YMMV / Flashpoint (DC Comics)

• Broken Base: The general plot point of Barry saving his mother from Thawne is contentious. Supporters on this say that Barry's actions were selfish and thus had to be punished. Detractors, however, point out that Thawne killing Nora Allen and framing Henry for it was itself a change to the timeline as they were originally alive and able to enjoy their son's success as the Flash until Barry's return in Flash: Rebirth and thus Flashpoint shouldn't have even happened at all because Barry was only undoing the damage Thawne did. Another faction point out that, as understandable as Barry trying to save his mom was, the way he went about it was incredibly stupid. He knows Thawne is dangerous and that previous attempts to alter the past have ended badly, so the smart thing for Barry to do would've been to reach out to his friends and allies who do have experience with time travel in order to undo Thawne's sadistic alterations. In this sense, Barry's decision to save his mother was an incredibly stupid and selfish one because he thought he could fix it by himself when history tells him he should know better. Especially grating because Barry just recently needed to take Thawne down with help from the rest of the Flash Family, and they'd been trying to reach out to him and remind him he's not alone in the issues leading up to Flashpoint.
• Catharsis Factor: Enchantress' demise was pretty graphic, but how satisfying it was.
• Complete Monster:
  • Legion of Doom: Heatwave is far darker in this universe than in the prime DC universe. A psychopathic pyromaniac, Heatwave confronts the duo that makes up Firestorm and sets Jason Rusch on fire, and tries to force Ronnie Raymond to merge with him. Cyborg defeats Heatwave, who holds a grudge against Cyborg after this point. Heatwave is sent to Queen's Row prison, a flying fortress. Heatwave escapes and sets everyone who opposes him, prisoners and guards alike, on fire. Heatwave gets to the control room and intends to crash Queen's Row prison into Detroit, Cyborg's hometown, in order to get revenge on him.
  • Grodd of War: Grodd, in this universe where the Flash does not exist to oppose him, takes over all of Africa. Grodd slaughters half of Africa but is upset that most of the world ignores this in favor of paying attention to the war in Europe between Aquaman and Wonder Woman. Grodd slaughters a loyal ape warrior for his amusement and kills several children who oppose him. Grodd decides to attack Europe and take it, willing to sacrifice himself and his army in order to relieve his boredom.
• Cry for the Devil: This universe's Joker seems to be even crueler than the normal universe's Joker, reaching The Dark Knight levels of Cold-Blooded Torture, including turning Selina Kyle into a quadriplegic and tricking Jim Gordon into murdering Harvey Dent's daughter. And then you find out the Joker's identity: Martha Wayne! As well as the reasons why they came to be.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown received a lot of praise.
• It Was His Sled:
  • The Batman of the Flashpoint universe is Thomas Wayne, not Bruce, who was killed by Joe Chill instead of his parents. Originally a twist at the end of the first issue, this has gone on to become one of the most well-known parts of the story.
  • For most of the story, the heroes are under the assumption that Eobard Thawne is responsible for the changed timeline. Nowadays, it's common knowledge that the actual catalyst was Barry going back in time to save his own mother.
• Jerkass Woobie: Martha "The Joker" Wayne. Maybe one of the most brutal incarnations of Joker. And all after her young son died in her arms and she completely lost it as a result.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Thomas Wayne as Batman is for some the most remembered and well-known character of the event, reappearing in Convergence and Tom King's Batman-run and for those some fans just read the event for that character.
• Memetic Mutation: Almost as soon as promotional material (saying things like "The spaceship never crashed◊") popped up fans started doing their own versions.
• Mis-blamed:
  • With the sudden cancellation of the ongoing JSA All-Stars, Freedom Fighters, R.E.B.E.L.S., The Outsiders, Batman Confidential, & Doom Patrol monthlies, a number of disillusioned fans blamed Flashpoint and its MANY miniseries as being responsible. (That or that Dan Didio cancelled them for no reason). The real answer was that while they got good buzz, the numbers for each book weren't enough to keep them in production. It was sort of like the Blue Beetle all over again.
  • The ending to Doom Patrol can't have helped: Ambush Bug convinced the villain to end his scheme by telling him the book was getting canceled and that he wouldn't have time to see it through. We don't know exactly what he said, but "Flashpoint" and "Didio" came up.
• Narm: The ending of Batman Knight of Vengeance #2 "MARTHA!" It comes across in almost "Goddammit Martha, not this shit again" sort of way. Anyone who's seen Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and its own infamous "Save Martha!" moment is probably also laughing here.
• Older Than They Think: The concept of one of the adult Waynes surviving the shooting in Crime Alley was previously explored in JLA: Destiny by John Arcudi and Tom Mandrake. Instead of becoming Batman, Thomas Wayne went on to found and finance the Justice League of Gotham without donning a costume himself. Martha still died alongside Bruce though, so she obviously never became the Joker.
• Padding: You can literally drop out all of Flashpoint #2 and not miss a damned thing.
• The Scrappy: Flashpoint Wonder Woman and Aquaman for taking Adaptational Villainy to unbelievable levels.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The redesign of Sandman and new character Blackout were hit hard by this.
  • Other than Sandman's appearance in the first issue, he pretty much disappears from the rest of the series and his only appearance holds absolutely no importance or significance on the rest of the series. It makes you wonder why he was included at all.
  • Blackout was on the run from the Outsider, whom he claims "ruined his life" because his corporation's been trying to hunt him down and use him as an endless supply of clean electricity to power India. But during the Outsider's tie-in miniseries, Blackout doesn't get any real focus beyond rehashing his dialog in Flashpoint #1, and instead the bulk of the conflict is between the Outsider and Martian Manhunter. What's especially grating is how new character Canterbury Cricket managed to get an entire one-shot dedicated to him when he didn't even appear in the main series until it was halfway over. And finally, when Blackout, the Cricket, and the rest of the Resistance appear in the last issue they're immediately killed by Enchantress just so Subject-One can stop her.
  • Not to mention the Outsider himself, a super powered and stylish character who would make for an equality interesting protagonist or antagonist in the post-Flashpoint DCU, but it seems we've seen the last of him.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Between the massive bodycount, the relentlessly Crapsack World, and the whole thing taking place in an alternate universe so it doesn't matter anyway, most readers find Flashpoint very hard to sit through. And that of course not taking into account the massive anguish of Flash through the story due to what he accidentally did. Even in the backstory, it's abundantly clear that the plot only works if the vast majority of characters are extremely out of character or needlessly aggressive. Which really just makes the event feel ingenuine in addition to depressing.
• The Woobie:
  • Superman. He crash-landed in Metropolis as a baby, accidentally killing thousands. Then he spent his entire life locked in a lab where he was no doubt experimented on for decades. Rockets for Krypto & Kara eventually arrived, but from the looks of it, they've fared worse than Kal-El, with Barry finding Krypto's skeleton. He hasn't known any human kindness nor contact for decades. The only person to threat him like a person was General Lane who treated him as a son and more than an experiment, but he got pulled into the Phantom Zone when Clark was a child, while Krypto was put down for mauling a young Lex Luthor.
  • Selina Kyle, Oracle. Almost totally paralyzed from a vicious attack by the Joker, she's unable to even wipe the tears from her eyes as she relives it.
  • Harvey Dent's son, who gets kidnapped by the Joker along with his sister, then has to watch his sister get killed by Jim Gordon because she was dressed by the Joker. And later, he has to watch the Joker kill Jim right in front of him.
  • Barry Allen also falls into this territory. All he wanted to do was save his mother from Thawne, but he unintentionally creates a Crapsack World. His options aren't so great as it either consists of letting his mom live but everyone else dies, or return reality back to its intended state but his mom dies. Not an easy decision there.

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