Please Press One

After a weekend of being unable to get through a movie on Netflix without it having to stop and buffer, the Gnome and I have decided to drop our AT&T DSL and going with a Comcast cable modem. I’m not a huge fan of either company, but at the moment I’ll settle for the evil that provides me with a higher download speed. I was not prepared for the problems I’ve had just signing up for the service.

Warner Bros has announced a new game called Gotham City Impostors, which is a new FPS set in the Batman Universe. Basically, you get to play in two gangs, the Jokerz or the Batmen, and go around trying to protect or terrorize the city, depending on your calling. As soon as I heard about it, my first thoughts jumped to David Hine’s recent run on Detective Comics that was basically this story and apparently I’m not alone. If it does tie into or build off of that comic arc, I’d probably check this out. It was a great arc and could make a fun game.

Everybody is still digesting the first issue of Flashpoint, which was crammed to the brim with lots of interesting references and possibilities. Comics Should Be Good does a great page-by-page breakdown of the issue, first running through the story elements and then looking at Andy Kubert’s amazing artwork. Comic Alliance dug a little deeper and just focused on the cast of Flashpoint heroes the issue introduced. They do a nice job of finding the obscure references for characters like Shade, The Changing Man, that haven’t been used in a very long time. I had also forgotten about Alfred’s Golden Age villainy as The Outsider. With the rest of the changes to the Batman world in Flashpoint, it would be interesting if this world’s Outsider turns out to be Alfred as well.

One of the big things that Geoff Johns and DC have been stressing is that Flashpoint is not just some random Elseworlds story, but that it will have an impact on the main DC Universe. As I mentioned earlier, Geoff Johns has stated in interviews that DC creators have been forbidden to discuss their projects in September so as to not leak how the universe will be affected after Flashpoint. Yesterday DC released their August solicitations which detail the end of all of the Flashpoint related books. While that’s to be expected, it also looks like the story arcs is almost every major book also ends in August. If there’s going to be a major shakeup because of Flashpoint and that major shakeup was to begin immediately in September, the best way to make that happen is to clear the slates and end all arcs so that everybody makes the transition at the same time.

While it could easily be a coincidence that most of the books are finishing arcs at the same time, there are also three books that are double shipping in August so that their arcs are finished. If Gates of Gotham is supposed to set “a bold new direction for the Bat books” and Flashpoint will affect the Batman point of the world, it make sense they will happen at the same time. The one that really stands out for this is Teen Titans as the double-shipped issues is #100. One hundred issues of a comic is a pretty big milestone and I don’t think that is something that wouldn’t be given prime time in its own month unless there’s a very major reason. A major realignment would definitely do it.

As to what the big change would be, Kris and I aren’t really sure yet. We both feel pretty strongly about our theory espoused earlier that Barry Allen will die by the end of Flashpoint. While this would be a major thing, it’s not quite the realignment that DC seems to be touting. I don’t think that the current continuity would be completely thrown out to be replaced by the Flashpoint continuity as we’ve spent Blackest Night and Brightest Day building up lots of new and interesting components in the current continuity. I definitely think some things might cross over, but I don’t know what. Just from the couple of pages I’ve seen, I love the S!H!A!Z!A!M! kids and wouldn’t mind seeing them stick around. August sees the end of Wonder Woman’s Odyssey arc and while the “new” DCU Wonder Woman has more anger issues than previous incarnations, she’s definitely not as angry as the Flashpoint Wonder Woman appears to be. Maybe DCU Diana’s anger is being influenced by Flashpoint Wonder Woman’s anger and in September we end up with a Wonder Woman that has old Wonder Woman’s stoic calm warring with Flashpoint Wonder Woman’s extreme anger.

Bottom line is that it’s way to early to tell how or how significantly Flashpoint will affect the DCU, but the possibilities are very exciting.