Flashpoint #1

History

Writer Geoff Johns built Flashpoint as the culmination of his multi-year Barry Allen revival, which began with the 2009–2010 miniseries The Flash: Rebirth — itself the source of the foundational retcon that Nora Allen had been murdered by Eobard Thawne, establishing the emotional core that Flashpoint would exploit. The story was pencilled by Andy Kubert, a veteran whose earlier credits span Marvel and DC work including Batman and X-Men runs, with inks by Sandra Hope and colors by Alex Sinclair. Editors Eddie Berganza (executive editor), Adam Schlagman, and Rex Ogle shepherded the project, which launched on May 11, 2011, and was paired from the outset with sixteen separate three-issue tie-in miniseries and multiple one-shots announced publicly through DC's official blog, 'The Source,' as early as January 2011. Flashpoint served simultaneously as the concluding chapter of Johns's Flash work and as the editorial mechanism through which DC merged the New Earth, Vertigo, and WildStorm continuities into a single 'Prime Earth.'

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published May 11, 2011; written by Geoff Johns, pencilled by Andy Kubert, inked by Sandra Hope, colored by Alex Sinclair, and edited by Eddie Berganza, Adam Schlagman, and Rex Ogle.
• First full appearance of Thomas Wayne as Batman (the Flashpoint version) and first appearances of Element Woman (Emily Sung) and the Outsider (Michael Desai) in this issue.
• The character Yo-Yo and the character Blackout (Farooq) both receive their introductions within this issue's pages per the Grand Comics Database character index.
• The Flashpoint event as a whole comprised 61 issues — the five-issue core miniseries plus sixteen three-issue tie-in miniseries, a Booster Gold crossover, and several one-shots.
• Flashpoint #1 serves as the narrative and editorial bridge that ended DC's post-Crisis 'New Earth' continuity (running 1986–2011) and directly preceded the September 2011 New 52 relaunch, in which every DC ongoing series was cancelled and restarted at #1.
• The central emotional engine of the story — Eobard Thawne's time-travel murder of Nora Allen — was itself a retcon Johns introduced in The Flash: Rebirth (2009–2010); prior to that series, Barry Allen had no tragic parental backstory.
• In the Flashpoint timeline presented in this issue, Cyborg occupies the role of Earth's greatest hero (analogous to Superman's place in the main DC Universe), while Superman is held captive as a government test subject and the Justice League does not exist.
• The issue has been reprinted multiple times: in the Flashpoint trade paperback (2011, reprinted 2024), Flashpoint Unwrapped (2018, showing Kubert's raw pencils), Dollar Comics: Flashpoint #1 (2020), a McFarlane Special Edition (2022), and a standard Special Edition (July 2023), demonstrating sustained editorial interest in keeping the issue in print.

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