You'll have to pardon me for for addressing your review of Flashpoint #1 and The Flash #12, but I found a
blog article that states Geoff Johns is leaving the Flash after Flashpoint concludes. Personally, I'm not surprised because how Johns is now the chief creative officer of DC Comics, which carries a lot of responsibilities, and ostensibly more committed to the Green Lantern franchise but I'm nevertheless disappointed. The past six to seven years have been unbearably hard on Flash fans because it seems that DC hasn't had a clue of what to do with the franchise since Infinite Crisis struck. After Bart Allen's abortive tenure in "Flash: The Fastest Man Alive" and Wally's return (though I don't blame Mark Waid for how it went down), I was ready to embrace Barry's return in "Final Crisis". I thought the Flash was back on track with the seeds Johns sowed in "Flash: Rebirth" and "The Dastardly Death of the Rogues" but I believe that I was wrong and the Flash may be in danger of derailing because Johns is simply too busy to commit to building the Flash brand as he did Green Lantern.
It's like you said in Episode 13, PB, it feels like Johns rushed through Flash v3 to get to Flashpoint and I think the character is suffering for it. Where Johns gave Hal Jordan enough character and story development leading from "GL: Rebirth" to "Sinestro Corps" to "Blackest Night" over the span of four years, we're getting none of that from Barry Allen. He's just writing all this mumbo-jumbo about the Speed Force and expecting the fans to nod their heads as he tries to cram four years of storytelling in the span of twelve months. That's not even including how Wally West has all but disappeared (I mean, they put Jesse Quick on the Justice League and not him? *shrug*) and I know many Flash fans are disappointed by how Johns and DiDio avoid the subject. The problem here is that it feels like Johns as too many balls up in the air and now he's on Aquaman and overseeing the DC Universe as a whole, his second run on the Flash has ultimately amounted to broken promises and disappointment. The Flash has all the potential of the Green Lantern franchise but DC is squandering it because they can't get a writer who can make the commitment needed to fully realize it.
As for me, I am probably not going to bother with his Aquaman relaunch. Partly because I do not find the character interesting at all; people can go on and on how the ocean is much like space with how much of it is unexplored but I will simply invoke the
Atlantis is Boring trope. Brightest Day may have made him look like a badass but the king of the oceans could never hold my interest on a long-term basis. Moreover, considering the treatment he gave Adventure Comics and his second run on the Flash, I have considerable reservation towards anything Johns writes. (GL aside, of course.)