Book Three
Geoff Johns Writer
Scott Kolins Artist and Covers
Dave McCaig Colorist
Nick J. Napolitano Letterer
The main cover is Kolins at his best. No, I still don't like his style that much, but I do have to admire the loving detail he puts into every drawing of the new Trickster. Kolins takes the time to draw every single "Yo" on his gloves, each stripe and pattern on his clothes, as well as a plethora of gadgets and gags just falling off his person. All in all, this is a great cover.
Our variant cover, which I got from dc.wikia.com, shows the Rogues reflected in the pool of blood coming from a red-gloved individual. This is a striking image, but unfortunately, not entirely accurate. As we'll see at the end of this story, that glove is supposed to be yellow.
Our story begins with the Rogues reaching their old observatory hideout — a place that troubles Mark Mardon, as it was the scene of him first becoming the Weather Wizard and killing his brother. The Rogues boot up the old monitor equipment, and Mirror Master gets to work with his mirrors. It doesn't take him too long to locate Inertia. Trickster initially thinks it's Kid Flash, but Mirror Master realizes it is Inertia, just wearing the Kid Flash uniform, because he sees Inertia is running around with Zoom at the moment. Heat Wave wants nothing to do with Zoom, but Captain Cold doesn't seem concerned, and he leads them off.
Zoom, meanwhile, is teaching Inertia how to manipulate time and perform his devastating super-speed snap. But when Inertia snaps his fingers, nothing happens. He wants to stop training, but Zoom insists they stick with it. Inertia asks why he teamed up with Libra and the Secret Society, and Zoom explains he wants to create more tragedy to make the heroes stronger. He says Bart Allen did not survive because Inertia pushed too hard, and now he's going to help him make the ones left better, such as the Titans and the Flash. Inertia asks Zoom why he didn't let him kill the Flash's kids, and asks to do it right now. But Zoom demands he keep training. He tells Inertia to feel his internal clock, saying he can change it in himself and others. Finally, Thad begins to get what Zoom has been telling him.
Suddenly, the train yard these two have been training at (no pun intended) becomes covered in thick fog. The Pied Piper approaches from the shadows, declaring it "Show time." Zoom urges Inertia to stay put, and a huge chunk of ice crashes right in front of the speedsters. The Rogues appear in the ice's reflection, and Captain Cold tells Zoom to run away, as they only want the boy. Zoom says he hates Rogues and destroys the chunk of ice, leaving the Rogues exposed. Weather Wizard jokes that Zoom's sidekick is Kid Zoom, and he lifts Inertia up in the air with a whirlwind. Zoom catches Inertia, pulls him down to the ground, and tells him to stay out of the way.
Zoom lands a punch on each Rogue, telling them they only occupy the Flash's time and don't contribute to his growth like he does. Zoom then prepares to snap his fingers in Captain Cold's face, but he's interrupted by the Pied Piper's music. The music immobilizes all the Rogues and Zoom, and Piper first kicks Mirror Master in the face for killing his parents. But Piper is immediately stabbed in the shoulder from behind by Libra, who says he doesn't believe the rumors that Piper is able to conduct the powers of the Anti-Life Equation through his instruments. Libra is also holding the Weather Wizard's young son in his arm, which makes Mardon quite mad.
Libra tells everybody present that they all have a place in his Secret Society, and Heat Wave seems to begin to be hypnotized by Libra's voice, so Captain Cold tells him to focus on the fire instead. Zoom tells Inertia he believes Libra is wasting his breath, as the Rogues will never want to be a part of this. Libra continues, however, telling Weather Wizard that if he wants his son back, he needs to pledge his loyalty to the god of evil, and if not, Libra vows to drink the toddler's blood in sacrifice. With lightning shooting out of his eyes, Weather Wizard tells Libra that the only person who ever cared about him when he was younger was his brother. But Mardon killed his brother to avoid going back to prison, so he asks Libra what makes him think he cares anything about that child. But Libra believes he's bluffing, and urges Mardon to just say "No." As Weather Wizard and Libra become locked in an intense stare down, Mirror Master nervously begins to ask Cold what to do, but Captain Cold chooses to let Mardon make the choice for himself.
Inertia, however, becomes impatient with this, and before Zoom can stop him, he runs up to Libra and snaps his fingers in the toddler's face, saying it's "Nap time." Inertia successfully pulled off Zoom's favorite attack this time, knocking down everyone around him and completely disintegrating Weather Wizard's son. Zoom grabs Inertia by the scruff and demands to know why he did that. Inertia says he's just listening to his clock, like Zoom taught him. And as he escapes Zoom's grasp, he spins around in a whirlwind, saying he does want to become Zoom's sidekick. He changes the colors of his costume, saying he's not Inertia, or Kid Flash, but Kid Zoom. Thad's new costume has red boots and a red top, with yellow pants and yellow gloves. And he declares his intentions to cause a whole lot of tragedy.
Libra asks Kid Zoom to join him, but Thad becomes unnerved by Libra's hypnotic voice and begins attacking him. But right before Thad can kill Libra, Zoom stops him, saying tragedy cannot be random — it must be calculated. Thad argues that Zoom isn't taking things far enough, saying he doesn't want heroes to merely fail — he wants them to lose and be in pain when they do. Thad then grabs Zoom's head and the two become enveloped in red lightning. Thad explains that Zoom gave him the other end of the string of his "time power," and now he's unraveling the sweater, pushing Zoom backward and stealing his time. As Zoom cries out in pain, he relives key moments of his past, until the whole thing ends with a big explosion.
When the lightning clears away, Zoom is left as Hunter Zolomon, stuck in a wheelchair before he tried to use the Cosmic Treadmill. Hunter slowly begs for his powers back, saying he needs purpose. Thad moves in to kill Hunter, but Captain Cold stops him, calling him classless for going after babies and cripples. Thad says there's no honor among thieves, and turns on the Rogues. Heat Waves shoots a blast of flames at him, but Thad confidently proclaims he can run through fire. Heat Wave tells Thad he can't run through his fire, and sure enough, Thad's boots begin to melt and become stuck to the ground.
Trickster then throws a small bomb at Thad, which does hurt him, but also frees him from Heat Wave's fire. Thad responds with a fierce counterattack, landing a blow on Mirror Master, Trickster and Captain Cold, while proclaiming that none of them would have been able to hurt Bart if it weren't for him. But the Pied Piper plays that special frequency once again and freezes Thad in place. Captain Cold asks Weather Wizard if he wants the honor of killing Inertia, but Weather Wizard says they should end this together. Thad tries his best to fight through Piper's paralysis, but he's unable to break free as each of the Rogues points their weapon at Kid Zoom. They say this isn't for Kid Flash, or Mardon's son. "This is one $%@#$@-up year." And the Rogues kill Thaddeus Thawne.
Captain Cold mocks the Pied Piper for still trying to fit in, but Piper says he just stopped Inertia, that's all. Cold points out that Piper is an accessory in this murder, and he threatens to spread that word around if Piper comes after the Rogues again. By this point, Libra has recovered from Thad's attack, and he congratulates the Rogues. He does say it's a shame about Zoom, though, as he was to be the messenger of Darkseid. Hunter weakly says he needs to get back to the Cosmic Treadmill, but Cold is more concerned about Libra's mention of Darkseid.
Libra says he is the reverend of evil incarnate, and he tells the Rogues they're now ready to take on the Flashes. Cold says Libra doesn't have anything to offer them, but he says the first Flash they battled in Central City (Barry Allen) is back from the dead. Cold doesn't believe him, but Libra insists it's true, citing the lightning storms with no rain and the Speed Force being turned inside out. He warns the Rogues that the Flash will hunt them down when he learns they killed Kid Flash. But Cold says they aren't in a hurry to begin that battle, and he has Mirror Master takes them away through a large sheet of ice he shoots on the ground. Before they disappear, Cold tells Libra if he has any strength left after the Justice League gets through with him and Darkseid, then he should tell him to stay off Earth. Libra manically shouts that they have to join him because evil's going to win.
We then cut to Keystone City, where the Pied Piper has apparently turned himself in to the police. As Detectives Chyre and Morillo deal with this, someone calls them outside. They're greeted by the sight of the deceased Kid Zoom, next to a note that reads, "Tell the Flash we're even. — The Rogues."
The Rogues, meanwhile, have retreated to the basement of the Flash Museum in Central City. Trickster asks if he's on the team now, and Cold says he's "gettin' there." Heat Wave is still affected by Libra's words, asking Cold if he believes evil will really win. Cold says he doesn't believe in "evil," just different shades of gray. Mirror Master, who has never faced off against Barry Allen, starts recounting stories he's heard of him. Apparently Barry, unlike Wally or Jay, did not treat the Rogues like it was all fun and games. Weather Wizard confirms this, saying Barry took them as seriously as Abra Kadabra or Gorilla Grodd. Heat Wave still doubts Barry's return, but Weather Wizard assures him lightning can strike as many times as it wants.
Trickster worriedly asks Captain Cold if he's really going to hang it up and run away, but Cold says he doesn't like running. Besides, if the Central City Flash really is back, it wouldn't matter where they ran to. Cold concedes that Libra was right about them having unfinished business with the Flash, so he vows once the skies are back to blue, the game's back on. And if the Flash is really back, there's no more rules in this universe to follow. And as they talk, we see that Barry really is, in fact, alive and well, steadfastly running toward the events in Final Crisis.
And thus we come to the tragic end of Bart Allen's greatest villain, his one, true evil clone, Inertia. Todd Dezago wrote Inertia as a complex character, who was truly conflicted by his evil mission and the genuine love he felt while playing the hero. Unfortunately, no other writer picked up on that idea with Inertia, and mostly portrayed him as a simplistic, murderous sociopath. Wally subjected Thad to a fate worse than death for the murder of Bart by placing him in a suspended animation that only made him more insane and murderous. And when Thad was finally freed, he became every bit as impulsive as Bart ever was, except with a lust to kill everything in sight. It was interesting to watch the normally collected and calculating Inertia suddenly being completely swayed by everything around him. He went from hating Zoom to loving him to hating him again so fast, even Bart would get whiplash. And even though I'm sad that Inertia was killed, I kind of think it's for the best. Maybe he now finally gets to rest.
This story as a whole was a lot of fun. Very violent and gruesome — but oddly satisfying in a way. Perhaps I felt like the Rogues and just really wanted to break something after "one $%@#$@-up year." And this story certainly broke a few things. We got to see just how powerful the Rogues and Inertia could be when pushed past their limits. And it felt right rooting for the Rogues in this situation, as we got to understand their trauma, see their code of conduct, and primarily face them off against even more evil and sadistic villains.
I do have a couple of nitpicks, though. One, Trickster's involvement here didn't make any sense. It was convenient plot-wise to have a newbie to explain everything to, but I don't understand why the Rogues would let him accompany them on this deeply personal, highly dangerous mission against Inertia and Libra. I also don't get what Johns was doing with the Pied Piper. If he really wanted to take down the Rogues, then why did he only freeze Inertia at the end? He easily could have frozen all of them (like he did earlier) and have all those villains incarcerated. It felt like Johns was trying to have his cake and eat it, too.
And, for better and worse, this whole story served as a platform to make way for the return of Barry Allen. I felt like Johns utilized some revisionist history in describing how Barry battled the Rogues much more seriously than Wally and Jay. As far as I can tell, Barry came from the happy-go-lucky days of the Silver Age filled with scientific Flash Facts and bad puns and quips. Wally and Jay certainly had their fair share of serious stories in the '90s. But beyond that, look at how Johns eliminated the main rivals of Bart and Wally. Inertia is dead and Zoom is back in a wheelchair, leaving only room for the original Reverse-Flash, Eobard Thawne. I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of Barry returning, but I don't think it has to come at the cost of the rest of the Flash family and their rogues gallery.
Regardless, this was a very well-done love letter to the Rogues by Johns and Kolins. It was a fun, action-packed story that tied in well to the main Final Crisis series. And it certainly was the biggest story we got to review during the year Bart Allen was dead.
Next time, we'll take a quick look at another alternate version of Bart in Justice League of America #25.
No comments:
Post a Comment