The Rogues before they became "The Rogues"

[icon_uk]

One of the most interesting things that the Wally West Flash series did was the the Rogues, the loose assortments of villains that had plagued Barry for years, and retconning them as... well, a sort of family, a dysfunctional family but they a bond between them. Originally they had little in common with each other, other than they bought their costumes in the same place and were united in their hatred for the Flash.

I'm still preparing my Serpent Society history post, but I found this in my LJ gallery lelarly having intended to post it at some point, but I don't think I ever did, so here is another take on villainous relationships, before it became somewhat friendlier, for a given value of friendship of course, as via cary bates and Carmine Infantino, we find out how the Rogues originally handled the death of "one of their own"






Eobard Thawne was the original Reverse-Flash, he was most notable for murdering Iris Allen (It didn't take... eventually), and then later trying to kill Barry's then new fiancée Fiona Webb. It was whilst defending Fiona that Barry snapped Thawne's neck, killing him (more or less permanently, or at least for an impressively long time). We take up the story almost immediately afterwards...

(Worth noting that Carmine Infantino, who is still with us at the grand age of 86, was associated with The Flash for over 30 years, designing the Barry Allen Flash in 1956, and drawing the last four years of the book from 1981 to 1985. His style is instantly recognisable and though not always my favourite, he always has a special place in my heart from my childhood. The inking here, from Dennis Jensen,  is amongst the best I've seen on Infantino's work.)





And how do certain elements take the news?









It's not just in Gotham that the ordinary cops on the beat must occasionally wonder what the hell kind of a job they've taken on.

Please note this is also before most attempts to "humanise" the villains, or make them particularly sympathetic, also many years before the Pied Piper came out of the closet.





Ouch! Like I said, these are not particularly well balanced individuals.

]

And thus started "The Trial of the Flash", a story which more or less literally put the nail in the coffin of Barry Allen, but that's a post for another day, by someone who cares about it more than me.

Comments

[randyripoff]

When you get right down to it, 95% of supervillains are blithering idiots. Cold, Boomerang, the Trickster, all of them could have sold their inventions either to the Military or to the Police for staggering sums. Yet, they choose to commit crimes for some reason. The worst offender of the lot that I can think of (outside of Midas, who could turn anything to gold) was Paste Pot Pete/The Trapster. I know that no law enforcement or military agencies would ever want an adhesive that would non-lethally bind 99% of the population.

Of course, talk to any police officer, and they'll tell you the same: Most of the criminals they run into would never be caught if they didn't do something stupid.

I'm not so fond of the Post-Crisis rendering of the Rogues as professional criminals--after all, before they were fun wastes of time for Barry. Still, this just doesn't fit for me.

[icon_uk]

As Batman has been known to comment in the past.

I'm not so fond of the Post-Crisis rendering of the Rogues as professional criminals--after all, before they were fun wastes of time for Barry

Except before Crisis they were all actually trying to kill him, and did kill other people. They weren't homicidal lunatics like the Gotham crowd, but they were ruthless and would have killed the Flash without a second thought.

[randyripoff]

I can't disagree with you on that. I'm more familiar with the Silver Age Flash stories than those of the Bronze Age forward. It does seem to me that the Rogues are much more bloodthirsty now than they were back then--of course, a lot of that had to do with Code restrictions.

[icon_uk]

Yes, Code approved comics often showed more creativity IMHO (And more fun death-traps)