One of the most interesting aspects of the The Flash has been The Rogues. When the New 52 flipped the universe around, the Rogues remained not just Flash’s rivals, but also the bizarre dysfunctional family they’ve always been. While Villains Month has been toiling with a lot of unnecessary releases, The Rogues issue, aka Flash #23.3, is stellar. Part of it is that the Rogues actually have something to do with Forever Evil, but the other part, the more engaging part, is the family dynamic.
For those uninitiated into the world of Flash, The Rogues are as follows: Captain Cold, Mirror Master, Heatwave, Weather Wizard, and The Trickster. Writer Brian Buccellato opens the story with the team attempting to break Trickster out of prison. There’s been some bad blood, but The Rogues always stick together. Allowing us a glimpse into their group, Buccellato takes a trip back in time to a Rogues job. Tunneling under a bank, the group is just about at their score when they realize they might bring down a whole building, so they abort the job. Why? Well, The Rogues don’t kill.
The history of Rogues has been redesigned a bit in wake of the New 52. In this reality, Captain Cold attempted to give the group powers to help with their life of crime. His attempt went horribly wrong and, while they got powers, the powers kind of suck. Heatwave looks like he’s made of dried lava, Mirror Master is stuck in the mirror world, and, worst of all, Captain Cold’s sister Lisa Snart, aka Glider, can only project herself in astral form. Her flesh and bone body lies in a coma, the result of her brother’s attempt to make The Rogues more than whatt hey were. What’s worse is that she and Mirror Master are in love, but can’t touch each other.
Conflict arises, arguments are had, and bad feelings abound, but The Rogues remain a tight knit group. When the Crime Syndicate takes over Earth and lay waste to Keystone City, the sins of the past are forgotten, and The Rogues look to kick some ass. Buccellato does a strong job of giving each Rogue a voice, and of setting the situations up to show the strength of their bond. At first, they’re on board with the Crime Syndicate, but that dissipates as soon as they think one of them has been wounded during the assault on Keystone. It really is a fascinating angle for a villain team to come from.
Patrick Zircher’s art is pretty standard comic book fare. His pencils tell the story, communicate the action, and that’s about it. Zircher enjoys using big panels for action scenes, but rarely injects much movement into them. The human forms are decent, but nothing involved with The Rogues jumps off the page, at least visually. I was hoping for stronger art to enhance such a solid story, but DC went with a more factory like nature in the work. Not bad, just very typical.
Bland art aside, The Rogues are such an interesting group I might start picking up the Flash books again.
(4.5 Story, 2 Art)
