Review: Flashpoint- The World of Flashpoint Featuring Batman

Quick Summary

Pros: The Batman story is emotional and impressive. The Nightwing/Deadman story is inspiring and reads well. The majority of the book’s artwork is positive, with the Batman story standing out specifically.

Cons: The Deathstroke and Secret Seven stories are mostly mediocre. 

Overall: This collection contains one excellent, one good, and two mediocre stories. While the excellent and good stories will likely appeal to almost anyone, the mediocre ones may only appeal to fans of the characters within them. However, the quality of the Batman story makes this collection something any reader can enjoy, with everything else working as a bit of icing on top.

Story

Flashpoint: The World of Flashpoint Featuring Batman collects several stories of varying quality. The volume opens with a gut-wrenching and emotional Batman story arc, one that goes even further beyond the darkness typically found in Batman comics. This is followed by a decent Dick Grayson/Deadman team-up that also manages to get emotional in a few places. Finally, the volume closes with mediocre Deathstroke and Shade the Changing Man story arcs, which have a few satisfying moments but generally feel less appealing than the rest of the collection. In the end, I would say this volume is worth it for the Batman story and anything after that is just extra, especially if you enjoy the other characters featured here.

(spoilers start here)

As mentioned above, the highlight of The World of Flashpoint Featuring Batman is Batman’s featured story, written by Brian Azzarello. This is an incredibly dark story about a twisted version of Gotham City. Batman’s parents are practically insane, criminals are killed for their crimes, and many beloved characters meet grim fates. However, this darkness helps emphasize the grim condition of the Wayne’s in this universe, which works as an interesting reflection on the standard DC universe.

The second story, focused on Dick Grayson and Deadman, is good but not quite as good as the Batman one. It also uses the darkness of the Flashpoint universe to show what characters do when they are pushed to their limits. However, it uses this opportunity to highlight characters who rise to the occasion and step up as heroes. In this way, the story reads well on its own while also working as a great complement to the Batman story.

The final two stories are pretty mediocre but still have their moments. The Deathstroke story has a clever twist at the end and has plenty of scenes that emphasize Deathstroke’s ability to defeat anyone standing in his way. However, this story also has moments that feel unnecessarily frivolous, like the weird sex scene, and has parts that feel unbelievable. Meanwhile, the Secret Seven story achieves some success in its unique approach to the occult. However, it ends up feeling depressing for the sake of being depressing, rather than achieving some goal, and ends with a lackluster conclusion.

(spoilers end here)

Art

The majority of the artwork in The World of Flashpoint Featuring Batman is positive and enhances the reading experience. The first chapter of the Dick Grayson/Deadman story, from Mikel Janin, gets that arc off to a fantastic start and later chapters manage to keep the level of quality up as well. A similar pattern plays out in the Secret Seven chapters, drawn by George Pérez and Fernando Blanco, which feature artwork that makes this story’s magic feel more fantastic and makes the characters look great. The only arc where the artwork feels slightly lacking is the Deathstroke arc; however, the visuals in these chapters still manage to bring out the chaos of the story.

While these chapters all have their positives, the best visuals in the collection come from the Batman story. These chapters, from Eduardo Risso, bring this dark and violent version of Gotham City to life in a way that perfectly complements the tone of the narrative. Stylized takes on the heroes and villains, an adept approach to light and darkness, and a commitment to showing what is happening rather than relying on narration are all features that work to enhance this story.

Continuity

Flashpoint: The World of Flashpoint Featuring Batman is a collection of separate tie-in comics relating back to the main Flashpoint (Review) event series. Our “Flashpoint Reading Order” explains how these comics relate to one another.