Flashpoint’s Superman Still Makes No Sense Ten Years Later

Flashpoint – the most famous storyline in The Flash’s history – has a giant plothole and it’s all thanks to Superman. The epic crossover event was released in 2011 and is still shaping the Flash’s history even today – in the comics, books, the Arrowverse TV shows, and even the upcoming DCEU Flash film. It’s well-known that time-travel plots often have many plot holes and nonsensical moments, but this one certainly takes the cake…because Superman (and the events that happen to him) nearly ruin the entire storyline.

Flashpoint, at its heart, is a classic ‘for-want-of-a-nail’ story. Barry Allen wakes up in an alternate reality in which he never became the Flash (and lacks his powers), Cyborg is the world’s greatest hero, the Atlanteans and Amazons are engaged in a war that leaves millions of civilians dead, and Batman has no qualms about killing his enemies. Despite the chaotic events happening all around Barry, there is a shining light in this dark universe: Barry’s mother is alive. Through a series of adventures (including teaming up with Batman), it’s revealed that the one responsible for the change was Barry himself, who went back in time to save his mother before her untimely death at the hands of the evil Reverse Flash. There is, however, another change – one that makes zero sense when one considers the mechanics of how the alternate universe was created: the fate of Superman.

In the Flashpoint universe, Superman is a gaunt, emaciated shadow of his prime-universe self. Superman was locked away, kept from the yellow sun and used as a government experiment to create a living weapon – but how did the government manage to restrain the Man of Steel? They didn’t. Instead, they found Kal-El as an infant, when his rocket crashed into downtown Metropolis, killing thousands of people. Readers will immediately see a contradiction, and a question with no answer: in this universe, why did the rocket crash in a different place?

It’s stated multiple times that Barry’s action to go back in time to save his mother created the Flashpoint universe. Logically, that means all the events that happened before Barry’s mother’s murder should stay the same. If that is indeed the case, what made Superman’s ship change course to land in Metropolis instead of on the Kent farm? Did the Flash run so fast that he affected events on Krypton? Or did his meddling cause a change in the Earth’s rotation? Did one of his changes cause an asteroid to hit the ship? None of these questions are answered or even asked. Superman’s ship has absolutely no logical reason for crashing into a different part of the world.

There are other events and plenty of plot holes that don’t make sense within Flashpoint, but this one threatens to derail the entire meaning behind the story: that Barry’s time travel for personal gain was wrong. The entire world is in a dire state thanks to him and only him because he was the only one who changed reality – not the Reverse-Flash or the massive war, just the Flash. But since he couldn’t possibly change the course of Superman’s rocket, two possibilities remain: either an unknown force acted upon the Flashpoint universe, or, more likely, the writers simply didn’t think it through.