Broken Frontier

Still reeling from their involvement in the death of the Flash (Bart Allen), the Rogues are on the run and unsure of their futures.

Full disclosure. I haven't read Final Crisis, and to be brutally frank, don't really know what it is all supposed to be about, and the last DC Comics reboot I followed faithfully was Zero Hour. So I run the risk of being in the dark about certain things in Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge, but every comic should stand in some measure on its own. And to the credit of Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins, this book does.

Captain Cold, Mirror Master, Weather Wizard, and Heat Wave comprise the core group of Rogues that have stayed together after Bart Allen's death. They return to an old safe-house in Keystone City and discover it’s been taken over by the new Trickster and his gang. The Pied Piper, still on the side of angels, is in the unenviable position of trying to prove his innocence in the entire affair. Add in the recruitment efforts of Libra and his criminal group and the return of a villainous speedster, and you have the start of what promises to be a well-spun yarn.

At the heart of the Rogues has been their "Number One Rule," a decree against killing that the blue collar group has maintained for years. The central question in the series will be whether there can be redemption for the Rogues, or if they will be forced to become more brutal and deadly than before. Johns does a fine job with the characters, as they are familiar ground to him, and the tie in to Final Crisis seems fairly small and not distracting to the main tale, which is a morality play. As the issue contained a lot of set up, there was not much to distinguish the individual Rogues' personalities, but given more time, I am confident Johns’ strong characterizations will show through.

The pinnacle of comic art for me is the work of Gene Colan with his deep shadow and lighting technique and composition. Series artist Scott Kolins completely violates my own "Number One Rule," of comic art—he forgoes the use of solid blacks, and relies almost entirely on contour illustration. Of course, this ought to mean that I despise the work, and wish they'd gotten someone else to ink it. But I don't. His artwork is great. Just like it was in Thor: The Blood Oath, and everything else he's done. Sometimes, the rules don't apply, and such is the case with me and Scott Kolins' work.

The Rogues Gallery remains the strength of the Flash mythology, with their unique code of conduct, and I am glad the fallout from the death of Bart Allen is being given proper treatment. Flashes tend to suffer tragedies in DC Crises, so I understand why this series is tied to Final Crisis. I hope they don't shake things up too much, and that the Rogues can achieve some measure of redemption in all this, as well as the titular revenge.