SPOILERS
Now that it has been revealed that the upcoming DC reboot will be because of the events of Flashpoint, I won't be surprised to see a massive up tick in that event's sales. One thing that I hope doesn't get lost in the shuffle is the tie-in book following the Dark Knight of the Flashpoint universe.
Written by Brian Azzarello and drawn by Eduardo Risso, the former 100 Bullets teams presents the world of SPOILER Thomas Wayne as Batman SPOILER in a very new way. Wayne is running numerous Gotham casinos, drawing in the criminal underworld that he is sworn to destroy. By attracting them to his place of business, he is able to keep tabs on their goings on, and strike them when they least expect it. It's also interesting to see the many different ways that familiar characters are presented to us in the Flashpoint universe. Penguin is Wayne's casino manager, Harvey Dent is still happily married, and major villains like Scarecrow, Hush, and Poison Ivy are dead, thanks to Batman. Yes that's right, the Thomas Wayne Batman kills, and it actually fits. Instead of him dying, Thomas Wayne sees his wife and son brutally murdered in front of him. Because he is a grown man when this happens, he never has that sense of innocence lost that Bruce has, and such, never makes the vow to "never take a human life". We also get a interesting spin on the Jim Gordon/Batman relationship. In fact, Gordon is probably the only character who doesn't have a major change.
Azzarello's script is extremely entertaining, and you can see that he put a lot of effort into twisting these familiar characters so that they feel new and fresh. Eduardo Risso's pencils are just as solid as Azzarello's story. He makes Thomas Wayne look like a towering figure, and very much like the depiction of an elderly Bruce Wayne in the Batman Beyond cartoon. His action scenes are fantastic as well, with the fight between Batman and Killer Croc being extremely exciting and brutal. The issue ends with a glimpse of the Flashpoint universe's version of The Joker, who looks strikingly similar to Heath Ledger's now iconic portrayal from The Dark Knight, which for me gets me extremely excited for the next issue. Even if you don't give a rat's ass about Flashpoint (although you probably should with the recent reboot news), you should pick this book up, especially if you're a Batman fan.
Hate to say it, but: called it. I think everyone who has been following Fear Itself (or Marvel in general) was able to put two and two together regarding the mystery of "which major hero will fall" in this issue, but come on, did it have to be so obvious? Anyways, despite the fact that this character should not even be fighting right now (I'm sure that will be touched upon), the third issue of Marvel's summer event is pretty good, even if it just continues to show characters being given evil hammers. This time it's The Thing.It's pretty cool, and a few members of The Avengers finally come face to face with the possessed Hulk. It's good to know that we're getting some confrontations, but I do wish the pace would pick up just a little bit. And it would be nice if the character Marvel "killed" wasn't spoiled in the solicits a few months ago. Oh well, such is comics.
I am done with Marvel crossovers. It doesn't make sense and it was crap. I'm quite sure the death wasn't Fraction's call. Seriously though if you are going to kill off or bring back a character let the CREATIVE TALENT that has been covering the character for years do it!
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