Final Crisis: Rogues Revenge

[cerealkiller182]

It was pretty good but

Spoiler

the whole kid zoom thing seemed sooo sliver agey IMO and ZOOM losing his powers makes the Flash legacy seem to digress even more.

The whole mini seemed to belittle both Wally and Bart to try to make Barry look better.

Very much so. The whole dialogue at the end didn't even make sense. I shudder to think how much farther down Wally will be dragged.

agreed.

Wally never seemed to be a grudging ally to me. He outright reached out and helped reform a few of the Rogues. It comes off sounding like the Rogues didn't take Wally seriously because he wasn't a vicious bastard.

I loved that aspect of Wally. When you see the swinging door of Arkham with villains coming and going almost as they please it was nice to see someone take an interest in trying to rehabilitate the Rogues.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I'm most confused about what Rogues Revenge means for Piper. His status was left kind of ambiguous.

 

[Keyser Soze]

I'm most confused about what Rogues Revenge means for Piper. His status was left kind of ambiguous.

I think it essentially set it up like he was a "man of no country", if you will. The heroes think he's with the Rogues, and the Rogues think he's with the heroes.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I'd say I wish Wally would reconnect with him and re-establish their friendship, but Wally's going to be little more than a footnote soon, let alone Piper.

 

[Aristotle]

I've seen some say the finale was supposed to be undermining Wally West, and hyping up Barry as the "better" Flash. I disagree. I read it more like, while (through Johns' run, at least) Wally West often found himself as a grudging ally of The Rogues, or caught in the crossfire while The Rogues were embroiled in other issues, Barry Allen always treated The Rogues as serious threats, and as outright villains just the same way he'd treat a Grodd or a Professor Zoom.

Right. So it's undermining Wally West and hyping up Barry as the better Flash.

 

[Aristotle]

I liked the Rogues conversation about Barry in the last pages.

Captain Cold: Boy, Wally West wasn't serious about his job at all, and really never had to work hard or do anything. He's barely a superhero, or a human being, really.
Weather Wizard: But Barry Allen was serious. He was really serious. He was so serious, he could kill us by pointing at us and saying "Yahtzee." I kind of want to get pregnant with his baby.
Geoff Johns: Yeah, me too.

Yeah, I thought that was a really revealing conversation.

 

[Aristotle]

No way, I'm sure he may have a little power lying dormant in him or I can see Johns' setting it up where Professor Zoom comes back and helps Zolomon Hunter become ZOOM again. I know they will probably do that for when Barry comes back and make Professor Zoom a threat once again. Either way, I was flaming they did that to ZOOM, and it leaves a opening for ZOOM to come back because Hunter will probably do whatever it takes to get his powers back and they didn't kill him off. MAN!! I still can't get over it.

It's foreshadowing of what they're doing to Wally: making him useless and irrelevant to the story, and bringing back his boring, one-dimensional predecessor.

The comparison between Wally and Barry by the Rogues was cool. Making Barry seem more serious than Wally.

Call it cool if you want, but you should know that it's a total lie, and you should know that Johns knows that too.

 

[Aristotle]

the whole kid zoom thing seemed sooo sliver agey IMO

No, it was pretty much a rehashing of when Bart became Kid Flash instead of Impulse. "No, I'm not that other kid with a sense of originality! I'm Kid so-and-so!"

The whole mini seemed to belittle both Wally and Bart to try to make Barry look better.

There's nothing more insulting to readers' intelligences than when Johns thinks he can say he's going to treat Wally with any kind of respect. He's already dragged him viciously through the mud. And worst of all, he's seen to it that Wally gets no real sendoff. No real good ending to his series, like Barry and Bart got. It's ********, and it's insulting.

 

[Aristotle]

I'd say I wish Wally would reconnect with him and re-establish their friendship, but Wally's going to be little more than a footnote soon, let alone Piper.

Yeah, and Wally hasn't even reconnected with his homeboy Kyle, either.

I'd like to conclude this series of angry, bitter posts, by saying that I absolutely loved Rogues' Revenge.

 

[Hush]

I hear you Corp but Geoff doesnt screw around with Flashes he helped make. I mean he had nothing to do with kyle so why would he bother and worry about his fans. But with Wally, he pretty much made him what he is so i think he will come out of this better than you think.

 

[Aristotle]

You're buying a line of ******** longer than Ron Jeremy's dick, Hush.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I hear you Corp but Geoff doesnt screw around with Flashes he helped make. I mean he had nothing to do with kyle so why would he bother and worry about his fans. But with Wally, he pretty much made him what he is so i think he will come out of this better than you think.

I'm tired of seeing this. Geoff Johns did not make a goddamn thing about Wally West. All he did was give him kids and then hand him off to DiDio to f*** up irreparably. Bill Messner-Loebs, various Titans writers, and especially Mark Waid made Wally who he is. Johns made Keystone and the Rogues interesting. He basically just continued along with what Waid and others started with Wally himself.

 

[Flash Facts]

Waid made Wally, Johns spent his run fleshing out the Rouges and setting in motion the things that killed Wally's book.

 

[Keyser Soze]

Captain Cold: Boy, Wally West wasn't serious about his job at all, and really never had to work hard or do anything. He's barely a superhero, or a human being, really.
Weather Wizard: But Barry Allen was serious. He was really serious. He was so serious, he could kill us by pointing at us and saying "Yahtzee." I kind of want to get pregnant with his baby.
Geoff Johns: Yeah, me too.

Yeah, I thought that was a really revealing conversation.

Yeah, if you try really, really, REALLY hard to find the cloud in the silver lining, and take an aggressively negative skew on the scene, then thi is exactly how that conversation turns out.

 

[Franklin Richards]

I'd say Marv Wolfman really made Wally. At least for us old dudes.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

He's among the Titans writers I mentioned. Waid really defined Wally for me personally, but earlier writers certainly did great work of their own bringing him to the point where Waid took over.

 

[Aristotle]

I'm tired of seeing this. Geoff Johns did not make a goddamn thing about Wally West. All he did was give him kids and then hand him off to DiDio to f*** up irreparably. Bill Messner-Loebs, various Titans writers, and especially Mark Waid made Wally who he is. Johns made Keystone and the Rogues interesting. He basically just continued along with what Waid and others started with Wally himself.

Bill Messner-Loebs? Really? His Flash was good, but the characterization was undone inside twenty issues, and wasn't really consistent with Wally's previous characterization in Teen Titans. Messner-Loebs is a great writer and he made some very commendable efforts at crafting a new Wally West, but they backpedaled him to the guy we know today (which I think is even better.)

 

[Aristotle]

Yeah, if you try really, really, REALLY hard to find the cloud in the silver lining, and take an aggressively negative skew on the scene, then thi is exactly how that conversation turns out.

Is there another way to interpret that conversation? How can that conversation possibly mean anything other than "Barry's the real Flash, Wally was always just a Kid Flash Teen Titans pretender"?

 

[Keyser Soze]

Is there another way to interpret that conversation? How can that conversation possibly mean anything other than "Barry's the real Flash, Wally was always just a Kid Flash Teen Titans pretender"?

I already took time to, at length, discuss how it could be interpreted differently. You read my post, blinked, and just said, "Nah, I'm just going to read it as Geoff Johns characterising the Barry/Wally dynamic the way I decided he would before I picked up a single issue of this mini-series." You've made it clear that no even-handed or objective discussion of what was said will change your mind about this, so I'm not sure if its productive taking any more time to expand my counter-argument.

 

[Aristotle]

No, please break it down for me about this conversation means anything else.

MM: The things you've told me about Central City's Flash though. He ain't like the kid who took it up after him. Or the old man. You had those two convinced it was all fun and games.
WW: It wasn't with him, McCulloch. He treated us like he did Grodd or Kadabra. He never gave us a break.

...later...

CC: And it wouldn't matter where we ran to if the Flash is back.

So what do the italicized statements tell us?
1) Barry Allen is different than Wally West. Implication by context: Barry Allen is better in some way than Wally West. Not better for the Rogues; worse for the Rogues.
2) Wally West (and Jay Garrick; let's not forget the disrespect we're seeing for Jay here) are just a coupla jokers, it's all fun and games to them! They're just kinda playing around, they're not serious. Fun and games. Just fun and games.
3) Barry doesn't give anyone a break. He's not a slacker like Wally, who, by the implications of this statement, did give people breaks. Dumb ol' Wally always let us escape, always gave us a break. What a horrible excuse for a superhero.
4) "It wouldn't matter where we ran to." Again, the implication here is that, with Wally, they could always escape, because Wally wasn't good enough. But with Barry, there's no escape. Just the ever-approaching spectre of JUSTICE.
5) "If the Flash is back." Because Wally and Jay and Bart? They're not Flashes. They're just a bunch of suckers wearing red. There's only one Flash. And his name is Barry Allen.

Now tell me how that conversation means something different. I desperately want to believe that Geoff Johns actually has an ounce of respect in him for Wally West.

 

[Keyser Soze]

No, please break it down for me about this conversation means anything else.

MM: The things you've told me about Central City's Flash though. He ain't like the kid who took it up after him. Or the old man. You had those two convinced it was all fun and games.
WW: It wasn't with him, McCulloch. He treated us like he did Grodd or Kadabra. He never gave us a break.

...later...

CC: And it wouldn't matter where we ran to if the Flash is back.

So what do the italicized statements tell us?
1) Barry Allen is different than Wally West. Implication by context: Barry Allen is better in some way than Wally West. Not better for the Rogues; worse for the Rogues.
2) Wally West (and Jay Garrick; let's not forget the disrespect we're seeing for Jay here) are just a coupla jokers, it's all fun and games to them! They're just kinda playing around, they're not serious. Fun and games. Just fun and games.
3) Barry doesn't give anyone a break. He's not a slacker like Wally, who, by the implications of this statement, did give people breaks. Dumb ol' Wally always let us escape, always gave us a break. What a horrible excuse for a superhero.
4) "It wouldn't matter where we ran to." Again, the implication here is that, with Wally, they could always escape, because Wally wasn't good enough. But with Barry, there's no escape. Just the ever-approaching spectre of JUSTICE.
5) "If the Flash is back." Because Wally and Jay and Bart? They're not Flashes. They're just a bunch of suckers wearing red. There's only one Flash. And his name is Barry Allen.

Now tell me how that conversation means something different. I desperately want to believe that Geoff Johns actually has an ounce of respect in him for Wally West.

Nowhere does it say that Wally West is an inferior hero, or that Barry is a better Flash. Like I explained above, it's setting up a different character dynamic. Wally's approach to crime-fighting was different. Like others on here have said, he actively tried to rehabilitate the Rogues, and on a few occasions found himself working with them. It's clear that Wally handled the Rogues as being on one tier of villainy, and guys like Zoom and Grodd as being on a whole other level.

But it was different with Barry. Barry Allen and Captain Cold were arch enemies. He viewed the Rogues as just as dangerous a threat as anyone else. They don't have the shared history with the Rogues that Wally has. And so the dynamics of the battle have changed. It's about setting up different character dynamics, and about repositioning the Rogues as deadly enemies that are headed for a big battle with The Flash. Not about belittling Wally.

It's like saying whenever comics depict gangsters as being more afraid of The Punisher than Spider-Man or Iron Man (who don't kill), this is part of Marvel editorial's conspiracy to undermine Spider-Man and Iron Man and make them appear to be second-rate heroes because they're less "serious" about their job.

 

[fifthfiend]

words.

words.

words.

words.

words.

Jesus Tottle, just use the edit button.

 

[Hush]

I'm tired of seeing this. Geoff Johns did not make a goddamn thing about Wally West. All he did was give him kids and then hand him off to DiDio to f*** up irreparably. Bill Messner-Loebs, various Titans writers, and especially Mark Waid made Wally who he is. Johns made Keystone and the Rogues interesting. He basically just continued along with what Waid and others started with Wally himself.

Forgive me i can't find much of waids run mainly Johns, so that is what I have to go off of man. Also just a little faith in the man.

 

[batnkevlar]

I don't think Barry is a one dimensional character... I see him as a conservative cop, with conservative justice values... he's kinda like having a cop who's a dad, which I can relate to... all business, not enough pleasure...

 

[Aristotle]

Jesus Tottle, just use the edit button.

I prefer to do separate posts to respond to different people. Keeps them thematically consistent.