Comic Book Review: Forever Evil: Rogues Rebellion #1

The Flash’s Rogues Gallery is one of the best in comics and arguably second only to Batman’s. (Spider-Man’s is okay, but once you add The Kangaroo and Rocket Racer you lose a little bit of cred.) But at their core, they’re just a bunch of glorified hoods. As Captain Cold puts it in this issue, they’re just after “the score” and don’t care about world domination like certain people. Certain people like the Crime Syndicate, as it turns out, who just took over the Earth and appear to have killed its super hero champions.

Instead, these super enhanced thugs are left to marvel at the devastated Central City, which was (apparently) devastated by Gorilla Grood in his ‘Villains Month’ one shot (which obviously, I didn’t read).

This group of villains is relegated to the modern versions of the classic Silver Age villains. One more modern Rogue is found dead and another is stuck in the hospital, with no power being fed to life support. (The Crime Syndicate cut all power everywhere, outside of their own transmissions.)

The Rogues must walk the fine line between being super villains and being decent human beings. At one point, they find several Central City police officers chained up, waiting to be slaughtered. They later run afoul of another hero’s gathering of Rogues and even members of the Crime Syndicate itself!

Captain Cold is clearly the focus here, as he should be, as he is arguably The Flash’s archenemy. I’ve only read ‘The Flash’ off and on since its relaunch, so it’s kind of nifty to see how these villains have been updated for modern times. Cold and Heatwave no longer rely on guns to project their powers, they’re built in. On top of that, Heatwave has charred skin like a burn victim. The Trickster is rebellious, while Mirror Master is kind of a sycophant. Weather Wizard is the least utilized, but he does get a moment to shine.

The art is by Patrick Zircher and Scott Hepburn and it’s very good. It’s a bit stylized but looks great. There’s a ton of detail work! It’s not revolutionary however, with static, rectangular panel layouts. I wouldn’t mind seeing the artists flex their muscles a bit more and push some boundaries, but it’s still GOOD so I can’t really complain.

This book fills a nice niche. The Crime Syndicate arrived and, presumably, expected that all of this world’s super criminals would fall in line and help them conquer the Earth. But there are different tiers of villainy and The Flash’s Rogues are just glorified bank robbers. They aren’t murderers of conquerors and it’s interesting to contrast them with the other super foes.