1186 ( )

This was REALLY dark and gritty, which totally makes sense for a villain vs villain story and also for a villains on the run from a really angry superhero story. I didn't have access to the 2 earlier comics from this graphic novel until today, but I went back and looked over the original 3 (that I had read in March) and it all made sense. Love the background of Captain Cold and how it kind of wraps up in this mini-series. ( )

Tricked into taking part in the murder of Bart Allen, the Flash's Rogues plan revenge on Inertia, the evil Kid Flash from the future. Inertia in turn has been recruited by Zoom, the current Reverse-Flash, who is attempting to indoctrinate Inertia with his twisted philosophy of making heroes "better."

Villains are usually what makes these kinds of comics fun, and this miniseries features nothing but villains. I enjoyed the contrast of the conflicted Rogues with the super-evil Libra, who still wants them to join his Secret Society, and with Zoom, who thinks he is doing something ultimately good by forcing heroes to experience tragedy.

While this book continues from past events and ties in with the Final Crisis, it fills you in on everything you need to know and shouldn't be confusing if read on its own. In addition to the three issue Rogues' Revenge miniseries, it also includes the Rogue Profile issues on Captain Cold and Zoom. I don't know why the Heat Wave issue was left out. ( )

This is the last of the during-Final-Crisis tie-ins in my readthrough-- there are still some "aftermath" titles to review, though. Like Legion of 3 Worlds and Revelations, this story seems to primarily be using the events of Final Crisis as an excuse to catch up with some other characters, the basic hook here being that Libra is trying to recruit the Flash's Rogues Gallery into his organization (this is before Libra is revealed as the herald of Darkseid), but the Rogues want nothing of it: they just want to lay low, since they're still on the run for the murder of the Bart Allen Flash. They plan to take out Inertia, the evil speedster who co-ordinated their murder of Allen.

I don't have much familiarity with the Rogues, unlike the characters featured in Legion of 3 Worlds and Revelations, which definitely hindered my enjoyment of the story; all I really know about them comes from their appearances in Countdown to Final Crisis (where they're also on the run for Bart's murder). In reading Rogues' Revenge, I felt like I was on the edge of reading a good story, it was just that I didn't have the emotional investment in these characters that the story wants you to have. Johns doesn't do much to introduce the reader to them, but rather throws you in at the deep end of their characterizations and histories. What I did grasp had me interested: these are a group of messed-up criminals, to be sure, but they're people, not supervillains cackling and trying to take over the world. Captain Cold especially is put through the emotional wringer here, but he seems to emerge the stronger for it. You do get those Geoff Johns splash pages that seem designed to excite someone who knows more than me; "I'm Kid Zoom!" shouts Inertia triumphantly, as if that has some kind of intrinsic significance.

Scott Kolins's art is very good; he does interesting things with panel layout that are occasionally hard to follow, but usually work well in establishing the oppressive tone of the book; it's really on tone where this books succeeds, between Kolins's art and Dave McCaig's colors, everything is appropriately gloomy. There's the occasional flashback scene that's not clearly marked as such, but if such a technique is good enough for Chris Ware, then I'm sure Johns and Kolins can use it too. The pasts of the Rogues very much live on in their presents.

There are two extra stories in the back of the book, "Absolute Zero" and "Rogue Profile: Zoom," which lay out histories for Captain Cold and Zoom, respectively, both reprinted from Johns and Kolins's 2000-05 run on The Flash. I ought to have read them first, as they make stuff in the main story much more clear. I have Johns's Flash Omnibus volumes on my shelf, waiting to be read; perhaps I'll reread Rogues' Revenge once I have the grounding in Flash lore the story obviously expects.

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