Warning, this podcast contains spoilers for The Flash and some theories for Secret Division. Hello on im Rosey Night, and welcome back after our short break to x ray Vision, the Crooked media podcast where we dive deep but to your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture. We missed you. We're glad you're back. We did.
In this episode previously on, I'm gonna give you a little refresher on The Flash's journey through production hell and obviously the controversies around it star Ezra Miller. In the air Lock, we're going to talk about The Flash It's time, and then we got a double omnibus for you. We're going to be covering the two comics that are going to be inspiring, all the stuff we're talking about Flashpoint, and then to prepare for Secret Invasion, which is hitting
on the day you will hear this podcast. Jason's written an in edible omnibus on Secret Invasion in the Nerd Out and MCU Multiverse query from Homer.
Ooh coming up previously on Okay, First up, some background context for The Flash, a very troubled production, focusing on the issues surrounding star Ezra Miller. First of all, I saw this film this weekend in the theater as one. I guess should I too saw it in the theater, and I'm excited to talk about our thoughts. But I will say I guess because of how pointedly troubled the production has been. I was kind of surprised that it. I mean, this is better than Black Adam. I enjoyed
some parts of it. I'll just leave it there, That's what I'll say.
I will say my general takeaway is that it wasn't a film that was for me, but there was some moments where I was kind of blown away by the artist tree and the good things yeah, that came out of this movie that I think was, like you said, very troubled.
Okay, So where to even start with the Ezra Miller situation. Miller has been involved in a litany of legal issues, starting with an arrest and an accusation of grooming a teenager. These exploits include trespassing, choking a woman in Iceland in an incident that has been caught on camera, and other issues dating back to twenty twenty, and these issues at the time seemed to pose a potentially mortal threat to
the Flash production. I think you and I both opined that there was no way that this movie could go forward, and yet it has gone forward. Yeah.
I think once you see the movie and you understand that Ezra is on screen for ninety nine percent of the film, you understand the quandary on a business sense that Warner Brothers was in, even though they never seemed to have a.
Moral quandary about it.
I still it quite shocking that this film came out and there has not been more conversation about the work that Ezra has hopefully done to kind of hopefully make themselves bare, make the people they harmed. That I feel like it's quite strange there kind of hasn't been a pr campaign or a conversation around that. But also, this movie probably cost around three hundred million dollars, so I understand that for Warner it's a business choice.
Yeah, that was part of the conversation we were having off Mike. Obviously, in the Discovery era, the David Zaslav era, Warner Discovery has been making a lot of waves by its unilateral canceling of projects that were in the works and its memory houling of various content that was on the HBO Max platform, and all of this in order to basically create write downs so that they could cut some of the enormous debt that Discovery taken on in its leverage
purchase of Warner Brothers. So from that perspective, I agree with you. I don't know how they could have not done this film from a we need to cut the debt perspective. This movie cost I think the reported numbers somewhere south of two twenty yeah, south of three hundred million. But like there's a lot of scuttle but that it costs anywhere up to a half a billion, like.
Mm hmm, especially including marketing and the many many reshoots. Also, I think we will get into this more in both the conversation about the Flash and also in my Flashpoint omnibus. But yeah, it's really interesting. I was in a comic shop in Palm Springs, one of my local comic shops that I love. I love that shop, Comics Asylum, Palm Springs. I was talking to the owner and all she wanted was to see Grant Gustin in a Flash movie.
Yeah, and so many people have said that to me.
They've gone, I don't understand why they made this movie with Ezra or why they didn't just get grant like so many wide audience.
There was a moment and that I thought he was gonna be in it. But we'll continue with that, right, Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that more.
But basically, the other side of this, aside from the Ezra of it all, which is the kind of I feel like the thing that has really been way and heavy on us and on many of the audience, like morally and kind of ethically, is like this seems like it's being brushed over. But even before Ezra was even attached, this movie has had an absolutely wild journey through production.
Yeah, let's go through it. Let's go through it.
So I just want to shout out Maya, who is our crooked intern, because this is an unbelievable, like twenty years that she had to flip through it. But look, it starts with our old friend. David Goyer writes a flash script in two thousand and seven with Wally West as the lead.
I would love to see it.
It was one of the things that we suggested could have been done to fix this movie. Barry Allen is a sportive character, but he's the first creative to leave for creative difference. Now you will see that that is a recurring theme. Same year, Sean Levy's hired to oversee the film. After less than a year, he leaves due to his conflicts with his other film Night at the Museum.
And then we should add that this was a period in which, first of all, DC theoretically writing high due to the success of Batman Begins scriptwritten by David Goyer. Yeah, directed by Christopher Nolan, of course, But this was also a period when the conversation around DC was that the leadership of the Comics creative leadership was heavily micromanaging films and had a very very particular angle and like conflicts like this would often arise.
Yeah, and also remember this is pre Iron Man, right, so there's no MCU. We have Batman Begins. That's a game changer, and it reimagines the way that superhermovies can be. And it also puts DC on the map for the first time for a critically acclaimed live action movie in quite a few years, where they'd already been smashing it with the animated stuff. But it was a very interesting time. And so end of December two thousand and seven, you still have two more people who will be attached David Dobkin.
He's going to do a spin off of Justice League Mortal, which is one of the most legendary never made movies, and that would have cast Adam Brody as Barry Allen. Now,
I would personally have loved to see this. This is George Miller's very famously never made Justice League movie, and you were going to have like DJ Katrona as Clark Kent, j Barroschell as Maxwell Lord, Like this is one of those most famous kind of it never got made movies, And of course you would have had Adam Brody then as this lead of the Flash movie, but that didn't happen. Justice League mort Or gets canceled within the same year. Flash continues on with a two thousand.
And eight release date.
Then two thousand and seventy thousand and eight WGA Strike further delays the Flash film production. Then Charles Roven is brought on to produce with a new treatment by Jeff John's, but the film is never greenlit. Twenty ten Green Lantern writers, remember that beloved movie. Greg Balanty obviously now like the helmer.
Of a lot of the guy.
Yeah, the guy that we know from so many DC projects, especially if you watch the TV show Michael Green and Mark Guggenheimer developed They're gonna make green landin two that didn't happen and the Flash October seventh, twenty yeah, I mean you listen to that.
Right here is the period when Geoff John's noted Jeoff John's, well known comics writer, creator and executive at DC, was elevated to chief creative officer and really began an influential and some would say troubled run definitely.
And also so twenty ten, that's when we're last looking at this. We were just talking about, you know, green Lantin to the Flash. Flash Point happened in twenty eleven, which Jeff Johns was the writer of with the artist Adam Cuba, And in twenty eleven Green Lantin came out and flopped. So you'll notice that there is no talk for another four years, and that is October seven, twenty fourteen.
That's when the Flash show begins, Grant Gustin starring on the CW and that becomes the way that many audiences learn about the Flash, learn about the Speed Force, learn about the multiverse. Twenty fourteen, Ezra Miller is cast as the Flash, so that's how long this movie. You're talking nine years from when Ezra was cast and when Ezra actually played the Flash and the movie came out, So that's a seriously long time in production. Obviously, Ezra is
planned to appear in Justice League. That happens, and then a twenty eighteen solo film, which we now know didn't come out till twenty twenty three. So here we start just with the production troubles on this film. You have Seth Graham Smith hired to write and direct the Flash story, developed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller. Seth Graham departs in twenty sixteen creative differences. Now, this is the most famous one and the one I wish we could have seen,
which is Rick Famer. You are who, obviously we now know is the unbelievable powerhouse behind some of the best episodes of The Mandalorian. He's hired to replace it. Then we get Cyborg's hired in Justice League, and apparently it is going to play a big role in the Flash solo film, which makes a lot of sense because this was when people started to realize, oh, this is a Flashpoint movie. And as we will talk about in the
Flashpoint universe. There is no Superman, but Cyborg is essentially the Superman of the universe, so it's really important to have him in that role. Famaua leaves twenty sixteen. Twenty seventeen, writer Joby Harold is hired to write a new take. Twenty seventeen San Diego Comicon, it's revealed the Flash will be an adaptation of Flashpoint.
Important to note that at this time, Infinity War an endgame or Infinity War was twenty eighteen. In Game was twenty nineteen. Peak Marvel happening right now, and DC under extreme pressure to be like, where's your shared universe? And this is where Flashpoint comes in, because it is the hinged movie that would create the next level shared universe on top of Justice League stuff.
It's actually really wild to think about it. Now we've seen the Flash, and you, if you're listening to this, have probably seen the Flash or you've read about it. It's kind of mind blowing because you're absolutely right. Flashpoint was supposed to be their end game. It was supposed to be their Infinity War. It was supposed to be all of those mixed into one, as well as their Avengers.
It was going to be that huge crossover movie that everything had been leading to, after Justice League, after Batman Versus Superman, and it was supposed to explode the world out and introduce anyone that you wanted or bring in new people, and that obviously is not the direction when and in the end, we ended up in a situation where this is the end of the DCEU rather than kind of an expansion of it. Twenty eighteen Game Night helmers John Francis Daily and Jonathan Goldstein, who we are
big fans of. They wrote the Dungeons and Dragon movie. They were ate Homecoming.
Yeah, they were in talks to.
Make a Flash movie and it was going to be very back to the future influence.
That influence is still there.
Well yeah, if you see they're the ones who actually have the first story credit on the movie.
Yeah, because they obviously took a lot from that.
So then back to the future, like we said, we saw it. The Flash movie's.
Delayed in twenty eighteen.
It was meant to come out in twenty eighteen, but because of the Fantastic Beasts.
Movie, it's delayed.
Then Ezra spoke about how they were working with comic book icon Grant Morrison on this kind of darker take of the Flash, which was going to be something they were going to pitch that would be a different story, which makes a lot of sense. Grants done some of the best cosmic multiversal comic book writing.
Daily and Goldstein leave because the creative difference is twenty nineteen.
Seeing a pattern here, Andy mcschetti is hired to replace them with Christina Hodson, who wrote Birds to Pray, which I love, as the new writer. Then the movie's gonna come out July first, My birthday. Twenty twenty two didn't happen, but in twenty twenty we did get a big moment that really felt like DC was doing something Marvel had not done yet, which was when Ezra's version of the Flash showed up in the Flashed TV show during one of their big crisis events and met Grant's Flash and
it was like, whoa, this is actually happening. And then we hit April six, twenty twenty, and that video of Ezra choking the woman in Iceland, which they claimed.
Was a joke just to put both sides out there, but.
That interaction goes online and then we start into that Ezra era and everything else is more well known twenty twenty. Michael Keaton's going to be in Batman. You know, Ben Affleck, Bruce Wayne will be in the film. And we start to get to where we know a little bit more about the movie. Now.
The period that we just outlined, which leads us up to the James gunn era right now, was a period of executive turnover at DC. And I think you can read that through the various so many regimes, so many regimes, a lot of pocket regimes. TV didn't talk to film, didn't talk to animation. They all have these five toimes. And I think what you're seeing is with all the
creative differences. As the result of that, you bring in a director or writer right and you say, what's your take, We love it, go forward, the regime changes above the writer. Now all of a sudden, that executive has a different angle or has a different creative team that they want to work with. They have notes. Things that were agreed upon previously are no longer agreed upon because you've got
different parties involved, creative differences. And this is having over and over and over again, which is what you get in situations like this.
It's kind of mind blowing. Like I feel like even me and you. We tell stories now in these spaces and way, and we kind of are students of Hollywood and this industry. But when you're outside of it even and when you're even a little bit inside of it the way I'm it kind of blows your mind how
much this stuff is chosen on a whim. I interviewed Alex Winterer from Bill and Tedley, one of my favorite movies, right, But he was talking about Freaked, which is this cult movie that he made real practical effects, very beloved, weird cult movie. It was gonna be this huge teen focus smash for the studio because this one exec loved it and he thought it was so good and it was so weird, and they were going to do Levi's commercials
and Pepsi commercials. And he left and the new exec who came in went to a screening in like somewhere in the South Bay, sat the back, saw these kids like losing their mind, like behaving real rowdy, and just was like, the movie's not coming out, and just shelved it.
Because he just didn't get it.
And that's like, that's the difference between you can have your champion and this is not we're not even talking about hugep here. This is an original, weird, like cult practical effects movie. But that's how much of a whim this stuff can be. And obviously, when you're talking about the Flash or something that's so much money, that's a whole different level of control that the regime won.
Here's a good example, and it's kind of off topic, but it's kind of on topic. I don't know what the cases now, but a period of time AMC was because of the corporate ownership of the channel, AMC the home of Memin and Breaking Bad. James Dolan, the owner of the New York Knicks and you know, CEO of Cablevision once upon a time executive at Live Nation and various other things, had the ability to like thumbs up or
thumbs down, like cuts of Madmen, Oh my gosh. And so there would be times where this is just like stuff I've heard where Madmen be like waiting to see like, oh can we do this? Like is this cutokay? Or like are we going to get a season two? And they're basically waiting for like James Dolan to be like yeah, sure, fine.
And one of the things that James Dolan wanted was to have his band's music involved in some show at AMC, which ended up being Hell on Wheels the I don't know if people remember the Western show that James eventually did get his band's music on, but that was one of the things that he was trying to do. And it just goes to show you how like personalities of zex absolutely influence all the things that you see mm hmm, and we imagine that, oh, this is part of a strategic vision and there's a reason.
No.
Sometimes like a person just is like, well, I want to put this in there. Okay, now, we got to do this, and that's just what happens.
And I do think that that is relevant here, especially because not only because of all these different iterations that we're talking about that almost became the Flash, but also just and obviously there is a monetary element of this and we will talk about this more, but even the fact that David zaslav As the exec saw Batgirl, didn't like it and said this isn't worth releasing, and then saw the Flash and said, well, I think this is great, and we spent a lot of money about it, so
we're going to throw all our money into that and take the right down.
On bat Girl.
Even there is that once again a like subjective choice on quality, as well as many many dollars and business kind of things coming into it too. But it's really interesting.
Perversely, David Zaslav has become something of a pioneer in the realm of write downs because once he started taking programs off of his platforms, other platforms have followed suit. Yeah, Disney Plus, Netflix, Hulu, etc. Disney Plus various other platforms are also taking shows off of their system in order to take the write down, not have to pay the creators, and basically lower their debt bill going forward as Wall
Street continues to hammer streaming. Now that we've talked about that, let's talk about the movie.
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Today, we're stepping out of the air lock and into Central City for the Flash in theaters. Now, Rosie your thoughts.
I was very happy to see Kirssy Clemens back as Iris West.
I love that casting.
I hated what they did with her in Justice League. I still didn't think she got enough here, but I love to see it. That was my happiest thing to see. Other positive notes that I had Andy Mische, that's a man who can direct a Batman. I understand why they gave him Brave in the bold. You know what it is, Okay, and I'm sure we're gonna agree on this, but like, let's not get to the babies yet.
We'll leave the babies, the gummy babies, the babies, We'll leave them for a minute. Let's start on something positive, the much maligned, the much milized social cg rinezme sibling babies.
But like, you know what, this is a movie which somehow, I don't know how this happened, but it did. This is one of the truest impacts this movie had me. I felt sad that we didn't get to see more Ben Affleck Batman.
This ben Afflet Batman great. This ben Affleck.
Batman who gives him that speech, who tells him our scars make us who we are.
You can't take that away.
The Batman, who is wearing a dark night returns cowl that looks like it was drawn by Frank Miller and inked by Klaus Jansen and colored by Lim Vallei. And he's on the motorbike and he's zooming through the city with this kind of soaring score.
I thought they should have won. They should have started the movie there no babies.
But also like that to me, I was like, oh, I was like, okay. Either ben Affleck was like, this is my last chance, so I'm gonna kill it, or he was never given the material to do something special. Because it made me feel like I would have liked to see this version of Batman.
Him and Keaton, they were the highlights for me, no question. I feel the same way. I thought the cast as well was great. It was wonderful to see Belverdu from Ye Combien as as Barry's mom. I thought that it was a better film than I thought it was going to be. Like, I thought it was pretty good, actually certainly better than Black Adam. I thought there were elements of the emotional beats that actually kind of worked for me. To your point, the relationship with Michael Keaton Batman with
Batman nineteen eighty nine was really I thought pretty fun. Actually. That being said, there was one moment that really like record scratched for me. Yes, And it's like eight minutes into the film. Barry after, you know, he's got to do this little thing to kind of help Batman out.
This is where the Babies comes in, and on his way out, he's like interacting with some people on the street and then he says to them something about I'm going to kind of botch this, but paraphrasing, he mentioned something about mental health and how important it is, and he says that's something that the Justice League hasn't figured out yet, which clearly to me, I mean, they basically
do a wink to camera. It's so like it felt like a self referential Hey, we know you're kind of aware of Ezra's issues and we are too, and we just wanted to acknowledge that that's the only way it makes sense for the inclusion of this in there. And it just felt really tenured to me, like I don't know that this is a thing to make fun of.
That to me was when I just turned on the movie, like I couldn't help it. Like the CG babies, I like weird, outrageous stuff, but that.
This extra I don't.
It's like the ezra of it all was always going to be hard for me. Yeah, but I was like, you know what, I'm going to.
Go into it.
I'm gonna hope that they're doing the work they need to do. I'm gonna hope that co Iron Eyes is somewhere out there safe and being looked after it. I'm just going to try and watch the movie and think about the movie and think about the comics and all the people who made this movie possible, all the thousands of people who worked on it, and the CGI babies. I was like, this is objectively terrible, and I kind of love that many studio people and Tom Cruise somehow
thought this was possible. And I kind of like it almost like passes into camp that people were talking about this being the greatest movie of all time and there's like CGI babies being put in microwaves. But then when they did this like nod nod, wink wink joke.
I didn't like that.
It was quite gross. And also for me, I was like, is this a joke about how Warner Brothers like didn't help Ezra because they're like the Justice League is still working on that, and the implication is like, well, Ezra didn't get that help, right, I just it was really gross and I know they must have done that on a reshoot. There's just no way that that joke would have been in there before.
Well either way, right, I've thought about this too. Let's say it was in the original kind of out. The decision to leave it in is clearly one that is based on a acknowledgement of Ezra's legal issues in the world, because that's the only if the surely people flag that line as Ezra's shoes unfolding and somebody would have gone, do we want to do this? And I think the decision to go, if indeed it was in the original script, to go forward with it, is like, hey, let's you know,
let's say that we get it. It's like it's like Tom wamscans, you know, we hear for you.
It feels like, oh, we hear the big succession move.
Yeah, it feels like, hey, let's show people that we get it. We understand that this is Hey, we know we're not sticking our heads in the sand. We we understand that you've heard all about this and we want to let you know that we we hear for you, and we understand that that's the only way that you go forward with this. And it just felt really weird to me. It's really weird.
And also it's Ezra talking to camera, so it's the joke is to the audience as well. Like ver I was, I was not a big fan, and then luckily they distracted me with the Batman that kind of comes up next, you know, gets see Jeremy Irons again as Alfred, which I think is such a brilliant cost thing like love that.
So, yeah, you spoke about Andy. I want to talk about Andy Muschetti, director of it. He's supposed to direct Brave in the Bold, as you mentioned, that's the apology movie, right, Yes, allegedly.
I don't know this for a fact, but I will say that I think when you get a person who comes in and is a good soldier right and takes on a absolutely haunted cursus Poltergeist production that is beset by wild issues with its star that cannot be replaced because they are in essentially every shot of the movie, every single shot. I would say six percent of the movie they are in. I think you got a let them do brave in the bold and I think Andy did. I think he did a really good job. Great for Batman.
CG issues aside, and listen, I don't like the CG. Was it weird? Yes, I thought there were some weird design choices. Obviously, people worked extremely hard and CG and they did.
According to Andy Maschetti, that was a design choice. So I just want to say, I think it was the wrong choice. But this was not a case allegedly according to the studio, which you know, take it with a pinch of salt. This was allegedly a choice rather than a crunch issue or a timing issue. So people worked really hard to do what the studio asked them to make it look this way.
You know, chaos spreads and influences everything, and we've got a production that is this chaotic. It's not perhaps surprising that that some of it would reach the screen. And it's I guess you know, your mileage may vary if you if you perceive the shortcomings in the cg to be an effect of that chaos. But I will say the fact that so little of that chaos reached the screen is a credit to everyone who worked on the film in Andy like that did good job, because it's
incredible that you made a cohesive film out of that. Now, the Batmen, I also loved the Batman. I thought the Batman were great. A small change here in which Michael Keaton, unlike in Flashpoint, plays Bruce Wayne alternate version Bruce Wayne, not Thomas Wayn.
I do want to say that was a big question I had same Why not just be Thomas Wayne.
I don't get it. I understand they wanted.
It to be like it's nineteen eighty nine Batman, but that, I will say in the Cannon causes a problem because if you did not know this now, I want to say, I feel like, if you listen to this podcast, do you think that I'm like a huge arrow Verse Stan That is not the case. The arrow Verse has been very hit and miss for me, but I appreciate the impact it had.
On the same access.
I am also a comic book story. You know, we had like the Legends of Tomorrow. That's the show I've actually watched all of them, thought was really brilliant, especially from like the third season on, but generally not a huge like passion of mine aside from the impact it had.
But in the canon of the original Flash series, the original Arrow series, those are set in the same world as Keaton's nineteen eighty nine like, there are references to that that was always the way it was meant to be, So this then again brings up that canon issue of where is Barry if this is the same universe. I did think it was really interesting that he wasn't playing Thomas. I think that would have been an easy, fine, cool fixed.
I don't think it would have taken away from the nostalgia because it's still Keaton, and I just think it would have been cool.
I think the idea is, you know, look no further than in Fast X for a film in which decisions are made that you then get locked into for a franchise. Yeah, I think they didn't want to lock into a world in which Michael Keaton is Thomas Wayne forever in case they want to bring him back, or a world in which he's Thomas Wayne and then all of a sudden he's Bruce Wayne and you kind of have to explain it to the audience. I mean it's a past. Yeah, I think this was the path of least resistance and
I get it. I let's talk about the babies. Okay, So this okay, So Andy has been asked about the babies. There's a spoiler. There's a sequence early in the film in which Batman ben Affleck. Batman needs the Flash's help and he's called everyone else, but they're all busy, and so Barry has to go help Batman and he has to save all these babies from this hospital that is like crumbling into a sink call. And the babies look bizarre.
I don't like, there's no way. They look very very strange, like overly smooth and with.
If you've seen Twilight, they look like the baby from Twilight. They over emote, they are very obviously fake, and they look I will say, this is fair, I think from Andy's said, it's supposed to look this way. So I mean they look like scratched. They don't look like it's finished.
A lot of people who saw this at cinema, Coon, et cetera, was like, this isn't the Fini version, Like obviously it's going to be a launch review screenings, people thought that it wasn't going to be the finished version, and that was kind of the messaging that they were very interesting or that they were sharing. I think that was more just like their presumption because of the way it looked.
But that was if you go on letterbox.
A lot of people who saw the previous screenings in the lead up to the release were like, obviously, this isn't the finished version.
It can't be.
It's the same version they were showing at Cinema Con. It's the same version. This was a choice. I don't understand it. Well, yeah, say Andy, because I think this is very interesting.
Yeah. Here's his quote. The idea, of course, is we are in the perspective of the Flash, so when Flash is accessing the speed force and using his powers. Yes, what Andy is then saying is you're seeing things as the Flash seees them. So he continues quote, everything is distorted in terms of light and textures. We enter this water world, which is basically being in Barry's POV. It was part of the design. So if it looks a little weird to you, that was intended.
I hate to be a guy who is picking apart this answer because I love. I love the commitment head to support the vision. I think it's a I think it's really cool to support the CG artist like this, Like this has not turned into some chaotic Marvel esque fallout, even though as many people have pointed out, and I don't disagree, I do think the CG and this is worse than the CG in Man Quantumania by like quite a far, a far reach.
I think that that's hercuous.
But like so I will say something here because this, this quote specifically, my understanding is about the CG in general and very specifically one of the things that this movie does. Okay, I'm gonna do like a one sentence description of the movie, so if you haven't seen it, you don't understand. Barry goes back in time to save
his mum. To do that, he accesses something that in the movie they call the Chrono Bowl, which in the comics we would call the cosmic treadmill, and that is where he essentially accesses the speed force, and he finds an area that looks kind of like a zoe trope, you know, the old way they used to show movies and moving images, and in there he can travel through time. Now doing that causes a new timeline. That's where he
meets Batman. That's where he meets Sasha Karl's Supergirl. SOD comes back and they have to defeat them together, and eventually he has to go back fix it, let his mum die, and the movie's over.
So that's what happens.
But the Crona Bowl is the big issue with CG in my opinion, and this is what Andy's talking about, because when you go in there looks like a SIMS game.
It does. That to me was weirder than the babies the cron Bowl because it's so much info and you're in there so much, it looks like a you know what it looks like? To me, it looked like a like an iTunes screensaver, exactly like a visualizer.
Yes, it looks like a visualizer, but instead of nice calming images, it is people right and moments from the film but rendered in.
It's a horrifying mushroom trip.
Yes, it's a horrifying mushroom trip. And you spend a lot of the movie in there and you wish that you didn't. So I think Andy's defense and explanation of the CG works in that framework. Because you are in the cronable is in Barry's perspective. But I will say at the beginning, even when Barry is not in the speed force and he's pulling a baby out the microwave in the normal time, the baby still look funck.
I will also say that listen again, the effects people worked very hard on this, I'm sure, but I think that it's not uncommon for reshoots, particularly VFX reshoots, to like be happening late, late, late, late late in the game. I'm sure at a certain point, when you're already over budget, potentially hitting the half billion mark, a lot of that is going to your star because of their litany of
very very serious legal issues. Yeah, at a certain point, it's like that's where all the money goes, you know what I mean, Like you're just not, hey, do we have X amount to like do some tweaks on the kronabl No. Yeah, Like I don't know that that happened, but it feels like that's probably what happened.
I don't see a world where you spend four years making this movie and visualizing this movie and crafting these big fight scenes and these emotional beats, and you see the Crona Bowl and you think, yeah, people are gonna love that, Like that's gonna sell our story. I just I don't.
I don't see it.
I was constantly pretty shocked every time we were in there that that was a choice. It was so weird, and yeah, it was not. It was not something that worked visually for me. And it definitely gave me the feeling of like like a two thousands like cut scene from like a PC game.
Yeah, it's very the Mummy. Oh yeah, yeah, definitely Scorpion King energy. Yeah. Now, there are elements of this movie that I really liked, again Batman, I liked a Supergirl Sasha Karl I thought was great. Was she'd been in it more? Was she'd been in it more? I did? Here's an issue where you feel like, okay, here's where they ran out of money for stuff? Spoiler The battle against Zod just kind of what happened? I don't know. Did we did we win? Did we not win? I think you didn't win.
I think the flesh just left, the flash left, and then Supergirl gets murdered.
In my mind's eye as I recall this, it's really kind of ambiguous. Is what then happens with that big battle. It just kind of like Peters Out. Okay, I think this is.
The biggest issue for me for this movie compared to say a movie like venom Let there Be Carnage right now that we both had a lot of fun like talking about how crazy that movie was and how it was.
Just like one movie.
But I'm gonna tell you, yeah, venom Let there be carnage. That is ninety minutes of pure entertainment. That piecing never stops. You know what's happening, you know who wins, you know who loses. I will tell you guys something if you haven't seen the Flash the first hour, there are no other main characters than two Ezra Miller's playing Barry Allen. It is an hour until Michael Keaton comes into the movie and then you meet Sasha kh and then there
is a battle with Odd. I feel like the pacing in this movie does not It didn't work for me, and there's Ooda is part of it. Now, I'm going to tell you the biggest issue I think with all of this, aside from the stuff we've talked about, CG. Ezra, the biggest issue is this is a flashpoint movie where over the years they have been told or they have chosen to not adapt Flashpoint, and that is the problem.
There are multiple issues here.
The Zodd battle, it basically becomes irrelevant because Barry has to come into conflict with his younger self, and then they have to go to the Cronabowl and have the real battle, which is between Barry and what they call Dark Flash, which is Barry's younger self who's been stuck in the Crona Bowl.
This is where I thought Grant Gustin would have loved to see it.
Yeah, But like the problem is, as we will talk about in the Flashpoint Omnibus, they miss the cyclical nature and the holistic story of the Flash. You cannot have the Flash without the reverse Flash. There is a very now quite infamous interview or quote from Andy Masha where somebody says, so, who killed Barry's mum And he says, well, I guess it was Reverse Flash.
What do you mean you guessed? Like that doesn't make you call it it was reverse Flash.
That's what happens in the comics. But like in the movie, there is an ambiguity here.
They kind of do the reverse Flash thing in which they call it the Dark Flash.
But it's like, but that's not who killed Barry's mom. That's Young Flash who gets stuck in the speed Force.
Right right, right. But I'm saying they kind of they kind of do their version of the kills Barry's mom is that Dark Flash pushes Barry out of the example, causing him to enter the world in which Barry, who will become Dark Flash, gets his powers because that's the world where no superheroes are.
And that's kind of again, it's like this loose adaptation, whereas in Flashpoint you learn that Reverse Flash knocked Barry out of the Speed Force because he wanted to create himself into like a paradox that Barry would never be. He needed to create himself, right, yeah, and he wanted and he wanted to create a paradox well where Barry could never kill him and he could exist without Barry because he's never been able to exist without Barry.
I felt like the lack.
Of the easy linear storyline of Flashpoint, which is kind of this, it's a line, but it's a circle and everything's connected. That to me was one of the weirdest things, Like there's no conversation here about who the Reverse Flash is, why they want to kill Barry's mom. What that has
to do with anything. We end up with this dark you know, I hate that where the dark stuff is evil, but we end up with dark Flash instead of reverse Flash, and that comes at the end, and they haven't really been a conflict throughout.
Zod doesn't get defeated.
He just kills Supergirl and leaves, leaving him open, I guess, to be a different villain. But I feel like that third act struggles from those choices to not just directly adapt Flashpoint.
I understand why they made a lot of these choices, but I think one of the things that I think is really cool about Flashpoint the comic is that like it just drops Barry into a world where like his mom is alive, like he's just at work, and then his mom is there and he's like that's I think,
did this is it? I thought that because I think some of the heaviest lifting that this movie does is the work to make you care about Barry's parents, And it's a lot of work in one movie, Like you don't see them previously, and I think from you know, your mileage may vary again, And I'm not a big time Hollywood writer, director, but I do think it would have been quicker and faster, sorry for the pun to just drop. Flash Flash wakes up and his mom's alive,
and what the fuck is going on? What happened? And now he's got to try and figure it out.
I think that is the best thing, because, as we'll get into in Flashpoint, the biggest mystery, yeah in Flashpoint is who is to blame for changing?
How can this happen? And you assume it's.
Reverse Flash, and you get and you fight and you Barry teams up with Thomas Wayne and they're fighting this great villain and then as this movie reveals in the first fifteen.
Minutes, it's Barry.
And that was a huge game changing reveal that felt so shocking. And I think if this film had trusted the audience a bit more and allowed them to go on that journey, have that mystery, and have Barry have that realization, maybe even they would have wanted to blame it on Dark Flash instead of Barry. I think there's a version of that that would have worked. I think the half flash point of it all is part of
why it didn't necessarily connect. I saw a lot of people online who didn't understand why Thomas Wayne wasn't in it, who didn't understand why the Aquaman and Wonder Woman's storylines weren't even like vaguely adapted from the comic. I think that the legend of it being a Flashpoint adaptation had lived longer than the reality.
Yeah. I do think very clearly there was you know, Ray Fisher, who's had his own issues with especially within the Warner brother studios, within the Warner Brothers studio system, was supposed to be in this. Cyborg has a is a pretty big part in the Flashpoint comic. We won't spoil that for you. We're gonna talk about that later. But my sense was there was a very clear direction to move away from the Snyder verse as briskly as
possible with this film. You know, once events in the wider Warner ecosystem happened with the you know, with Snyder moving on and the whole Snyder cut thing happening and fishing all out. So I think, you know, again, here's the real world intruding on the stuff you see on the screen. The reason they're not in it is because it's unclear like how much of that stuff is going to carry over into what James Gunn is doing.
Yeah.
I think that's a really good point.
And I guess like as we come to kind of the end of the movie, which we haven't really talked about, the big thing that everyone was talking about, that kind of comes into it even more because originally from the reporting that has come out, and the original ending would have seen Barry fix the speed Force, fix the time line, and at the end, Michael Keaton's Batman and Sasha Carl would have been there, and that would have shown that Barry thought he fixed it, but actually he didn't, which
is what happens in the flashpoint comic leading to the you know, the New fifty two, and that would have shown that those characters would have continued on. And apparently there was also a version. Boris kitt the Hollywood Report did a great report on the three different endings. There was also going to be a version where Carville was going to be there with them, and Gal Gadot was going to be there with them, and that would have
been well, Carvill's coming back. We saw him in Black Adam, and he's going to be back, and we're going to have this combined universe where they're going to introduce people like Keaton, but we'll still have that Justice League that we know. And then the ending that we get instead has George Clooney step out of the car, which is really fun and I you know, I'm a big fan of that, but that was for film six months ago and was very much under the James Gun regime. So
that kind of really I think confirms what you're saying. Also, so the big thing we haven't talked about which absolutely did not work for me, and I actually have quite some moral issues with how'd you feel about those cameos which ones in the chronobol.
Oh so including so okay, yeah, so we get okay, good point. Actually we get which woods. So we get wonder Woman Galgano.
Yeah, she comes, she helps the very brief we also get to Mura Morrison's Tom Curry. We see him on the phone and in that world Arthur was never born, which is very interesting. It ties into the final.
Stingers of the movie.
But in the Speed Force we as Dark Flash is running around, they kind of do a cataclysm esque thing.
They do an a normally esque thing from spite of us, and it's in the Chrono Bawl. Verry is seeing all these different worlds Now is really getting to like look into the world.
I guess they don't really explain it, but it looks like they're all going to collide into each other because of dark Flash running through the speed force.
Sure, but this is where you get.
Those big cameos that they'd kind of been hyping up that they were definitely leaking. We were hearing people talk about from the previous greetings and they're all like deep fake nightmares in my opinion, including some that are literally like necromancy from.
Oh, from bringing back from the day Now. Yeah, this is a larger issue that is moral issues. This is a larger moral issue that's going to become ever more present with the evolution of technology like mid Journey and the ability to like bring formally deceased actors back using their likeness. We've seen it, you know, in Rogue one with talking and we've seen it in commercials. I think that this is an issue of obviously like evolving law,
And here's my issue with it. I think today, if I was an actor today and I was signing contracts and I like getting all the protections for my image and likeness, then I'd feel protected on that legal front and then I'd have a conversation with my family the aka the estate where I'd say, hey, I'm okay with this. Here is what I want for the future. I either want or don't want my likeness used for this, that and the other, and that's I think that that is
probably gonna be standard and is something that's fine. I do have an issue with actors who passed away decades ago, had no idea about this technology, and who now are being you know, resuscitated onto the screen in a project that they could not have even en vision. Now. I guess there's an upside in which, you know, the family has a nice payday, I guess hopefully, but it feels off to me. It does feel weird because consent of the person should matter. Yeah, I think as well.
I think the reason that people have reacted so badly to it online, and I think the reason that it didn't sit well with me is one. So the way that they showcase them right is almost like a like a movie reel, and it kind of like a like a film reel going around a world visually like whatever. But you know what, you could have just used lips from the show from the originales.
I think that would have worked.
You know, Adam Western, butt Ward, they loved their roles in Batman. That was something they were so proud of. So in that way, I feel like that kind of sits quite well. But as people online were pointing out, you know, George Reeves, who you see, as you know, he played Cereals, he killed himself And one of the reasons that he killed himself was from the way that people report about it nowadays, was because he was so depressed about being typecast as Superman, and the movie was
released on the anniversary of his suicide. According to many angry people on the internet.
Now, George Reeves played by Ben Affleck in the movie Hollywood Land about yeah, this.
This kind of story, you know, And of course Warner Brothers did not drop the movie on that day to do something cruel to George Reeves.
But there is a lack of thought there that to.
People who care about that actor, who care about that story, it felt very cruel. Also, the one that I thought was quite shocking to me was to see them CG. Christopher Reeves as Superman, and not only cghim, but CG. Him's standing up now Christopher Reeves after he was paralyzed, became a very big advocate for disability rights, people used wheelchairs, and he even had a cameo in Smallville where they had him with his breathing tube in the wheelchair because
he wanted to be represented that way. And quite a few people online have pointed out that he, while he was alive, didn't want people to reuse odd footage of him when he wasn't paralyzed, because he wanted people to remember him how he was. I thought that was an example of a lack of thought that went into this. Also Helen Slater, who played Supergirl in the much line
but very fun Supergirl movie, She's still alive. Why wasn't she brought into the movie in some useful, impactful way, or even just seeing kind of sitting sipping a coffee in Metropolis at her age. There was a lack of humanity in those cameos. I felt like even Nick Cage, I love Nick k Superman lives one of the greatest, never made me. Yes, I own photographs of Nick Cage in that suit. I want to see that movie. I was so excited to hear he was gonna be in it.
To me, I was shocked when I learned that they'd actually recreated the suit, as Andy Machette said, and they put him in it because he was so deaged, he was so cg that I just assumed it was another kind of deep fake version. It didn't feel like they had bought Nick Cage in and given him that role. So for me, the cameos were something where if the joke turned me against the mental health joke kind of
turned me against it by the end. Even if I was kind of into some of the characters, those cameos they left me feeling quite like, ugh, like they gave me the itck, you know, like it was not a pleasant way to end the movie. Though obviously I love George Clooney Batman, so thanks for that one. James gunn like when he came in, he was looking great, he was fun.
I will say again, I do think that I don't know the issues, the legal issue. I'm sure they had to negotiate with somebody, but it does. They definitely did get apparent, they got family license. It still is. It's definitely weird. And I will say that you also didn't need it.
You didn't need it.
You didn't really need it in.
The movie either. I didn't feel like there was a cataclysm or a multiversal collapse that was gonna happen where you needed to see it.
I feel like the intimacy that they created.
In this smaller Yeah there was a z odd battle, but it wasn't a huge deal. But that story I know, for you, for super producer Chris, like the things that hit was like Ezra and those emotion the emotional beats that Barry had with his mum, you know the relationship between Batman and Barry ben Affleck as Batman getting to have this moment of saying, you need to explore this trauma. You need to not hide from it or run away
from your past. The emotional intimate beats, that was what people cared about and what I saw people saying that they loved. I don't think you needed that. I think that to me reeks of like execs who saw No Way Home was successful and were like.
We need that.
Like it's so different to have a creepy, CGI deep fake of a dead pass and like looking over a universe and to have Andrew Garfield stepping through like a slingering pool.
Here's how I think something like that happens. And I can see the logic behind it, even if I disagree with the execution, and if an inclusion of course, of course in general, but I think the idea is, hey, we're Warner Brothers. We have this one hundred year legacy of film excellence, and as part of that, as part of our lineage, is over half a century of a relationship with these iconic DC characters that stretches all the way back to the days of George Reeves and and
Christopher Reeves and et cetera. And why not highlight it's isn't it a way to show how actually we're different than Marvel. They're kind of like the new kids on the block at us. We go back to the to the forties with our you know, television executions of these characters, and it shows the breath in the history of Warner's relationship with DC comics. I think that that is the logic of it. I agree. Do I think that it should have been here? Probably not. I again, it felt
superfluous to me. I don't think. I don't think you needed it.
You could have a moment where you're like showing a George Reeves Superman serial on the TV and then have ba Ben Affleck playing George Reeves talking to Barry like, there's different ways you can do it if you want to do it, but I don't, like you said when it happened, I actually had By that point, I was like watching the movie, right, so I wasn't waiting for the cameos, and when it happened, I was like, what happened to me?
The big head scratch with that kind of cavalcade of characters is like, where the fuck is Where's Wonder Woman? Where's Where's allegedly she got caught? Where's Linda Cars? I think why that was like a long running three seasons. I think a television show that was a big deal.
And she was in Wonder Woman recently in the Wonder Woman too at the end, and she's still looking banging. She's still an icon.
I'm very very bizarre to not have Wonder Woman in there. She's another person who I feel like could have shown up in person. You could put her in that suit. Nowadays, I've seen Linda Carr. She's still beautiful, like you could have had her there. Linda Carr is kind of like the no brainer, right, like even like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be like, oh my god, they forgot George Reeves, but I am certainly like, where's Linda Carter?
They still show every single week if you live in LA if you have a broadcast down tenor if you don't have one, get one.
They're great.
Get amplified on tenor it's like thirty dollars Every Saturday morning. On Heroes and Icons they show and two episodes of Bama sixty six and then they show episodes of Wonder Woman that still plays.
People still watch that.
Linda Carr is one of the most icon conic superhero actors of all time, so I agree that felt like a strange person to not include. Maybe Lindkarr didn't want to be a cged up like that. She might not want it to be daged. Who knows got it in.
Would have been nice to see her. Hopefully we'll see her again.
Why your final takeaways from the Flash? Now you've seen it, it's done, it's come out. It didn't make a lot of money. We didn't talk about that.
Yeah, it's like a very very average superhero film. Yes, there are some things as surprised at, like how some of the emotional beats really worked, you know, Barry and Bruce is fun. There are really fun moments there. I thought that the face off with Zod. I thought Sasha's embodiment of Supergirl mm hmm it felt emotionally rich for how little of that is in the film. Mm hm.
It was doing a lot with a little and really this is what really made me feel like, you know, we could have gone faster with the exposition about Barry's mom and family life. You could have just dropped into there and just like, got it. Your mom was murdered. We all understand like that that would be traumatic and otherwise like a middling film that was entertaining. I didn't feel bad that I saw it in the theater that I think will be We will quickly move on from this.
This is a closing of the chapter of this particular page of the of the DC Universe, so that the James Gunn universe can be born. It was fine, Yeah, better than Black Adam. I agree. I like that, that's like your baseline. It did.
I will say it did make twelve million dollars less in its opening weekend than Black Adam.
Think of that what you will. I think that.
Speaks to the way that people don't necessarily think that this will have much of an impact because we have this new universe. I will say my biggest takeaway is I can't wait for Blue Beetle to come out. I'm very excited that James Gun has confirmed that, you know, Hime Rays will be the first official character in his new DCU. So I really hope that people get excited to go and see that movie. I can't wait to see it. I'm excited to see a new generation of heroes leaning more into the comic books.
I'm excited about all these Superman rumors that we're hearing.
Boris Kit shed some really fun ones.
I would love to see Emma McKay as Lois Lane.
I think David corn Sweat would be a sick Clark Kent. He looks literally like him. Like you know what, I'm excited to be excited about these movies again, and I feel like the Flash is that endpoint. I love that it's connected. I had so many people DM me about this movie after they saw it and say I loved it, I hated it, you know, I didn't feel any way about it. We always say this if you love a comic book movie. I'm just happy that these movies are
connecting with you. Go out read the comics, find out what inspired is the thing? An influential one, very influential. You're actually gonna be if you like Spider Us. The moment that we start our flashpoint omnibus, you guys are gonna be laughing.
Yeah, because the way this stuff is so cyclical. There is a word that.
I will say many times in my flashpoint omnibus, and you guys will realize how much all of these stories live and breathe and learn and take from each other. But yeah, I agree with you. I think you summed it up perfectly. And I just can't wait to see what's next.
I'm ready. I'm ready for August. I'm ready to be excited about DC. Should we briefly talk about the Arthur Curry cameo and what that means?
Yes, I think it is worth talking about. So at the end of the movie, if you wait right till the end, there is one post credit scene. Now, a lot of people have said it wasn't worth waiting for. It's just Jason Momoa and Barry and they're kind of like messing around, and Arthur Curry is very drunk as always, and he's kind of like in Central City and he's he's, you know, not feeling too great and everything, and he
sort of falls into a puddle. But I actually think this is a very important bit of law that they set up. Barry tells Arthur, in every universe I go to, in every timeline and every version of the Speed Force the world that the Speed Force takes me to, you are always you. Barry says, I've seen other people it was Bruce, but it wasn't Bruce. He was a different Bruce.
I've been to these.
Different places, and Bruce is always a different person. Superman didn't exist, Supergirl was there. But in every universe or multiverseal timeline that Barry goes to, Arthur is always Arthur AKA Arthur is always Jason Momoa. Now I think that's very smart because as much as everybody maligned Aquaman.
It's great.
Sorry guys, that movie is still the most profitable DC movie of all time, and Aquaman two is coming out at the end of the year. James Gunn has already said it counts as part of the DCU, and if that movie makes a billion dollars, they don't want to have to cast Aquaman with a different actor. So I think this essentially establishes the idea that if they want Jason to be in the DCU new DCU as it exists in the James gunnerverse, they have essentially established law here that he could come back.
That's right, that's right. Yeah. Up next, a return to the Omnibus to discuss the comics origins of the Flash movie Flashpoint.
Welcome to another chapter in the Omnibus where law, analysis and understanding come together. This week it's Flashpoint. We're doing it. We're talking about the absolutely groundbreaking influential. I would say it's a crisis.
Yeah. It was almost like an anti crisis. It was exploding a.
Universe out and bringing it back in all in one. And of course, like every comic book event, Flashpoint didn't begin or end with number one, you know, it began
with many. There was a road to Flashpoint where Jeff John, Scott Collins and Francis Mannipold detailed the battle between the Flash and the Reverse Flash and kind of established a context for the scope of the world changing event which featured you know, bar Allen, and it featured a futuristic version of Barry Allen who came to stop what he called an anomaly, and the anomaly was a different version of the Flash who wasn't supposed to be in that timeline.
And if you have seen Spider Man into the Spider Verse, that will sound familiar. So the mini series essentially ends on the anniversary of Barry's mum's death, and it's this really sad moment and Barry promises his mum that soon everything thing will change, and then enter Flashpoint, which changes the DC universe forever. Before we really get and talk about Flashpoint, Jason, where were you the first time? Oh gosh, like, what's your first memory of reading Flashpoint?
It was like only maybe four years ago or so. I don't keep up on the day to day, week to week with DC, but I always pick up like the big events, yeah, crisis, some of the New fifty two stuff. Flashpoint was obviously a big one of them, any of the kind of big Batman crossovers. Because I read mostly DC through trades, so it was a few years ago, and it was fun. The Flashes character who I heavily Batman centric and Superman centric, and when I read DC, so I hadn't read much Flash and it
was fun. Yeah, it was fun to get to get into.
For me, it was I read it in the comic shop where I worked. There was a lot of quiet afternoons sometimes there you'd be there on a you know, a Thursday or a Friday in the early afternoon. I read the whole thing in a trade. I was reading a lot of DC back then, catching up on a lot of stuff I hadn't really read or kept up with. And yeah, I remember it was just like a blockbuster
kind of popcorn book. Yeah, you know, And it's really fun in the context of other crisises, of this tradition that DC has of streamlining their multiple universes, the kind of sprawling canon that is created when you have hundreds and thousands of people writing.
Books over eighty years.
So yeah, it's a very fun, interesting book, and I'm not surprised that it is such a legendary title in comic books and also DC fans in general. I think just love this book, and I understand why some of them were disappointed that Flash wasn't more directly Flashpoint, but it's really interesting. It's an era defining event. Geoff John's wrote it.
The main series.
Once you get into Flashpoint, Geff John's the writer Adam Kubert penciled it. Legend Sandra Hope and Jesse Delpadang were the incas Alex Sinclair colorist and Nick Napolitano on letters and It. Essentially, while fans didn't realize it at the time, its purpose was to reset the DC universe. Barry, as you pointed out when we were talking about the Flash movie, Barry wakes up at his desk and everything seems normal.
He's been doing a long night of criminal forensics as he does, and he discovers that when he wakes up, he's apparently in a different universe. They're talking about villains he's never heard of. Superman doesn't exist. Cyborg is the world's most famous hero, a Superman level hero. There's no Justice League, and as he finds out when he falls down the stairs within the first pages of the book, he no longer has his powers.
Oh oh ah, oh no ring, no suit, no powers.
And just when things seem like they're getting really bad, something wonderful happens and he bumps into his mum. Norah Alan alive and in the flesh. She is no longer dead in this universe.
She is alive.
She's here and She's come to see Barry. It's her birthday. She wants to go for dinner with her son. Where's his dad?
No longer in prison?
No longer died in prison depending on the cannon, he did sadly pass away three years ago from a heart attack.
But they lived a happy life. And Barry is reeling.
But there's one familiarity, and that's at least one of DC's trinity is still around. Nora. No, she doesn't know Superman, she doesn't know Wonder Woman. Well she might, but in a different way. But she does know Batman. Everybody knows Batman. But and I will say this is light spoiler territory, but I also feel like it's one of the most famous things that this comic does, So we'll talk about
it a little bit. Batman is not the Batman that fans know and love here and know to you know, love to critique lovingly about his bad politics.
This is one of the cool, real cool shocks of flash Point Yeah flashes.
At this point, he is reeling he's in this new world, but at least he knows Bruce. So he goes to the epic gothic calls of you know, weigh and manner, and we see this they directly adapt that scene when in the Flash and he gets there and he's calling for Bruce, but Bruce isn't there because in this timeline, as we will find out, Bruce was killed along with Martha, and it was Thomas Wayne who survived. And because he lost his wife and his son, he becomes a batman
who kills. He becomes a batman who is vengeful. As he meets Barry, he almost breaks his arm. He uses small joint manipulation to try and get information out of him. He is a brutal and violent man devastated by the death of his family. And as we learn through a kind of back to the Future esque situation, yes, Barry comes to realize while talking to Thomas that he is actually in his own world. He is not in a different universe. It's just that someone has changed the timeline.
So all of these things are happening to Barry in his universe, and if he doesn't change them, he'll lose his memories, he'll lose the real timeline that he lived in, and he will never have his powers of the Flash. And that's kind of the big battle that we have to see him go on here, and it is just
like a really interesting, bombastic book. And as you pointed out when we were talking about the movie, one of the coolest things about this is you do not find out the big reveal of this book until, like, you know, the fourth or fifth issue.
This is a mystery. We see all these different call versions in this world.
Aquaman and Wonder Woman are kind of warlords, and their battle against each other has caused this huge chaotic issue within global politics. We get to see Lois Lane as a kind of roving reporter but also a spy. We get to see all these different fun versions. There's a really rad super team called the Resistance that are just totally out there. You know, it's like Grift, all these different kinds of people, Steve Trevor, you.
Know, fighting Wonder Woman.
I imagine that as a creator, this is like one of the most fun books that you can write, where you can essentially just completely turn upside down everything we know about canon and just put these you know, the toys that you get to play with, but you're putting them in totally different places on the chessboard.
Yeah, it was really fun. I mean that's always been part of DC's DNA you know, m hm with these kind of like upside down yeah, yeah, you know, bizarre O Superman, these kind of like crazy versions. But this was like a really unique take on it because it wasn't just like oh, wonder Woman's bad. There was like a real political reason that the Amazonians had seized the UK. Yeah, you know, there was like a wire war that while the main Flashpoint books don't really delve, they kind of
like just touch on it. It's like background stuff. It is really interesting, Like I found myself being like, oh, I wonder what's going on there? That's really interesting. I'd like to know more about, like what's going on with that.
Yeah, it's one of those events that actually makes you want to read all the one shots and the Yeah.
A lot of times that can.
Be something we can plain about as comic book fans, like you'll be loving an ongoing series and six issues in suddenly you're just reading an issue that has nothing to do with anything in your book because it ties into a wider event. But this is one where if you read Flashpoint, you'll likely find that in to reading something else, to reading a one shot, to reading a mini that led into it.
I think that if you're going to read this book, you don't have to read.
All four Road to Flashpoint issues, which were in the main Flash. But I would say I believe that issue four is It's like Flash Issue twelve is the last part, and I would say definitely read that before you read Flashpoint. It makes everything make a lot more sense. But it's a really interesting, fun, weird take on the DCU, and you get this kind of like it's the ultimate what if?
You know.
We love those kind of stories because the real truth is, even though it is not a major part of this story, and if you've seen the Flash, you will know what Superman's fate here is because they do this great I loved actually as something we didn't talk about. I thought it was really cool how they just did it with Kara instead of Cow the same storyline.
Yeah, I thought that was great. I thought it actually kind of worked better, to be honest with you. It worked better in the movie than it did in the comic. It worked. It was really cool.
Yeah, But something that is cool that I like, because look, there's a few Superman comics that I love, like Superman for All Seasons and All Star Superman and stuff like that.
But it's not.
Necessarily a character I have a deep investment in in the way I do with some of the other characters. He's a little bit too like he's the good boy, he's the center. But what I do love about Superman is is inherent goodness and the way that goodness spreads. And what I love is this is essentially the biggest what if of What if Superman never landed and wasn't raised by the Kents, What if Superman never got to.
Be the good, blue eyed boy of the DC universe. This is what happens. It all goes to shit.
You need Superman there, you need his goodness, otherwise you're gonna end up with these huge omnipient beings fighting each other, these global super gods. And I thought that was just I like that this book recognizes that, even though Superman is maybe in a few pages altogether. So I think it's really a very joyous read and it's a very much of its time book. Like if you read this, you feel like this book was made in twenty eleven.
Tell us about how this leads into DC's line wide reboot, the New fifty two, which was you know, it's interesting how the Big two copy and are inspired by each other all the time. I think Marvel had just done or was in the process of doing the Heroic Age at that time. I might be wrong about the name of it, but it was. They were also in the middle of the line wide reboots, so it was a perfect hey time to jump on at a clear starting point for these two comics companies.
Yeah, and then Marvel saw the New fifty two and did Marvel Now in twenty twelve, which led to some of my favorite comics as well.
Yeah. Okay, so this is really interesting.
So the story ends in almost I feel like some may think it is abrupt, but there is essentially a double page spread near the end of the story that explains everything. This is the purpose of this book. This is the reason that Flashpoint exists. After a huge epic battle where some lives are lost and some people survive, Barry is inspired to go back in time and fix the mistake that he made, which, just like in the movie,
is that he tried to save his mum. So he goes into the speed Force, and instead of finding the Cronable, he sees the hooded visage of Pandora, and he sees three different versions of the most famous superheroes from DC, and he learns that he can't just go back into the speed Force and fix it because there's three timelines. There's not one timeline, and Pandora reveals and this is very twenty eleven because everything's changed since then. But at some point in the past, the DC universe had been
split into three timelines. DC's New Earth, which is what we knew is the main DC timeline, Earth thirteen, which at the time was basically seen as Vertigo but is now understood to be Occult Earth with characters like Etragan and then supernatural characters like Sandman and Vertigo characters like hell Blazer and Constantine. And fifty which is the wild Storm Universe, which we now know is coming really full force back into DC. So to fix his past choice,
Barry has to essentially create a singular timeline. The time for three timelines has passed, the singular timeline is going forwards, and the book ends with Barry delivering a letter to Bruce from his father Thomas, and it seems like nothing has changed, but that double page spread essentially explains what is going to come next, and that is the New fifty two, where DC essentially stripped everything down, started every book from number one, and made a jumping on point
for all characters where the canon before essentially didn't exist, though obviously it did because it byed all the creators who made it, but it was essentially a new start and it was a huge deal, and at first it was a huge boon to comic shops and sold very well with lots of beautiful Jim Lee art to kind of showcase the story, but it actually didn't last that long. It would only be a few years before DC actually
rebooted the universe again in Rebirth. I loved a lot of the stories from Rebirth, but yeah, it was really interesting. The New fifty two it's still, i would say, rather infamous among fans because it was such a huge leap and it all began with Flashpoints, so this is a
SuperH historical kind of thing. And the craziest thing is that Flashpoint has been adapted multiple times before the Flash there's Flashpoint Paradox, one of the DCAU animated movies, which everybody loves, and it was also no surprises, it was just regularly adapted throughout the CW Flash Show, and that is something I also did kind of struggle with with
the movie. It's not that it's derivative, because it's all comes from the same source point, but I did feel like a lot of the emotional beats and a lot of the ground that was covered in the Flash had already been covered in the CW, and I didn't necessarily feel like there was a lot of difference in the show. Just like the comics, Grant Gustin changed his timeline. He wanted to save his mom, and very much like the Flash, they didn't want to adapt this huge global war, so
it focused on his intimate losses. It was very back to the future focused. Oh, you can't have Barry lose his connection with Iris, you can't have Barry lose his memories, and.
It was very interesting.
That was the opening of season three that really focused on that. In season eight, ironically, they did a reverse flash point with the Reverse Flash, and that was much closer to the comic book version, with this kind of global war and Barry having to save the world. It was really interesting and definitely you can just jump in and watch those after you've read the comics to see all the different ways that this story has been adapted, and the flashpoint Paradox is seen as one of the
really great standouts of the DCAU the Animated Universe. But all of those movies are great, so they're always worth watching.
Up next, more Omnibus with a discussion of Secret Invasion. Secret Invasion launching this week. By the time you hear this podcast, is very likely that Secret Evasion on Disney Plus will be out. Yeah, the first episode, first episode to be out, So we thought it'd be the perfect time to talk about the comics origins of the Secret
Invasion storyline. No way to think about Secret Invasion, which first appeared June eighth, two thousand and eight to January two thousand and nine, is in relation to all the other Marvel events that took place starting in the early two thousands. Now, this was a period of Marvel history where the company was just emerging from the kind of like business and creative doldrums spurred by their bankruptcy of
the late nineties. And it was also a time that's kind of marked by the increasing influence and prevalence of the work of Brian Michael Bendis, who wrote the Secret Invasion, the main Secret Invasion storyline. Now, for me, this was a period where I was getting back into comics after like three years off, and it was also a time where it was like super fun to pick up these trades and kind of follow the evolution of Marvel Comics
up through Secret Invasion. So I think for me, this period of Marvel starts with Avengers Disassembled, which is two thousand and four, kind of Brian's big swing in the Marvel universe proper. And this storyline is an explo of yet another ending of the Avengers. So the Avengers are kind of destroyed in a shocking manner which I will not outline because it is a really fun read. But the kind of takeaway is the Avengers are no more, and here is a Marvel Comics universe without the Avengers.
The Avengers get back together shortly, they're after don't worry, of course they always do. Don't worry, But this is again, this is two thousand and four, and you get this very what, at least at the time for me, was like this emotionally evocative. All the citizens of New York standing candlelight vigil with all their pictures of the Avengers
and they're standing in front of the Avengers mansion. You made really made you feel like, oh, this felt of a piece with this post nine to eleven like Iraq tragedy world in which oh my god, our heroes are gone. They get back together shortly, don't worry about it. That leads into a two thousand and five House of M
of course alternate universe in which the mutants win. That is super fun that all of these events, and what I think is really cool about these events is they then would affect Marvel Cannon going forward into these other events, which was a really cool characteristic of them. Mm hmm. That leads you to a Decimation, in which the reaction to House of M. Right in this alternate timeline, mutants are triumphant. It's of course put back together again and
fixed by the efforts of various heroes, including Wolverine. And from there you go to Decimation, where mutants are essentially wiped out. There one hundred and ninety eight mutants total left in the world. After that, that leads us into Civil War two thousand and six. The big have had of It? Ever Heard of it? Big interne scene battle between two sides of heroes, one side led by Iron Man, feels like, hey, we got to register, we got to register.
Our powers, like there's been too many times where you know, the Hulk destroys Las Vegas or the X Men, you know, blow up a city and the people are tired of it, and shouldn't we register like a loaded weapon? And so this turns into the Civil War, where a whole group of the superhero community go underground, continue their superhero ways, but as essentially outlaws. Now it's a good thing that the Hulk wasn't around for Civil War, even though he did kind of start it with his destruction of the
entire American city. And because of that destruction, he has launched into space, which gives us World War Hulk. When Hulk eventually comes back, he then beats up all the heroes that sent him away, and this and the fallout from Secret Invasion lead us into another paradigm. But let's talk about Secret Invasion. So Hulk comes back, he beats up all the heroes, and then Secret Invasion happension on the heels of Civil War was devastating because public trust
and superheroes was already an all time low. Then the Hulk beats the shit out of everyone and basically takes over the world for a period of time and On top of that, we discover in Secret Invasion that not only are the heroes extremely fallible, but many of them were squalls.
Yeah, this is I would say, this is like the biggest thing that I remember about Secret Invasion that I think was so impactful. It's really interesting. We talked about Flashpoint that very much felt like it's a fun it's mombastic, but it feels like kind of like a corporate edict book, like you know that the world needs to be reset. It doesn't necessarily have a lot of the lead in.
You're exactly right, that's a good point.
Like this does I mean, you were talking about most of the big events. You could just read like Civil War, you could read Annihilation, you could read Welbe Hulk, then you could read Invasion, and you'd kind of have like a domino effect of understanding what I remember about Secret Invasion.
The marketing for this book is it was really good.
Among the best marketing for any story ever. This is my biggest complaint to Marvel Studios why they are not doing a who do you trust? Marketing campaign?
They apparently did send scrolls out to various locations. But that's yeah, Oh that's good. That's fun.
But like so every shop you go into, every comic you're reading, it says who do you trust?
Who do you trust? Who do you trust?
And they start laying the groundwork for that huge reveal that you mentioned, which is that these characters you love for like thirty years, guess what, some of them are scrolls. And they've been scrolls the whole time.
You don't know them.
They some of them have been scrolled so long that they don't even know their scrolls. Like, it was so good and the idea of who do you trust? And the conversation everybody's having is who's a scroll, Who's a scroll?
Who's the scroll? Who do you think is the scroll? It is just so cool.
And not only that, but this is like you mentioned Biromichael Bendis, but the main Secret Invasion arc is like a superstar team.
Leonel Francis. You one of the best artists to ever do it. One of our great Filipinos working in comics.
By the way, one of the most influential communities in comics full stop was Potascio. So many icons, but like Mark Morales is inking it. You got Laura Martin on colors. This is an all star team it's not just a great story, but it is a beautifully made comic. And I just remember that who do You Trust?
Was so so.
Much in that space and that conversation, who is a scroll? Which one of the heroes that you love? Who's your favorite? Who you can no longer trust?
It's so clever, And I will say, in a world in which the bad guys often have terrible plans, the scroll plan is actually really good. You mentioned that's really good. I'll name the one that kind of kicked off the hero's awareness that something was afoot in that is the realization that Electra has been a scroll for an unknown amount of time since she came back from the death, maybe the whole time, like unclear.
Seems like scrull technology could be good for bringing someone back from the dead, just saying.
And the realization that Electros a skull sets off other realizations that one Stark Tech cannot detect sculls any longer, neither can Fantastic four tech. Logan couldn't smell her as a scroll. So they've the scrolls have figured something out that has allowed them to really potentially burrow deeply into the human halls of government, and they don't wait. This is a real Pearl Harbor type plan. Like, once all the stuff starts happening, it escalates very very quickly from
the Scrulls have been planning for a long time. That ready, Yeah, it escalates very very quickly from like a big fight in the Savage Land with Scrull doppelgangers of some of your favorite heroes fighting the legitimate articles too, invasion of Earth by massive scroll forces and that gets really fun. Now that I won't tell you how that pans out. It's only an eight issue arc with various other tie ins. You don't really need to read the tie ins.
No, I will say the one that I think is worth reading, not for context, but just because it is one of the best Black Panther comics of all time is the Black Panther Yes tie in comic by Jason Aarram. We've talked about that a lot. Se Wakanda and Die is very very cool and I just love for me, that's like a very cool fun tie in. And it's the only one. Is hefte Pallo with the penciler. That's the only one where I think you should just read it for fun. And it's like three issues but otherwise
you're right, this is the core story. You can just read it and enjoy it.
So if you're going to read Secret Invasion again, I would say, get on at least it's Civil War and then go up, because I think it's important to understand that content. But you could go all the way back to Disassembled and then coming out of Secret Divisions. So
the heroes do. The invasion is rebuffed, but in a world in which the trust in heroes was orid in an all time low, and the fact that you know, Captain America died at the end of Civil War in his own storyline that kind of branched off from Civil War, and so there's this real feeling of the heroes have
blown it. We've given them our trust, we've tried with them, and all we get are them fighting each other and like an alien invasion that we only caught because of like luck that springs us into Dark Rain, which we've talked about a lot, which was this seemingly hair brained idea of why don't we give Norman Osborne a shot
to run everything? Which sounds crazy, right, Like that sounds crazy to just say, hey, let's give the Green Goblin the reins and let But because of all of this work that start from Disassembled all the way up where you're just seeing the heroes, they win, but they are like long range kind of losing because people are just like you, guys, aren't really winning in the way you
used to. It makes Dark Rain really makes sense, Like, yeah, and you said something that I really like which I hadn't really thought of, which was Flashpoint seemed like a corporate edict like, hey, we need to bring in the new fifty two. Let's figure out a way we can do it. Now. Marvel does this too. There's a million Oh it happens all the time. The original eighties Secret War, Yeah, yeah, exactly. The toys was if nothing then a corporate plan to
sell toys. But what's really cool about this era of Marvel comics up to Dark Rain was it really just kind of felt like, Hey, you know what would be cool coming out of this what if Norman Osborne won? So if you're planning on reading Secret Evaging, it naturally leads you into Dark Rain, which is a thing you might want to read. It so fun. Now, last year they gave us a five issue limited series called Secret
Invasion not Part two, just Secret Invasion once again. Now this is the new retelling of a different event, which seems we haven't seen Secret Invasion in the show yet. But this seems like very much a primer slash soft tie in to the show because it has a much smaller scope and is focused on a much smaller coterie of characters. Written by Ryan North, with art by Francesco Mabili,
wonderful cover artists, various cover artists. So in the wake of the original Scroll Invasion, we learn in twenty twenty two Secret Invasion that the Scrolls are back. They're here again,
but it's not quite what you think. Maria Hill is the director of the CIA Shield has been dismantled to sound familiar, right, and Nick Fury is just kind of like a security consultant, like this font of wisdom, Like obviously Nick Fury's seen it all, and if you have questions about like how AI could potentially become sentient and threaten the world, or what happens if Stark Tech gets out, of course you're gonna call Nick Fury and you're gonna
get him involved. Well, in his capacity as this kind of independent security consultant, Nick investigates what is thought to be evidence of a scroll invasion in the Midwest, and then he goes to Maria Hill and says, guess what, I checked it out. It was nothing. But Maria because she and Nick have this long running relationship and have thought of like all these different ways in which the world could go badly. They have like all of these
security phrases for each other. So she tests Nick, who's telling him, yeah, I checked out that thing and it's fine, no scrolls involved. She gives him the passphrase, which he doesn't know, and that lets her know that guess what, Nick, Fury has been replaced by a scroll. And it turns out all these other important people but not like important people in the government, but not superheros, not superheroes, have
been replaced by scrulls. I think that's very relevant. That's very relevant, right, So that sounds like a lot like what the show is going to give us, but this time, and I won't spoil it too much. What's happening is not a hardcore aggressive scull invasion with attack ships and
transports and you know this very very elaborate ruse. What's happening is an internessene battle between these kind of like Scrull extremists who believe that Earth needs to be wiped out, and yes we've been trying, and yes we've failed, but we figured out a kind of smarter way to do it this time. And a sect of Scrolls who think, you know what, this is crazy the scroll because the Scroll Empire is multiple wars, like, it's not just like
one quarter world. There's a lot of there's an empire and a kind of more human leaning sect of Scrolls who think, no, we shouldn't be doing it this way. And in fact, maybe there's a way that scrolls and human superheroes can collaborate much to the success of both parties. Like maybe scrolls and humans can benefit from an alliance of scroll and humans. Now, can the Sculls be trusted?
This is what this Secret Invasion twenty twenty two explores, And I though it goes a long way towards selling you on yeah, maybe some of these Scrolls can be trusted. It does feel like it also sets up can they? But if you want to check out the twenty twenty two Scroll Invasion of Earth, Secret Invasion again not part two, just called Secret Invasion? What's again? Classic Marvel tradition, Classic
Marvel tradition. Check that out. It's only five issues. It's really fun and it feels like a direct tie in too.
I think it's seeding. Yeah, it's definitely seeding this kind of smaller scale. Also, I will say Ryan North, writer of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl with Erica Henderson, which is like one of the best Marvel comics ever, So definitely check it out.
She's an important part of the secret of this version of the Secret Invasion.
Maybe we'll finally get her in the MCU. But yeah, these we truly have been blessed. Like something that I love about the way you approach this omnibus is like there have been so many great Marvel events, and when you think about them, you're like, there are so many that I just want to go back and pick up a trade of.
I love Dark Grain, I love Annihilation. Dark Grane was really cool. I love Dark.
Grain is so fun. Also, it's hard to get into without spoilers. But like that first Secret Invasion book you are talking about, if you have a favorite Marvel character.
They are in it. Oh, everybody's in it. I'm not gonna say whether they're a scroll or not. But like it opens and you have a version of the Illuminati.
You're talking about a level A star famous Marvel heroes throughout that whole event, every single hero, you like, every single team, they are involved.
It is like an ultimate blockbuster. So many are involved that they go deep. I mean, this is a period of time again where post Civil War, right, you had two factions. You had the Mighty Avengers, who were like the government branded licensed Avengers team Captain, Marvel, Ironman, others. And then you had the kind of like Secret Avengers, who were the underground team that refused to sign the papers to get the licenses. And that's power Man, Wolverine,
Spider Man, the bad Boys, the Bad Boys. And then you had this entire you know, speaking of how deep the roster goes, you had this entire fifty states initiative where the government was like trying to replace all the heroes who went a wall because they didn't want to sign and was signed up heroes in every single state. And so you had those fifty state initiative like yeah, just got their license to drive. Heroes involved in this in this battle. I'm gonna tell you this.
Two things I love about Secret Invasion and that I do hope are brought into the show. I feel like it's unlikely, but in Secret Invasion, one of the big tells that somebody is a scroll is that they eat strawberries and pickles because it tastes like a scroll snack. So keep an eye out if you watch it on Wednesday. See if anyone eats a pickle and a strawberry, or even just a pickle or a strawberry, they're probably a scroll.
And my other thing speaking of deep cut rosters, is the importance of a character named three D Man.
If you have listened to.
The podcast before, you know I'm a three D Man fan. I hope that we end up in a world where there's some kind of version of that him and his role in the story, which is so fun.
So it's just such a fun story. I'm I'm very.
Interested when we have both watched Secret Invasion, which will be our you know, our episode that comes out on Friday. I'm very excited to talk about it because i feel like I'm remembering how much I love the comic, and i know it's going to be different. So I'm just excited to have that conversation up next.
Nerd Out.
In this week's Nerd out where you tell us what you love and why, a theory you're excited to share, or a quick question we can answer, which is exactly what's going to happen this time around? Homer asks a multiversal query about the MCU.
Here's Homer. Hey, sorry if this is a basic question. But in Marvel movies and comics, what's the difference between a universe and dimension and a timeline? It seems the low key Spider Man in Doctor Straine shows movies all seem to use different items. Are they different concepts or interchangeable words with the same meaning?
Great question, I was gonna say it seems like a basic question, but it is not a basic question because I actually think that is an ultimate storytelling question that comes out of the fact that you have multiple different people telling these stories, and people will say different things about universes, dimensions, timelines. They are not all the same, but they can be used interchangeably.
That's how I would explain it. They are broadly interchangeable, but which term is used depends on how deeply we're going to explore that particular timeline, dimension or universe.
And also I think the difference, the main difference is a new timeline can create a new universe or dimension, but universes and dimensions can exist yes, already without being created by a new timeline.
That's essential. Thanks Omer. If you have theories or passions you want to share, hit us up at x raycrooked dot com. Instructions in the show notes. That's it for us, Rosie any plugs.
You can find me here twice a week. You can find me on Letterbox, Rosie Marks, Instagram Rosie Marks. You can read some articles I've and writing, and check out my substat called Rosie recommends right, just recommend cool books and comics.
Catch the next episode of x ray Vision Friday, June twenty third for the premier of Secret Invasion on Disney Plus Plus. X ray Vision is recording a live episode on June twenty six in which we will be discussing the fifteenth anniversary of the release of The Dark Knight in theaters. If you can't make it in person but still want to watch live, go to Crooked dot com slash events and scroll down to the x ray Vision section to get your.
Ticket, and you can subscribe on YouTube, where you can find full episodes of the show. Check out the discord to meet and hind with tons of amazing fans and me and Jason yeay.
Five star ratings, five star reviews. Yes, Fie fie, we need him, We gotta have him, you gotta give it to us. Here is one from Ashvez eighty four. Rosie and Jason are so fun entertaining. Thank you. I'm not even a big comic s I five person, and I still listen because they are that good. Very appreciate their inclusivity and how they make everything so easy to understand. Rosie knows everything strong or great. Thank you here, I see you next time. Bye. X ray Vision is a
Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lord and Saul Rumin and executive produced by me Jason Concepcion. Our editing a sound design is by Facillis Fatopoulos. Video production by Delon Villanueva and Rachel Gaieski. Social media by Awa Oklati and Caroline Dunfe. Thank you to Brian Basquez for our theme music.