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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good, 'Ol Fashioned Revenge, August 16, 2009
This review is from: Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge HC (Hardcover)
The last couple of years have not been kind to the Flash Rogues. After reuniting and being re-energized during Geoff Johns' 2000-2005 tenure on "The Flash", the Rogues (along with the overall Flash mythos) were thrown under the bus for the "Full Throttle" storyline in 2007. Their characterization and their refusal to work with speedsters like Inertia was ignored and they ended up as accessories to the murder of Bart Allen and fugitives on the run. Needless to say, the Rogues were in serious trouble both in-universe and outside of it. Thankfully for fans, Geoff Johns returns to perform damage control and help the Rogues revenge themselves upon Inertia.
I'll get my only major complaint out of the way. "Rogues' Revenge" started off as a six-issue mini-series before being condensed into three issues and becoming tied to Final Crisis. It suffers a little bit, but the story is still strong. An earlier review characterized this as being too similar to Gail Simone's "Villains United". However, it's a different story than the Secret Six's struggle against the Society. It's more "Rogues: Rebirth" as the Rogues struggle to move forward into the next stage of their careers and reclaim their status as the most unique rogues gallery in the DCU. Geoff Johns proves that 3 years away from the characters haven't affected his understanding and love of them. He manages to tie up several loose ends from his prior run (though new readers won't be lost. In fact, the collection also contains Johns' Rogue Profiles focusing on Captain Cold and Zoom, so new readers can quickly be brought up to speed).
The other major, heh, draw of the story is the return of Scott Kolins to the Flash mythos. For me, Kolins is to the Flash what Bruce Timm is to Batman; his renditions of the Scarlet Speedster and his adversaries are the definitive visual takes on the characters. So, I was initially disappointed that Doug Hazelwood, Kolins' inker during his Flash tenure, wasn't returning and that Kolins was inking his own work. The end result, however, is a grittier art style that works wonderfully in tandem with the dark story.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Band of Outsiders, August 23, 2009
This review is from: Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge HC (Hardcover)
How do you get superhero fans to read crime comics? Why, by casting supervillains in the loner/tough guy/anti-hero roles and then letting them off the leash to prey, not on the public, but on each other. It's this simple but effective formula, coupled with writer Geoff Johns' singular insight into what makes Keystone City's roster of B-list costumed criminals tick, that makes ROGUES' REVENGE such an enjoyable piece of pulp fiction from start to finish.
In the year since Bart (Kid Flash) Allen was murdered, the Rogues have been through hell, including a stint on an extraterrestrial gulag, and now they've had enough. Returning to Keystone to hang up their costumes and disappear, they find their way blocked by Libra, a mouthpiece for Darkseid, and by Libra's hand-picked enforcers, whom I'll let you discover for yourselves.
The story is pretty violent, even by contemporary comic book standards, but what's fascinating about the Johns/Kolins partnership is the depth they bring to their depiction of the Rogues. For Captain Cold, a thief and murderer for whom morality exists only in shades of gray, the deeply damaged men who form his crew also form a kind of family, one complete with a black sheep (that perpetual misfit, the Pied Piper) and an annoying kid brother (Axel Walker, the teenage sociopath who's become the new Trickster). None of them would ever admit to that "family" stuff, of course; it would just sound way too sappy.
Over a three-issue story arc, the Rogues elevate themselves from a tired band of middle-aged career criminals to a precision band of murderous outsiders, their bond symbolized in the summary execution they jointly enact on a major enemy at the story's climax. ROGUES' REVENGE is one hell of a thrill ride, and the backup stories -- two reprints from THE FLASH's "Rogue Profile" series-within-a-series -- don't disappoint, either.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pretty Decent, October 23, 2009
This review is from: Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge HC (Hardcover)
Overall, it was a nice book and my first Flash comic. However, I had a few minor problems that might just be nit-picking. The mixing of gritty and very shiny artwork felt awkward. I wish they'd stuck with gritty to compliment the older villians' revenge concept. In some ways, it felt like a mild version of Wanted, but with characters significantly easier to empathize with, excluding the new Trickster.
I wish the secret society had been played down b/c it seemed like a distraction. I actually bought this book instead of Villians United b/c I thought the society was a small part based on earlier reviews. I'm not saying a villian society can't make a good story, but this story didn't need one. Having said that, the fight with the knock off rogues was pretty nice.
The bonus stories were enojoyable, but felt mostly unnecessary. Any additional information provided could've been inserted in the main story and made the original arc better instead of repeating details, thus improving the cohesion of the book. I'm not sure that should really count against the comic though, since it's meant to introduce characters and themese to potential new customers for single issue sale's sake. It's probably the same reason for all the direct referencing, which aren't usually required. For example, I didn't need to know which comic Captain Cold killed the Candy Man's brother in.
I'm not suggesting that these are intended insults towards readers and I'm probably completely off base, but it feels like these distractions add up and are atleast partially responsible for why comics aren't as accepted in the public psyche as books, art, or movies despite having roughly equal good vs bad quality ratios.
It sounds silly, but just because you have super humans in flamboyant clothes doesn't mean you can't have subtelty. The super villian psychology explained in the bonus material goes so far as to incorporate the themes, puns, and costumes in a mature way. Maybe I'm wrong. Ultimately, I'm glad I bought it.
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