History
The world of Flashpoint debuted in the Flashpoint event (2011). It was an alternate timeline where the world became a living hell in the brink of destruction and only the Flash, (Barry Allen), was conscious about that.
Originally believed to be born of the manipulations of Professor Zoom, aka Reverse Flash, the Flashpoint universe was revealed to be created by the fracture in the fabric of reality caused when Barry Allen saved the life of his mother. An event than Barry didn't remembered.
This action caused waves than afected time and events in the past and future with cathastrophic consecuenses. The nature of the changes doesn't follow a pattern as in a domino effect. Instead, the changes were random not only affecting what happened after Nora Allen assassination attemp, but also affecting events before that point in time. As Zoom explained to Flash, he shattered history. His actions affected the speed force same way as a bullet throught a windshield, spreading forward and backward in time.
Historical differences
The metahuman presence was discovered earlier in this world but the hero activities were not such relevant. In the war field in fact, the Creature Commandos, leaded by Frankenstein were pivotal to win WW2. The absence of the Flash and the JSA (this was a distorted pre-new52 world) keep the concept of superhero unknown to the population. Most of the time, people with paranormal abilities would be subject of investigation and persecution from the different worlds armies.
Map of Flashpoint world.The metahuman presence would explode with the war between Atlantis and Themyscira with cathastrophic consecuenses. Europe and the north of Africa were destroyed by Aquaman and his Atlanteans, meanwhile the British Islands became the new home of the invading forces of Wonder Woman and the Amazons. The war between this two factions proved to be too much dangerous for the rest of the world and in response the different global powers developted ways to destroy both enemies, without to know than the atlanteans possesed an ultimate weapon than could destroy earth itself.
In other places of the world the powers would shift towards people with superpowers: The Nazis lead by Captain Nazi sized the control of South America; Africa was under the control of Grodd's Gorilla Empire; Middle east was under Black Adam control; India was the rule of the Outsider; China was the defense zone of the Twelve Great and Japan had their own army of Red Tornados.
The climax of these tensions would explode in Flashpoint #5, when in the middle of a final battle among the superpowered forces, Barry Allen tried to restore the original timeline by stoping himself but the apparent intervention of Pandora would give origin to the New52 reboot. (This alteration would be revealed later to be caused by the intervention of Dr. Manhattan)
The only memento left from this universe is the letter written by Thomas Wayne to his son. The reverse Flash would later destroy this last remnat.
Main characters changes
Many of the established characters were changed as effect of the paradox:
- Barry Allen, even though he still remembered the previous timeline, never was Flash. Len Snart was the hero of Central City as Citizen Cold.
- Bruce Wayne was killed by Joe Chill instead of his parents. His father, Thomas Wayne, pushed by guilt became Batman while his mother falls into madness and became the Joker.
- Cyborg was the USA's greatest hero.
- Abin Sur never crashed on Earth. He instead was Green Lantern meanwhile Hal Jordan still was only a test pilot.
- Kal-El ship's crashed in Metropolis, destroying twelve squares. Kal-El himself would spend his life in reclusion and under the care of Sam Lane as a part of Project Superman. The inital product of this intiative was Subject Zero.
- Wonder Woman and Aquaman were the leaders of their nations. They were lovers but after the assassinations of Hippolyta and Mera, they became bitter enemies.
- Nathaniel Adam never became Captain Atom. He instead reached General grade and became the chief of Project M and later Project Superman.
- Oliver Queen makes his fortune building super weapons and artifacts to stop metahumans.
- The power of Shazam was shared with the other members of the Shazam family, in a way more similar to the Infinity Man and the Forever People. Together, they summon Captain Thunder.
- Plastic Man still was a wanted criminal.
Wildstorm & Vertigo characters incorporation
Even though the New 52 reboot incorporated the characters of Wildstorm and Vertigo editorial lines, an advance version of such could be saw in the different titles of the event:
Vertigo characters
Wildstorm Characters
New Characters
Many new characters debuted as a product of the event and a few of them even made the step to become New 52 characters.
Flashpoint only
Post Flashpoint (New52) exported characters
Convergence
The characters of Flashpoint had reappered again in Convergence. The Gotham City from their universe is one of the bottled realities of Telos. Different characters were pitched against the pre-Flashpoint Gotham city characters. Several characters who died at the end of Flashpoint are alive in this city, so isn't clear from which moment exactly the city was stolen.
Battles
- Superman vs Flashpoint Abin Sur, Cyborg, Captain Thunder, Batman (Thomas Wayne) and Subject-1 (Flashpoint Superman)
- Flash III (Wally West) with Iris and Jai Allen against Flashpoint Wonder Woman and her amazons.
- Justice League of America (Jade, Jesse Quick, Mera, Vixen, Zattana and Supergirl) against Flashpoint Emperor Aquaman and his forces.
- Pre-Flashpoint Nightwing and Oracle (disabled Barbara Gordon) against Flashpoint Hawkman and Hawkwoman (who made their first appearance in Convergence miniseries)
- Question (Renee Montoya) and Two Faces are opposed to Flashpoint Harvey Dent.
Following the chaos and the rise of Deimos, Flashpoint Aquaman, Wonder Woman and the Furies joined the Wizard army to gain power over the world of Telos. However, the fall of the wizard of Skartaris and the change of heart of Brainiac, returned them to their cities, which were returned to their proper timelines/universes, including the Flashpoint Gotham.
DC Rebirth: The Button
The Flashpoint reality would be seen a last time in the Button story arc: when Batman began to investigate the mysterious button found hidden in the Batcave, he was attacked by Reverse Flash, who felt a great power hidden in the button. However, he suddendly vanished and returned with half his body destroyed, dyingto instantly.
To investigate what happened to him, Flash and Batman traveled used the cosmic treadmill to follow the vibrational trail of the button and both found themselves in the batcave of the Batman of the Flashpoint reality, Thomas Wayne. With the Cosmic Treadmil damaged, Flashworked on repair it meanwhile Bruce tried to reconnect with his father and learn his history.
Thomas had survived his last encounter with Zoom, during the final attack in New Themyscira but was on the run, hunted by atlanteans and amazons. However as he found with his son and under attack from his enemies, the flashpoint reality was collapsing around them. Flash and Batman, with the treadmil reparied, barely escaped, not without Thomas Wayne advising his son to quit the mantle of Batman.
After that, the Flashpoint reality was at last apparentely erased by the same force than force behind the last mysterious events plaguing the DC universe. Depiste their final destruction, it is possible than the Flashpoint universe persists among the waves of the hypertime, beyond the multiversal bubble.
The Flashpoint Batman survived to plague earth 0 Bruce Wayne, but later would join forces with President Superman. Events had unfolded to cause the apparent death of the Flashpoint Batman, but it seems he was returned to the Flashpoint universe.
Flashpoint Beyond
The Flashpoint universe would be restored again under unknown circunstances when Thomas Wayne awoke in his previous life after his adventures against his son and as a member of Justice Incarnate.
Events in this new timeline had unfolded almost exactly to the previous iteration with a different outcome: after the assault of the heroes, the war between atlanteans and amazons was a victory to the first ones, with WOnder Woman prisioner to Aquaman; heroes trusted like Cyborg, Abin Sur had dissapeared after hunting Per Degaton in South America and the world was aware of the existence of Kal-El, the Super-Man. A main difference is this timeline had his own version of Barry Allen, a powerless cop. When Thomas Wayne, in his Batman suit, tried to awake his powers, Allen was killed, as part of an strategy to kill all the potential time travellers of that world. The investigation of this conspiracy, would lead Batman to discover how much different and similar was this world from the one he remembered.
New Status Quo
- Outside Thomas Wayne, the other person aware of the altered universe was Roger Hayden, the Psycho-Pirate.
- Aquaman was ruling ove New Themiscyra (Great Britain Island). He nows were menacing the whole world.
- Amanda Waller started to create an army of super-humans under her control to oppose Aquaman.
- Green Arrow was killed by the Freedom Beast. Freedom Beast is seen later defending Africa from an alien invasion.
- Super-Man was revealed not to be the last son of Krypton. He however had rebelled against his kryptonian people and formed an alliance with Poison Ivy, Swamp Thing (Jason Woodrue) and others heroes to opposse the kryptonian invasion, lead by Jor-El.
- Sebastian Faust recruited his own Sentinels of Magic to infiltrate England.
- Thomas Wayne took under his protection Dexter Dent, who will be trained ot be the Robin of this reality.
New Heroes
After the departue of Batman and his return new heroes appeared to fill the void of powers. Several of them were also variants of known characters from the main timeline.
- Snapper Carr was now in possession of the Dial H and used it as the defender of Happy Harbour.
- Mona Bennet is the possessor of the Black DIamond and act as Eclipsa, instead Bruce Gordon.
- Kelvin Mao manifested his Bloodline related powers, being called as such by the papers.
- David Knight as Starman in mentioned as a retired hero and professional astronomer. It is not clear if he is David Knight folllowing his father Ted Knight steps or if in this reality, the name of Starman is "David" instead "Ted".
- Jemm, the Son of Saturn was conscripted in Amanda Waller's new Superhuman Army against Aquaman, later Wonder Woman.
- Lionheart was revealed to be the leader of a team called the Atomic Knights. It is unclear if it was the original Lionheart or Penny Black.
Alternate version
Dark Multiverse
An even darker alternate version of this reality was presented on Tales of the Dark Multiverse: Flashpoint, where Barry Allen died trying to recover his powers and the Reverse Flash decided to help the last protectors of that world, only to make the crisis worse. As only solution, Reverse Flash tried to rewrite history, only causing more chaos and messing even more with the timeline.
An aspect of this darker reality is than Big Barda was the absolute mistress of both New Genesis and Apokolips. If this fact was the same as in the original Flashpoint timeline, it is unknown.
Other Media
Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox
The world of Flashpoint is featured in the AOM Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox.
The Flash (Season 3)
Some elements of Flashpoint were incorporated into the third season of the CW's The Flash TV series.
The Flash (2023)
In the movie The Flash, a part of the plot involves Barry Allen altering past events to save his mother life, with catastrophic, chaotic consequences, in a similar way to the plot of the original Flashpoint event book.
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