My (Last*) Week In Comics 8-31-11

Well, today was the big day. The final issue of "Flashpoint," the end of the DC Comics Universe as we know it and the launch of the new DC Universe, or DCnU, to use the shorthand that someone came up with. (Was it DC themselves? Not sure.) The first of the 52 monthly titles, all starting with issue 1 -- even long-running Action Comics and Detective Comics -- was also released: Justice League #1. So let's get to what I bought today, and then we'll discuss this some more...

Flashpoint 5 (of 5): In this issue, the war between Wonder Woman's Amazons and Aquaman's Atlanteans has begun, and unless it's somehow stopped, will result in an earth-shattering cataclysm. The attempt by some of the heroes of this world, including the Flash and this alternate world's Batman, finally gathered in an attempt to stop it, isn't going so well. Then Eobard Thawne, a.k.a. Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash, shows up to make things worse for Barry Allen by explaining exactly how the timeline was changed so drastically. The revelation is quite a twist. How things are resolved essentially boils down to one man's love for his mother, and another man's love for his son, and the sacrifices both must make in order to restore the correct timeline. The Amazon-Atlantis war itself is mostly an afterthought. Some characters from the various tie-in series show up dramatically for a couple of pages, but the whole thing is pretty much in the background of the Thawne/Flash/Batman drama. The final 9 pages feature a two-page sequence which bridges the old and new DCU, and hints at an upcoming threat, followed by Barry Allen waking up back at his police crime lab job. I guess it's kind of a spoiler but we all knew that when this was over Bruce Wayne would be Batman again, so it's no surprise when Flash rushes into the Batcave to find Bruce/Batman. There's a nice conversation and a touching moment.