Flash Friday: The Deadbeats

Happy Flash Friday everyone! I haven’t been talking very much about Flashpoint (DC's current event) even though I’m enjoying most of what I am reading. I’ve mainly been staying away from discussing it because eventually you have to bring up that once Flashpoint is over, most of what we know about the Flash is over too. While I’m interested to see what Flash’s creative team does I’m still unhappy about the announced changes. The more I’ve been thinking about it though, the more I understand the changes. You see if Flashpoint ended and things went back to exactly how they were before the event we’d eventually have to deal with the fact that Barry and Iris Allen are deadbeats.

To explain what I mean I’m going to have to lay down some Flash History 101. In their 1968 first appearance Don and Dawn Allen were the descendants of Barry Allen. No problems there, the family history is nice and vague and it works. Then DC’s original reboot event (Crisis on Infinite Earths) happened. Don and Dawn were now tied much closer to the Flash mythos; they were actually Barry and Iris’ children! There are a lot of shifting timelines as to exactly when in the future they lived, but we aren't about to go into any of that today.

I know it isn’t a surprise to long time Flash readers but let me continue the history lesson a little bit longer. In the early 80s Barry Allen snapped Professor Zoom’s neck while trying to stop him from marrying Fiona Webb (who Barry was about to marry). This leads to a very long trial process where Barry is eventually acquitted and he finds out that Iris isn’t dead and has been living in the future. I know, I know. Just stay with me here. Barry goes off with Iris where they live in the future. They are there long enough for Iris to become pregnant with twins. While she is pregnant Barry is pulled into the events of Crisis and dies.

Whew, that’s a lot of crazy. I can actually get back to the point I was trying to make now though. Barry Allen is brought back into present day due to events like Final Crisis and Flash Rebirth. Now that he is back alive he and Iris settle into Central City. Barry gets his old police job back and Iris is back to being a reporter. And now we’ve come full circle to my original point. Barry and Iris are hiding out in the present while they have kids to raise in the future timeline.

I have to wonder who is actually watching the kids. Does an older version of Iris eventually go back to the future? Are they left with robo-nannys or something? Why doesn’t Barry want to see his own children? We’ll never get an answer to these questions now since the universe is changing. But when we finally get to that last issue of Flashpoint I’m going to be reading it very closely, maybe Barry didn’t want kids at all. Maybe he is going to shape the new universe so he won’t be getting his wages garnished for future child support.

That’s enough time travel crazy for one day I think. Check back next week’s Flash Friday where we are going to be mixing Flash Friday with another regular column here at That F’ing Monkey.