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Flashpoint Beyond returns with a new issue as the story of Thomas Wayne investigating this anomaly finally kicks in. Written by Geoff Johns, Jeremy Adams, and Tim Sheridan with art provided by Xermanico and Mikel Janin, the comic is a sequel to Flashpoint Paradox that saw Barry Allen save his mother and create an entirely new timeline in the process.
Flashpoint Beyond returns to that timeline where, instead of Bruce Wayne, Thomas Wayne is the Batman, while Martha Wayne turned into the Joker after their son's death. Somehow, this timeline is back, and Thomas Wayne is trying to understand why this is happening.
Note: Spoilers for the comic will be mentioned in this review.
Flashpoint Beyond #1 is a lot of tell and not show
We meet Thomas Wayne again after the events of Flashpoint Beyond #0 that saw him take his universe's Barry Allen and try to recreate the events that turned him into The Flash. The only thing was that the entire ordeal went utterly wrong and resulted in his death.
Batman also chased one of Aquaman's goons and murdered him in that comic.
We meet Thomas Wayne here as he starts by traveling to Atlantis to meet Aquaman and get the information about why he sent his goon. It results in Batman traveling all the way to Atlantis, where he meets a tied-up Wonder Woman and makes a deal with her.
Wayne frees her, but only on the condition of her letting him use the Lasso of Truth.
After getting the Lasso, he uses it on Aquaman, who says he didn't send the goon, and that's when Bruce realizes that someone wanted him out of Gotham as one of his casinos gets leveled. After their brief fight, Wonder Woman drives a trident through Arthur Curry, killing Aquaman.
Thomas Wayne makes for a great lead
While the comic has lots of issues, Thomas Wayne isn't one of them. His character remains quite fun to follow as we see his desperation in wanting to fix things. He doesn't care about what happens to the world he lives in. All he wants is to get to the bottom of everything.
It creates an interesting lead where you get his frustration and understand his moral compass, but unfortunately, so much of it is presented in dialogue boxes. Thomas Wayne's thoughts are how we get an insight into his character in Flashpoint Beyond.
That ultimately bogs down the story here. While internal monologs can be meaningful, there is so much of it that it starts feeling redundant. It forgets the central aspect of exploring a character through their actions, but that's ultimately missing from Flashpoint Beyond.
Artwork continues to be great
Flashpoint Beyond thankfully has some well-done artwork that makes this comic ultimately fun to read. The art by Xermanico and Mikel Janin helps add some pizazz to the story.
The pages and the lettering are quite well present over here. The spreads presented here look fantastic.
Final verdict
Flashpoint Beyond's first issue is a mixed bag. It features much potential, but lots of it is buried under heavy exposition. Hopefully, the upcoming issues resolve this problem because the exploration of the Flashpoint universe has so much potential.
