Another week, another new clue into the upcoming events of the DCU — and specifically, Flashpoint.
In this week's final issue of Time Masters: Vanishing Point, Dan Jurgens wraps up this second recent TM series with the return of the mysterious chalkboard, laying out upcoming events in DC continuity through a series of ominious phrases. Before we breakdown what's on display, take a look for yourselves.
This isn't the first time DC has used these chalkboards to presage upcoming events. It first cropped up in 52, and several times in Booster Gold. Marvel even borrowed a page from the DC playbook by including a chalkboard outlining upcoming events in a recent issue of Avengers.
A lot of these teasers probably correlate with the recent Flashpoint teasers and Flashpoint miniseries announced, so let's try to put some pieces together.
"Why did it have to be BRUCE?": At first glance this jumped out to me as a past-tense thing asking why Bruce Wayne died — but he's already back, and branching out with Batman Inc. There's going to be two spin-off series in Flashpoint concerning Batman: Batman Knight of Vengeance and Deadman and the Flying Graysons. Factor that in with the phrase adorning the Batman teaser from Flashpoint, "He spends his days running Wayne Casinos" and it could point to a Bruce Wayne who went a more playboy route than his crusading present.
"S!H!A!Z!A!M!": Could this be a twist on the famous phrase by DC's Captain Marvel with the abbreviated name of the recently relaunched series T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents? Captain Marvel has always been associated with thunder.
"The OUTSIDER is IN!: This no doubt refers to the upcoming Flashpoint spinoff series subtitled The Outsider, leading people to easily surmise it's a variation on the current series The Outsiders written by co-publisher Dan Didio.
"The Terror of AQUAMAN!": With Aquaman able to call only dead and zombified sea-life in Brightest Day, could we see a more sinister sea-man in Flashpoint? There is a series titled Flashpoint: Emporer Aquaman on its way, and the Flashpoint banners hint at an arranged marriage between Wonder Woman and Aquaman to prevent a war.
"The Heroine of Gem World returns!": A cult favorite set for a return? The 80s miniseries Amethys, Princess of Gemworld didn't make a big mark on sales charts but there's a contigent of fans who remember it fondly. After sitting idle for years, Amethyst reappeared during Infinity Crisis battling Spectre and being one of a group of magical beings to fix the Rock of Eternity in Day of Vengance Special and later summon a restored Spectre. Although these's no corresponding Flashpoint spin-off title hinting at her appearance, she seems primed for a comeback.
"WONDER WOMAN: PRINCESS OF WAR": Much like our talk earlier about "The Terror of AQUAMAN!", this could presage a more war-like Themyscrian warrior leading into Flashpoint: Wonder Woman & The Furies. Furies, not Furries.
"God bless THE CYBORG": The phrase itself borrows from other patriotic phrases like "God Bless America" so perhaps the Cyborg is becoming a patriotic hero in the Flashpoint era.
"Where is SUPERMAN?": There is a Flashpoint: Project Superman miniseries announced, and one of the Flashpoint teasers said "The spaceship never crashed". What if someone intercepted the young Kryptonian's ship as it entered Earth's atmosphere.
"Abin Sur: Savior!": This falls in line with the previously announced Flashpoint: Abin Sur the Green Lantern miniseries. With his death being the major thing that sets Hal Jordan on his path to fame, the Flashpoint world could posit a time where Abin Sur didn't die — and maybe his survival acted as savior for something else, like staving off Blackest Night.
"Ask Booster!!!": Whoever wrote this chalkboard is prone to UPPER CASE letters and exclamation points more than an internet troll, but this phrase of "Ask Booster!!!" is the only one employing multiple exclamation points. Besides that, I got nothing.
"Rampage of the Creature Commandos!": This points to the Flashpoint spin-off series announced last week subtitled Frankenstein & The Creatures of the Unknown, which sounds like a mash-up of DC's Creature Commandos and the Challengers of the Unknown.
"Free Subject 1!": This sounds like it relates to the Flashpoint teaser saying "They experimented on him in a lab for years." Back when that was originally released, Conor guessed it would be J'onn J'onzz and I think he might be right.
"The Changing Man!": In an interview with Newsarama.com, Red Lantern Corps Peter Milligan said he was writing a Flashpoint series featuring Shade the Changing Man as well as DC's Enchantress. He also mentioned it's to be drawn by George Perez, which recalls a post Perez made on his Facebook last month stating he was working on a series titled Secret Seven. And hey, look at that — there is a Flashpoint miniseries subtitled that.
"Captain Cold: Hero?": Best known as a central rogue in Flash's array of villains, Captain Cold has never himself been a hero — but he's been close. He has a grudging friendship with Wally West, and a futuristic version of Captain Cold — called Commander Cold — led a group of 25th century cops in a recent issue of The Flash.
But what do you think? What does this new chalkboard mean?
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Yeah. I think that Shazam means the FP Captain Marvel is made up of different people.
If Shade is creeping over, could…..CONSTANTINE be far behind. I reeeeeeeeeeeeealy want him in Dini’s Zatana book for a brief arc.
On the Batman thing. I find it hard to beleive that Morrison would let some trivial DC “event” mess with his game plan. The Batverse he’s built/ing seems out of whack from these events. BN case in point.
That all being said. i just can’t get up the excitement for this event…I can’t put my finger on why, but it’s just a big shrug to me. Like Armageddon was back in the day.
I love when DC does this. It just draws you in and sends your mind just racing!
Interesting piece. I think Len Snart’s vague friendship with Wally West is very much past tense – but maybe it’s Cold’s turn to be frozen out for a while, leaving the identity free for a good guy or gal to inhabit?
I thought the positioning of “Ask Booser!!!” meant that that was related to “Where is Superman?” Maybe Booster had something to do with Superman’s non/dis-appearance
Would be funny if Rip Hunter was just a lunatic who scrawls random nonsense on blackboards, then claims to know nothing about it.
What’s stopping Rip from writing complete sentences or coherent thoughts?
I find this kind of conceit presented like this too hard to suspend my disbelief because this is a blatant 4th Wall marketing tool rather than the realistic ramblings of a time traveler. It doesn’t look like he’s brainstorming towards any goal, organizing it in any kind of list, or even free associating purposefully… it’s all just a reader tease.
The Marvel effort at this at least disguised it as a timeline at put some effort into the presentation so that the ramblings felt purposeful or mad… here, it looks like the editors smashed through the 4th Wall to give Rip a list of teasers and the demand that the write it as boldly and clearly as possible… heck, even cut Rip out of it… they just reached into the panel and wrote it themselves accounting for the abnormally large, thick, and clear writing (when has chalk ever looked so solid?).
I don’t mind a tease, I don’t. But I really wish there was more effort in the presentation. Recall the leaked image of X-Men First Class in costume together. It looked cheap and lazy. Same here… rather than something that suggests a big picture carefully crafted as the intricate puzzle pieces were put together, instead it feels slapdash and haphazard… effortlessly and artlessly thrown at the reader making me afraid for the event itself. I don’t care if you don’t actually have a big picture… at least try to fool me into thinking you do! Put some effort in the presentation!
@DrAwkward Rip didn’t actually write that stuff.
@stuclach I think from the context of the issue it is implicit that THAT Rip doesn’t REMEMBER writing all that stuff, but A Rip does. There’s very little motivation for anyone else to go there and write on that chalkboard… save for the 4th Wall breaking editors reaching in to present a tease. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if this entire mystery was all but dropped by the end of Flashpoint we never “know” who wrote it.
@DrAwkward Entirely possible, but based only on what’s in the comics we don’t know who wrote it or why (aside from marketing).
I don’t particularly like the 4th wall breaking either, but a number of the “teasers” seem interesting.
I love when DC does this stuff. And every time I’m jealous that I don’t have my own giant chalkboard (or preferably, white board) to scribble my mad 4 am ramblings.
@conor Again, I don’t mind the concept or the tease, just the presentation. Heck, the 4th Wall chalkboard writer was so concerned about OUR viewpoint that all the text neatly lines up with the edge of the panel- rather than the chalkboard- and writes AROUND Rip so that we can clearly see all the text. That’s just bad execution.
@DrAwkward Well, it IS for us so I’m glad they made it readable.
@conor Which is why it hurts suspension of disbelief. There’s a difference between staging it for us as a consumer / reader versus staging it as information we get from glimpsing into a “real” world.
In the reality of the comic, the mad ramblings would go to the edges of the board- not leave space for Rip or be concered about a 4th Wall panel frame- the text would be different sizes, different levels of legibility, and scratchy / smudged / less composed- unless the writer was painting carefully with white out starting from top to bottom.
Again, nothing wrong with the concept of the chalkboard / timeline tease- the Next Avengers glimpse did it well… ABC’s FlashForward had two good ones (the evidence board and then a massive chalkboard right before the show was cancelled)… but just put a little effort into making it believably created by Alternate-Timeline Rip (or whomever) rather than a lazy lettering job.
@DrAwkward Eh, that doesn’t bother me. Within the pages of a superhero comic book that’s the least I need to worry about in the suspenson of disbelief department.
I prefer this to the one in AVENGERS (which I did like, just not as much) because I can actually read it.
@DrAwkward Admittedly, in terms of design, this is by far the laziest one DC has done.
@conor I don’t think it’s an “all or nothing” affair with respect to suspension of disbelief… just because the genre has tropes that get me to accept Adonis body types, time traveling, and flying people doesn’t mean it’s a free-for-all on rationality. But again, I’m less bugged by the rationality than the presentation. With the X-Men First Class costume teaser / leak versus the more composed movie stills, I get that either way I’m getting sold something… but one creates a worse impression than the other.
It’s a subtle sort of difference between being told to buy Flashpoint to resolve these questions versus working the questions into your art creating a natural inquistitiveness and desire to read Flashpoint.
It’s not the end of the world, it’s not going to stop me from buying Flashpoint, but it does cheapen the feel of the event.
“The spaceship never crashed” sounds like it might go more with “Abin Sur: Savior!”
I hope the “Ask Booster!!!”is an indication that Booster Gold well get good again.