Hey, this is my first time writing a review on the site in a long time.  I'm been busy writing articles for The Alternative Chronicle (under my real name, Kenny Cooper) with a bunch of friends of mine.  We cover films, TV, music, cartoons, and I handle the comic articles for he site.  If that interests you, please flip through my stuff.

http://alternativechronicle.wordpress.com/

Now, on with the show. 

I'm sure many of you share my feelings about Flashpoint in that the major plus of this book is not so much the main series itself but the interesting tie-ins that explore these Elseworlds-style premises.  What if Grodd was like a suicidal Alexander the Great?  What if Aquaman and Wonder Woman were draconian imperialists playing tug-o-war over Europe?  What if Captain Cold was trying to play himself off as a hero?  Of all these tie-ins, however, none seem to be quite as intriguing and meaty as this book.  What if Thomas Wayne survived and Bruce died?  It's a bold question and it's response has been even bolder answers.

Azzarello and Risso are always interesting to put with the Batman.  From their Broken City arc a few years back and the strip they did for Wednesday Comics, Risso's dark shadings and harsh faces coupled with Azzarello's hard-boiled scripts have always made for some the greatest "dark" Batman tales.  And here they might have outdone themselves in a big way.  This book has been a wonderfully intense study of the psychological underpinnings of  Bruce Wayne and the man isn't even in the book.  It's all goes back to the parents.

Think for a minute about all you know about mainstream canon Thomas Wayne.  You'll probably note he's practically a saint; a gifted doctor, a beyond wise father figure, and a compassionate philanthropist to a fault.  Now, think about all you know about Thomas Wayne that hasn't been told to you by Batman himself.  There's the first ten minutes of Batman Begins and... that's it.  That's not even comic books.  All you know about this guy is from his orphaned son; rosy-colored anecdotes from a traumatized child who knew him at age 8.  Objectively, you know nothing about this guy.  THAT is the beauty of this book.  Now, you do.  So, how does it hold up to Bruce's happy-go-lucky retelling of a perfect figure too good to last on this sinless planet?

So far, we've seen an angry, bitter, vengeful man dressed like a demon stabbing genetic freaks in the face, is making like Sam Rothstein with the Penguin, and is nothing but prickly and unlikable at best to everyone.  We always like to deconstruct Bruce Wayne's psychological instability, pointing out the deaths of his parents left him damaged and barely functional as a human being, prone to anti-social and vastly abnormal behavior.  Compared to his old man, Bruce could be the paragon of mental stability.  Thomas is a hot coal of rage and hatred, his eyes literally red with contempt for the human condition as a result of that night.  Granted, this is a kind of darker mirror of the DCU, Flashpoint, but it still begs the question-- is THIS what Thomas Wayne really was?  Maybe Bruce's psychological breaks from normalcy can be traced further back than the shooting?  Maybe the obsessive drive and anti-social ways were in some way passed down from father to son.

And, of course, now we have Martha.

Before this issue came out, I was aware the identity of the Joker in the Flashpoint would be an important plot point.  I immediately assumed it would have been Bruce, a survivor of the shooting, albeit with brain damage and now a loony psycho killer with the mind of a warped child.  He and Martha were the only two options that would have mattered in this story.  Martha was my second choice and, to be frank, is now really obviously the right choice.  Where the shooting left Thomas obsessive and brooding, Martha has become delusional and even diseased.  Where Bruce wanted to insure nobody went through what he did, Martha wants EVERYONE to feel it.  Martha Wayne, the loving Mother Teresa figure that rocked Bruce to sleep and is never with blemish or flaw, is the Dark Knight Joker.  These days, we the internet love to mock Batman's hang-ups over "MY PARENTS ARE DEEEEEAD!!!" and it's nothing compared to Martha here.  Like Thomas, the notions of her almost Christlike perfection have been shattered.  Bruce's great hang-up has always been his survivor's guilt, his pained greatest desire that he had died and his parents lived.  Now, we know: God help us all if Bruce ever had that wish fulfilled.

This mini alone has made Flashpoint worth it all on its own.  This horror/psychological thriller/alternative history of comics' most heralded icons could very easily be one of the best comics of the year.  It'd seriously take a screw-up of epic proportions in issue three for this story not to be one of the best Batman stories of recent years and, considering its company-- Grant Morrison's epic, Neil Gaiman's homage, etc-- that is saying a great deal.