing Aquaman’s wife, Mera. While she did claim it was self-defence, it was never fully explained.
Aquaman and Wonder Woman clash
Meanwhile, Cyborg is trying to convince other superheroes to rise up and put an end to the war. One of the heroes is Thomas Wayne aka Batman. In this timeline, it is Bruce that dies in the alley and not his parents. This causes Thomas to take up the role of Batman; a Batman who does not hold the same morals when it comes to killing as the one that we know and love. It also causes Martha Wayne to have a psychotic break and take the mantle as the Joker (which I found to be slightly terrifying.) Personally I loved reading this; seeing a completely different take on the Batman story line emphasised how much had actually changed.
When Barry reveals to Thomas Wayne that in his world it was Bruce that survived the attack, he agrees to help Barry recreate the accident that gave Barry the powers of the Flash in the first place. With his powers back, the Flash and Batman join Cyborg in trying to stop the war, hopefully before Barry’s memories of the old timeline fade. On the battlefield Barry is confronted by Reverse Flash, who reveals that is was Barry himself that went back and changed everything. Barry now has the guilt of being the cause of everything that has happened, but also the overwhelming need to keep his mother alive. Ultimately, with a bit of prodding from Batman, Barry does go back and fix the time lines. This is when he is told by Pandora that the worlds have been split into three in order to weaken them for Doctor Manhattan an impending arrival. The timelines are fixed, and Barry wakes to find everything back to the way it should be. This also becomes the starting point for the New 52.
Warning, your head may hurt looking at this
Now, I have had to leave a load of information out regarding Flashpoint, else I would still be writing about it next week. If anything, this helps my point as to why they shouldn’t even touch on this story. The TV show wouldn’t be able to do the Wonder Woman and Aquaman war, and while Superman has been cast for the Supergirl show, there has been no mention of casting any other characters. Superman’s role within Flashpoint is relatively small, so even using him wouldn’t make that much sense. So while they could keep it to Flash characters, it is not going to have the same impact that it did when the comic had access to all DC characters.
We have already witnessed Barry Allen go back in time in order to prevent his mother’s murder in Season 1 of the show (ultimately he changes his mind) so then what is going to be the catalyst for Flashpoint? This was the whole reason Flashpoint (in the comics) began so how are they going to start it off? I feel it would be a bit cheap to attempt this again, especially considering the character growth we have witnessed.
I know that they are wanting to go their own way with it, but why? If you can’t truly base the episode on the comic, then why use the name? Flashpoint was a major turning point in the DC Universe; this started off the reset – something I don’t think that the show is able to properly explore. If they had more of the characters at their disposal then I fully believe that they could do a whole season dedicated to Flashpoint, and fans would love it. Hell, they managed to do an animated version of it, and it worked quite well, but they had the characters behind it.
Overall I think that the storyline should be left alone, or at least put off until they introduce more of the proper cast. Maybe they will even do a Justice League TV show which would introduce them (God I hope that doesn’t happen.) Obviously this is all just guessing, and a part of me does hope that it works well, possibly resetting the disaster that was Arrow season 4; I do not have a lot of love for that!
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!