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To save his father's life, Batman goes toe-to-toe with Rip Hunter and Corky Baxter, two of the Time Masters, in Flashpoint Beyond #6.
Written by Geoff Johns, Tim Sheridan, and Jeremy Adams, drawn by Xermánico, Mikel Janín, and Gary Frank, colored by Romulo Fajardo Jr., Jordie Bellaire, and Brad Anderson, and lettered by Rob Leigh, Flashpoint Beyond #6 straddles two realities, one of which is Earth-0/Prime post-Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths and seemingly in-between Batman vs. Robin.
Spoilers ahead for Flashpoint Beyond #6
On Earth-0/Prime, Batman has stolen a snow globe capable of capturing and containing the Flashpoint reality to save his father Thomas's life. Rip Hunter wants Bruce to give up the snow globe and by extension his dad, to preserve the universe...
But Bruce isn't hearing it.
Rather than heed the Time Master's advice, Bruce grabs the globe and seemingly shakes it, at which point Flashpoint Beyond #6 jumps inside the Flashpoint reality where Martha Wayne, the Flashpoint Joker, is informing her husband that they're going back in time (their time, that is) to the night Joe Chill killed Bruce when he was a child to stop it from happening.
At first, it seems as if Thomas is going to go with Martha to enact this plan - which is what Rip Hunter expects him to do. Saving Bruce is at the front of his parents' minds in their time, even if it means destroying their current reality and facing whatever consequences come next.
However, when the Flashpoint Two-Face arrives, her son Dexter held at gunpoint before her, Thomas makes a different decision - the one Bruce (in the main DCU) thinks he'll make all along, based on the letter Thomas wrote to him at the end of Flashpoint and had delivered by Barry Allen.
"Rip thinks he knows more [about Thomas] than Bruce, but Bruce knows more. Well, factually, Rip does, but Bruce knows more emotionally. And that's what matters here," Johns tells Newsarama.
Rather than go back in time to the night Bruce died, Thomas chooses to save Dexter right here, right now - which angers the Flashpoint Two-Face so much that she attempts to gun Thomas down before turning it on her son once more. Once Thomas makes his choice, Martha sides with him. She blows up the time sphere, wrestles the gun away, and kills Two-Face before she, Thomas, and Dexter escape the wrecked building.
At this moment, the Flashpoint Joker, Batman, and Dexter form a new family that begins to look a lot like Bruce Wayne's in the main DCU. Dexter becomes Robin ("It's a family name," Thomas tells him) and Martha goes into some kind of rehabilitation.
To Rip and Corky's surprise, this pivotal moment actually stabilizes the Flashpoint reality that's trapped in Bruce's snow globe. Bruce's faith in his father accepting a world without him pays off, and the Time Masters let things stand.
Meanwhile, 13 characters they have been keeping in time capsules - Golden Age Mister Miracle, Golden Age Red Lantern, Betsy Ross, Molly Pitcher, Ladybug, Salem the Witch Girl, John Henry Jr., the Harlequin's Son, Judy Garrick, the Golden Age Legionnaire, Cherrybomb, Quiz? Kid, and the Golden Age Aquaman - are retconned into DC's Golden Age due to the capsules failing. Remember, Flashpoint Beyond leads into Johns's New Golden Age in November, so this is a pivotal addition to the main DC continuity especially as we head into that era.
Judy Garrick is the apparent daughter of Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash, and she's been name-dropped in both 2021's Stargirl Spring Break Special and Flashpoint Beyond #2, although she has yet to appear on the page. It's unclear how she'll be affected by her time capsule failing, seeing as she seems to technically exist in the main DCU continuity as-is.
And in the final pages of Flashpoint Beyond #6, the creative team lays out a number of teasers for the future. As Corky rants about wanting to reboot Batman's origin to teach him a lesson - even offering to drag Batwoman villain Nocturna "back into the picture" - Bonnie tentatively agrees that he shouldn't be allowed to keep the snow globe, at the very least.
But Rip mentions that Batman will "have his hands full with his mother's family soon," which may be a plot point in either Lazarus Planet, which spins out of Batman vs. Robin, or even the Dawn of the DCU.
Rip seems more concerned about whether or not the 13 characters in the time capsules will seamlessly reintegrate into the DC Universe. When Bonnie asks about the Justice Society, he says they'll have to handle Degaton - DC's equivalent to Marvel's Kang the Conquerer - because the Time Masters have to focus on a character named Nostalgia.
Nostalgia is mentioned by name in the announcement of Johns's New Golden Age, though there's been no other information released. However, at the end of Flashpoint Beyond #6, Cleopatra Pak aka Nostalgia introduces herself, says she's trying to "get the attention of a god," and then specifically talks about finding the Watchmen.
Cleopatra Pak's purple-and-gold costume gives off major Ozymandias vibes, as does the presence of the red lynx she calls 'Bub' (Ozymandias had Bubastis in Watchmen and Bubastis II in Doomsday Clock). Nostalgia made her first appearance in Doomsday Clock #12, as an orphan obsessed with Ozymandias and his legacy - and now it seems she's back, and will be a mainstay of the New Golden Age.
Flashpoint Beyond #6 is on sale now.
DC's 2023 features a dawn, an eruption, old-timers, and Superman's family.
