What if Batman wasn’t Bruce Wayne but rather his father (Thomas Wayne), who was condemned to a life of violence after losing his wife and child? And what if that same man had the chance to change his entire bloody reality forever? It’s an excellent concept that began this past May in Flashpoint Beyond.
Written by Geoff Johns, Tim Sheridan, and Jeremy Adams — three creators who come from film and animation at Warner Bros. — the series officially comes to a close today with issue #6. Will Thomas Wayne Batman kill Koker (who also happens to be Martha Wayne), and can the Bruce Wayne Batman stave off the Time Masters long enough to give his father a fighting chance?
These questions remain unanswered, as well as how this series sets up the upcoming one-shot The Golden Age and how it might also connect back to Doomsday Clock. Even as an Elseworlds-style story, a lot is hinging on it, and one might even argue the future of DC Comics starts here.
To better understand the goals of this project, I spoke to Johns, Adams, and Sheridan about all things Flashpoint Beyond. We also dug into their working relationship, and Johns even teases a few things for The Golden Age.
Beware: Spoilers ahead for Flashpoint Beyond #6!
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: Now that people have read this series, what was the mission statement? Have you accomplished that mission statement now that we’re at the end?
Geoff Johns: I’ll speak for the three of us. For us, we have. Hopefully, people will enjoy the story. When we talked about this, it was really about what’s the emotional story? Why do we care about this story? Why do we care about revisiting this story? Originally when we started talking about it that was the whole point to find a real emotional hook and reason and story that has a beginning middle and end to tell.
Once we hit upon this being Thomas Wayne’s turn to learn about how to incorporate grief rather than trying to erase it or forget it, because you can’t. That all kind of fell into place. We always knew it would end like this with the three of them, Thomas, Dexter, and Martha together, as a unit. Even down to that line about the shoe laces, to show that there’s a spark of maternal instinct in her that could grow. I think I’m speaking for all of us, the mission was accomplished. I love working with Jeremy and Tim, it was super cool.
Jeremy Adams: Print that.
AIPT: Was there any lessons learned or favorite moments during the process of working together?
JA: Lessons learned? I mean, we’re hanging out with Geoff John’s man. When we started this process, I still feel very new at comic books, but Geoff gave us definitive things like, “This is the function of a page turn it. This is what you need to think about when you do it. You need to think about this, you need to think about.” Because comic book writing is a different craft than animation writing or a different craft than live action, writing. I mean, they’re all writing, but they’re little variations and tips and tricks that Geoff has.
Tim Sheridan: But also routing your story in heart, and what is the heart of it? What’s the emotional arc of this story, and then deciding when we can get really wrapped up in the fun and action of it and the big superhero fistfights. There are basic tenets of how you tell a story. I think when we walked into that room the first day, Geoff, I don’t know if you remember this, but Jeremy and I, our heads were a little bit more towards the superhero, action sci-fi stuff. And it was such a great, I don’t want to say a wake-up call, but it was just an important ringing of a bell for Geoff to just say, “Well, but hang on. This is Flashpoint. And let’s figure out what is the heart of this story. Where are we emotionally? What is left on the table for us to really explore this concept of how we deal with grief?”
A variant cover to Flashpoint Beyond #6. Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: Can you talk more about Thomas Wayne and his grief?
GJ: It is like, why do you care, and why do we tell the story? I think relating to just people in general like everyone’s felt some kind of loss in their life. I don’t think anyone that’s lost anyone that they love ever just gets out the other side is like, “Okay, that wasn’t that bad.” You live your life, you laugh again, you figure things you love out, you look forward to stuff you find other people that you grow to care about and love. But you’re never the same.
TS: But that’s almost always a process. Like, I think what you’re saying is it doesn’t just happen. Like there’s a process involved. We’re looking at Thomas Wayne, saying, none of this matters. Which is something that happens when you go through a period of great loss and grief is a feeling that you feel. Why does anything matter? He’s got an actual sci-fi reason to know that this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.
GJ: We were consciously playing off the idea at DC of everything matters, but going the other way is nothing matters. When you’re broken, you’ve lost everything, and you don’t care about it. Nothing does matter. When you suffer something like that. In the moment, you actually 100% believe that.
JA: It’s kind of weirdly like the opposite of the Matrix. In a strange way. It’s like this guy knows this shouldn’t exist, and he’s rebelling against it. But the core morality of Thomas, there is an element of him that, it’s like the Do No Harm aspect. He’s seeing the faces of the people, and he punches. He’s seeing the tears of the people that are hurt, and finally, he sees Dexter, which is really kind of the straw that breaks the camel’s back in that way. Maybe it’s not real, but it’s real enough that it does matter. That’s a weird psychological game, when you start thinking about it.
TS: I’m always fascinated by the aspect of Thomas, as a doctor. There are very few doctors who say “I’m in pain,” and they say it doesn’t matter. That’s what we see play out in Flashpoint Beyond, Thomas Wayne remembering who he is. And ultimately finding something to fight for.
AIPT: In Flashpoint Beyond #6, is this the happiest ending you could give Thomas?
GJ: Well, you know, I’d say if you look at it’s a very violent happy ending, obviously. That’s the nature of this universe that we’re playing in. It’s a violent universe that’s probably not going to change. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t find hope in the darkest times. But that last page of seeing, and again it was Tim’s brainchild of seeing the classic Batman and Robin running with Joker behind them, and the idea of “let’s go kill some Kryptonians…” It’s hard not to be like, “yeah!” I think they’re gonna win. I don’t know how they’re gonna win. But 100% they’re going to stop this Kryptonian invasion.
TS: Because it’s Batman and Robin.
GJ: And the Joker with an assist.
JA: It’s life on life’s terms. And he’s going to accept how violent this world is, then he’s going to interact with it.
GJ: Protect what you’ve got left.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: The way you guys leave it off, will the world of Flashpoint continue on?
GJ: In our heads it definitely does, because we’ve set this up, but where we’ll see that and when we’ll see that, that’s kind of an unknown. But it exists. I mean, that snow globe is sitting on a shelf in Bruce Wayne’s Batcave somewhere so…
AIPT: Was it hard to pull all the past and alternate-dimension moments together and make it all sense on the page?
JA: Easiest thing in the world!
GJ: All three of us are such big fans of the characters in the universe. One of my favorite things is taking an old kind of somewhat forgotten team, like the original Time Masters, and utilizing them. Porky Baxter was such a fun character to write. But like Bonnie was fun, and those characters will play out in a new Golden Age and kind of beyond. But having odd and strange corners of the DC Universe to go to that have been around for a while, maybe just are a little dusty. That’s one of my favorite things to do.
It does make it just feel more rich in the history of DCU. And if you’re gonna do a book about time travel in history, and you want to go backward and forwards and then stay in the present. But tying it all in together, I think one of the fun things was kind of contextualizing the difference between, like hypertime and how it reacts. Like when anyone’s had a very emotional turning point, and they make a decision, well, that other decision results in an alternate timeline. I think that’s an interesting concept to explore at some point. And, we set it up in this.
AIPT: With the reveal of Nostalgia at the end, that was pretty exciting. I think we last saw her in Doomsday Clock #12?
GJ: It was really fun. I’m excited because I don’t think anyone’s gonna see this little sequence from Gary [Frank] and I coming up in that book. It’s also like a play on the whole theme of Nostalgia, but at the same time, we’re introducing all these new characters.
AIPT: Is Nostalgia related to the Time Masters or anything like that?
GJ: No, not related directly.
AIPT: Okay. Since everybody else chimed in on this, Geoff, what did you learn from Tim and Jeremy?
GJ: I can see why they’ve worked together before because they complement each other in the right way so so much. Jeremy is the most enthusiastic idea machine. I can’t remember ever working with anyone that is–no matter what–super energetic, super up and has one thousand ideas and really loves this stuff. The dedication both of them have is amazing. Jeremy kind of re-energizes you every time, because you’re like this, is going to be super exciting and fun and crazy like his ideas I mean, if you’ve read his Flash run, they go all over. Rooted in the same emotional groundwork that Jeremy’s established but with my Tim…
TS: …can I pop the balloon.
GJ: Tim, you can be a contrarian in some ways but in the best way because you’re always super thoughtful about everything you do and every decision you make and you’re very emotional in your writing. To me it always re-centers you. It’s no surprise that Dexter was the character that I think Tim connected with in such a deep way and really saw I was both excited by him and also, I think, understood his emotional tracks so much. So between both of them, it’s always great to work with writers that are super talented and good because you do learn stuff all the time. Jeremy made me think outside the box more often than I would because I usually am playing in a box and Jeremy just kind of breaks down.
TS: You know, I’m new here. I’ve got ideas, and I’ll try something, but there’s a great example, I think, in issue six. There’s some stuff that I scribbled in a draft that I was working on, that sort of narrator’s voice from Thomas, kind of just being an omniscient narrator voice and just some ideas about sort of the conclusion of the story and what have you. I showed it to these guys, and what Geoff did was take the basic kernel of that and send it through the stratosphere in the most Flashpoint way possible, by revealing to us Thomas’s letter to Bruce and making that moment about that. It’s hard to go work alone in a room on these things. I think the all of us working together. I think it’s made us all a little bit better, which is great.
GJ: I love writers’ rooms and TV, but like Blackest Night I worked with Peter Tomasi every step of the way. I always work with other writers Grant [Morrison], Mark, and Greg, on New 52. My favorite thing is working with other writers because you get better, you learn things, you question things, and you try things. My favorite experiences have been co-writing like New 52 and Flashpoint Beyond in comics and working with Pete on all the Green Lantern stuff, and then working with artists like Gary Frank we collaborated we talked about all the stories. I never just write a script and send it in.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: When there are moments where the raccoon is thrown. Do you tell people when the other writers aren’t around that that’s your idea?
JA: You mentioned that to me [Geoff]? I don’t know if I had ever seen a superpower done like that.
GJ: I love Crockett. His raccoon hat, and he takes it off, and he can kind of ages back into his pet raccoon. The pet raccoon is fiesty.
You need humor in this stuff because we’re talking about time travel and crazy new worlds. And a 13 or 14-year-old time-traveling Time Master brat who thinks he knows everything and is telling Bruce Wayne what to do. That Time Masters are character I’m using a lot more in Golden Age and these other books JSA and what’s coming out of this kind of the corner of the new golden age universe.
AIPT: Will the Time Masters have the same vibe in Golden Age as in this series?
GJ: Yes. We’ll get more into Jeff Smith and Bonnie than we have in this. They’re all fun characters. I’ve really enjoy exploring them because they are such blank slates to me. Their role in the DC universe is that nobody likes the Time Masters because they’re just going to act super high and mighty and tell you what to do and order you around, and chaos is going to happen. They’re really fun characters.
AIPT: So should we expect a lot of egomania in the Golden Age one shot?
GJ: There’s a really funny scene with Corky and the Time Masters in the Golden Age one-shot. Corky is like a menace to society.
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