天下制覇

Every DC fan’s real fantasy.

Impressions:

For the non-physics minded, the flash point of a volatile substance is the temperature at which it can vaporize to form an ignitable gas. In this case, the title refers to the character of Flash, who one can assume is at a point in some time in his life, and is therefore a paradox. That should really be your first clue that this makes about as much sense as throwing gravel into a blender to make a fluffy souffle. It’s an alternate universe again, that old DC chestnut that it’s only come back to about forty other times as it peeks over its eyelashes bashfully, too nervous to use its ‘real’ universe but too afraid to abandon it either (YesIknowthiswasthestoryarctheyusedtoresetandrelaunchliterallyeverythingshutup).

This time, it’s a world where Flash’s mom didn’t die, which had drastic consequences that change everything. Like that it affected the rotation of the Earth so Superman’s pod landed thousands of miles away, turned Joker into Batman’s mom who used to sleep with the new Batman who is his dad (boy, some fangirl must’ve been flooded reading that), and made Aquaman have sex with Wonder Woman. And you’ve really got to admire the dedication and effort that they’ve spent the last twenty odd years trying to convince people take Aquaman seriously. Overcompensating for the teasing of Superfriends cartoons much? His powers this time around are "has a trident" and "can’t keep it in his pants." Anywho. Everything slightly different. Amazons and Atalanteans in the process of destroying the world yada yada yada time travel bad, bringing your dead mothers back to life never works out.

The writing is an utter mess, exemplified no better than perhaps in the taunting quip at the start insinuating that the Top… The Top... is going to rape Flash. It’s literally full of vignettes that I’m sure were probably longer or more detailed stories at some point, but here are just thrown in likely just to get a box checked off. Superman being the worst abuse of this. They go through this five minute sequence to save him, he flies off, nobody says word one about it, and the only point to his whole bit of nonsense was to heat beam off Aquaman’s arm at the very end. That’s literally it. Same with Martha Wayne as the Joker and Hal Jordan’s kamikaze mission, and pretty much Lois Lane and the resistance. They’re just things that are sort of there with no meaning, purpose, or direction.

And don’t think the central plot really holds up either. The least sensical part was Barry’s ‘memory’ adapting to the new timestream as an excuse for little montages showing why events transpired differently, like watching Aquaman and Wonder Woman have sex. Was he there watching them? Is this common knowledge? If so, did nobody in either empire think to say "Uh. You guys just decided to embark on a genocidal war against a third party because your mistress killed your wife who tried to kill her? Just after a peaceful summit or something? Are you sure?" It’s like an episode of Jerry Springer where everyone has nukes, minotaurs, and invisible planes which they then use to attack the audience. And of course, the ultimate winner? Gun-Haver. Triumphs over all every time.

With all the above out of the way though, I did mostly have fun with it. It’s one of the ones that they actually put effort into the animation for. All the action scenes look great and since when it’s not being nonsensical drivel, it’s just a big punch ’em up featuring basically the entire DC universe, they better. It does help that the action’s also about 35 minutes or so of the entire hour long affair, so there’s no shortage of it either. It certainly would have helped if any of Wonder Woman, Aquaman (laugh), or Thawne had been a lot more central to it though. Also, Wonder Woman straight up murdering children? Then weeping over a no quarter kill of her disarmed (giggle) ex-lover? Whatever mark you were aiming for, you missed it badly. Most of the fight scenes are just grunts vs grunts with those three not even bothering to really show up until the final 15 minute brawl in the end. Tasty delicious eye candy, sure. But really just sort of empty fanservice to fill the time instead of driving the plot.

So it’s fun to watch if you just want to see people with superpowers beating the hell out of each other, but good god, do not ever try to think about the plot. Even with the minimal amount of nonsense of time travel and just sticking "stuff’s different," it still makes precious little sense. There’s more than enough action for it to be worth a watch just to turn off your brain, snarf on some popcorn, and laugh at large men in tights murdering each other for an hour though.