Headscratchers / Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox

• What are the odds that some of the super characters in the Alternate Timeline having the same name and costume as their normal counterparts? With Yo-yo, it makes sense. Deathstroke was Deathstroke before Barry Allen was a kid, so I can see him having the same name as his normal self.
  • Fairly high. I have a a Wild Mass Guess that when you travel between alternate Timelines/Dimensions you're somehow keyed into worlds that are suspiciously similar to your own. If Owlman is correct in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths that there are infinite universes varying as far as worlds where fish never evolved into terrestrial animals it strains belief that more often than not when you travel between timelines/dimensions you end up in worlds where America is intact. You don't see a lot of worlds where America lost the Revolutionary War or dinosaurs still rule the Earth. Krypton is almost always destroyed (it's a major plot point in the one universe where it wasn't), the good guys and bad guys almost always form the same alliances even if they switched sides and usually all the major players are the same. Its equally rare to find a world that simply doesn't have Batman because any of the defining points in his life either went better (no dead parents) or worse (the criminal took two extra seconds and an extra bullet to eliminate the sole eye witness). You don't see worlds for example where Lex and Superman are best friends fighting against Bruce Wayne who decided to take over the world so nobody would suffer like he did. When you think about how many things have to happen just so for any given hero or villain to exist in the first place (Thomas Wayne being rich, marrying Martha, naming Bruce Bruce instead of Richard or Damian, taking their son to a Zorro Expy movie and getting killed. Kal-el being found by the Kents instead of the Waynes, Luthors, Queens or literally millions of no name schucks hell landing in North America at all) and accept all those things happen consistently the fact that they keep choosing the same names is hardly a leap of logic. It's not just DC however nearly every show that deals with alternate universes seem to be largely confined to worlds with only a few key differences.

• Why did the Amazons conquer England? How does that help in their effort against Atlantis?
  • Theory, but maybe Atlantis was just the main goal, not just the only one. While the Amazons long term goal was to conquer Atlantis, they wanted as much of the rest of the world as reasonably possible. Assuming Themyscira is in the Aegean and Atlantis is in the North Atlantic, England may be a strategically important resupplying base along with a decent piece of territory for the other goals.

• Would Kal-El have survived the doomsday device?
  • Any normal Superman incarnation before "Crisis on Infinite Earths" or after "The Death of Superman" could have; Superman has survived supernovas and being crushed between planets. However, this Superman is much, much weaker (ye he still defeats Aquaman handily; think about that for a second). It should be about a 50-50 probability.

• Related to one of the above questions, why is Diana still wearing her normal uniform in this universe? That's one of the things that very specifically should have changed. Now granted the idea of Diana wearing orange and green which as far as I can tell are as close to official colors as Atlantis has is terrifyingly awful the reason she wears red, white and blue with stars no less is because it's an Amazon tradition to honor the country your being hosted by donning their colors. If she was staying long term in Mexico she'd be in red, white and green likely with an eagle on her butt. Here it's obvious that even if she did go to America at one point they certainly are not hosting her and are not on good terms. If she chose a costume to mock her enemies well Atlantis or one of the European nations, the UK specifically would have been a more fitting choice.
  • Probably so the audience would know it's her at a glance.

• The detail about the death toll in the Amazonian conquest of England (half the population) is a nice way to slip the whole Gendercide thing in there without having to say it. However, it brings with it some Unfortunate Implications. Namely, it's based on the assumption that the women of England... just stand there and let it happen. That mothers do nothing while their sons are taken from their homes and executed. Even if only 10% of women acted to try to stop the Gendercide, that'd still be an additional 3 million dead.
  • That's also assuming that the normal, mundane women of England (or any other nation, for that matter) could have done anything to stop superhumanly strong and fast vengeance-crazed Amazons from killing anyone they wanted to kill.
  • And? They still wouldn't stand by and let them do it without going through them first.
  • And what would they do? Say "No, this is wrong" and get swatted aside? The fact that there are still men left in the Resistance shows that gendercide was not complete, and it is entirely possible lots of women did stand up and got killed off for being "traitors". There is nothing to indicate women of England, or Great Britain in general, just stood there. Place looks pretty desolate so it's pretty good guess to say both genders were on the casualty lists.
  • That's also assuming both that there was a gendercide in the first place, there don't seem to be a lot of people period in the UK and also that half the population was meant to be taken literally. People tend to use the term half figuratively and it spans from well less than half to anything shy of total.

• How, exactly, is it that Aquaman and Wonder Woman were able to cause so much destruction anyway? The film explicitly shows that there are several pockets of resistance. Unless both Themyscira and Atlantis have way more people than could reasonably fit in cities of their size, there isn't really any reason I can think of that determined resistance by metahumans of that caliber wouldn't do serious damage to both sides.

• Are Black Manta and Oceanmaster their evil selves in this universe? It's odd to see two of Aquaman's arch foes serving him willingly. Manta is an insane sociopath, and Orm is an egomaniac.
  • Aquaman is shown beating Oceanmaster when he does something that he doesn't like so he could be keeping under his control with threats and violence.

• In the opening scene when the JL disarms bombs on the Rogues Reverse-Flash says (under Lasso of Truth) that they can't stop them. But Barry had shown that just smacking them with compressed air is enough, meaning the bombs are extremely fragile. Why didn't Thawne tell them that?
  • He was asked how to deactivate the bombs after they'd been armed, and he told them "No, there isn't". They never asked if the bombs could be safely destroyed.
  • Or he simply doesn't know there is a way (the lasso can only make people say what they think is the truth).
  • Captain Atom proposes using his power to vaporize the bombs, but is stopped by Wonder Woman, who reasons that any attempt to destroy the explosives would also lead to the death of the Rogue they were attached to. That's why she specifically asked for a way to disarm the bombs instead. Flash is able to destroy the bomb at the museum because it was just stuck to a wall, meaning he could deal a powerful blow to it without the risk of harming anyone.

• Why did the weather experiment work the second time when the first time, it just gave Barry burns all over his body? Was there a specific reason the second attempt gave him his powers back, or was this process done twice just to show how determined Barry was to get his powers back and save the world? And how did vibrating the Reverse-Flash suit turn it red?
  • It's likely that Barry and Batman changed the amounts of each chemical a bit before trying again, so a different mixture might have yielded success when the previous one was a failure.