One Drink Too Many

Kris and I went out with a friend on Saturday. I’m new to the “bar scene” so am still getting used to the interesting characters you run into there. If I could have gotten a picture of Spider-man and Hipster Aquaman without getting in trouble, I totally would have.

One of the most interesting tidbits that dropped out of C2E2 this weekend actually came out Friday as part of DC’s Flashpoint Friday. DC has off-handedly announced that Geoff John’s current Flash series will end with Flash #12 in May right before Flashpoint starts. In a moment of purely joking speculation on his part, Kris wondered if after Flashpoint they’d restart the Flash book, but returning to its old numbering at #260 (Flash v2 ended at #247 + 12 issues of The Flash v3). If they return to the old numbering than clearly Wally West would have to be the lead. However, if Wally was The Flash in the Flash book, what would happen to Barry? This was the moment that joking speculation turned to real analysis and the sudden realization that we had stumbled across something awesome.

Between 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths until his surprise resurrection 23 years later in Final Crisis, the Death of Barry Allen was one of the biggest constants in the DC Universe. However much things could be changed and ret-conned, Barry Allen would stay dead. Then Geoff Johns changed that and had him brought back in Final Crisis. After that, things started getting weird. First, you had Blackest Night that started to question Death and it’s permanency, seemingly explaining why people were able to return from the dead and, theoretically, saying it could now no longer happen. Now we have Brightest Day, which Kris and I had previously determined that it should be subtitled “this shit ain’t right” and looks like it will end with an understanding that Life is not necessarily a Good Thing. Immediately after that, we roll into Flashpoint, the main message of which so far is that this is the DCU, but with something wrong.

We’ve all been assuming that the “something wrong” is something that Zoom does in the past to reset the timeline, but what if it’s something simpler than that? What if 23 years of common knowledge wasn’t wrong? What if Barry Allen’s death is supposed to be the defining constant and everything weird that’s happened since he came back is because he came back? Flash: Rebirth clearly established that Zoom’s powers with the Reverse Speedforce are a direct result of Barry’s powers with the true Speedforce. Thus, without Barry, Zoom is powerless, so if Barry is dead, then Zoom has no power and can’t go alter the timelines that appear to cause Flashpoint. What if four years after Barry came back, he realizes “I’m not supposed to be here” and once again heroically sacrifice himself to save the Universe and stop all of the craziness that has resulted because of his resurrection? If your mind isn’t blown yet, then I have one more question for you. What if this was Geoff John’s plan all along and we’re seeing the conclusion of a story that’s been meticulously laid out for the last four years?