Rogues Rebellion #1

Mirror Master, that gun doesn't fit your theme! Unless it shoots mirror bullets that only kill people when you shoot their reflections! That would actually be a cool gun! Albeit of limited use.

When the Crime Syndicate decided to take over Earth Prime (or Earth Zero (or New Earth Prime (or New Earth Prime Zero Hour Year Infinity 52))), some super villains decided not to join their stupid Secret Society of Super-villains. Or maybe some of them just didn't receive an invite via Fancy Latin Coin. And, of course, Monocle just got his head blown off instead of joining which really seems, to me, like a poor decision. To each his own, I guess!

The Rogues decided to protect what is theirs in Keystral City because they have a motto: "Bros over nightmare assholes from another dimension." It's not a great motto but it's easy to understand! I guess this comic book is their story!

After returning from the Secret Society meet-up in Happy Harbor, The Rogues return to Keystral City to find it in ruins. That's because they helped stop the city from being destroyed by apes but then left for a few hours and forgot to lock the doors and the apes got back in while they were away.

The apes did that to him! I hope they didn't get The Folded Man!

After finding Girder crushed because he was a stupid one panel villain from The Flash's early run and destined to become cannon fodder, The Rogues wander into the Forest of Chained Up Cops. It's beginning to feel like The Wizard of Oz! Captain Cold is Dorothy because he's the main character and he wears blue. Mirror Master is The Tin Man because he spent so many years trapped inside a prison unable to love. Weather Wizard is the Lion because fuck you, he just is. Heatwave is the Scarecrow because their names have two syllables and they both have an issue with fire. And The Trickster is Toto because they're both annoying! They're all perfectly analogous to each of the other characters! Only stupid dumb internet monsters that love to argue couldn't see it! It's so blatantly obvious!

So Captain Cold must find a way to return to his beautiful Keystone Kansas as opposed to this war-torn realm full of non-flying apes and evil pig trees. But to save his home, he must first find Glider the Good Witch and make sure she's okay.

Yep! She's fine! Next on the agenda?

The Rogues stand around Glider's room in their ridiculous costumes trying to have a seriously emotional moment. "How is she? What do we do?" asks the green hooded guy in the half-face mask with the dumb orange body suit, desperate to save the woman he loves. "I don't know," says the man in the furry hoodie with the Devo glasses and yellow cummerbund and the white ski boots, sick with worry for his comatose sister.

Before the tone gets too depressing and serious and super hilarious seeing as how they all look so goofy while crying and being emotional jerks, Firestorm's Rogues Gallery arrives to bring them a message from the Crime Syndicate.

Since Grodd and his apes represented the motorcycle riding monkeys, these guys must be the subway trashcans full of teeth.

Should we play a guessing game? Who would best match up with whom? Captain Cold versus Typhoon should be over immediately although I have a feeling Typhoon will end up comparing weather phenomena with Weather Wizard. The Hyena obviously wants The Trickster, so I guess I have to give them that one. Captain Cold (since I stole Typhoon from him) will match up with Multiplex so he can freeze his various aspects. Heatwave can set Black Bison's headdress and magic staff on fire. And Mirror Master can hide himself and Glider inside the Mirror World, away from Plastique's explosions. Or maybe Captain Cold will just defeat them all because Captain Cold is the greatest Rogue ever.

Hearing is definitely a sense!

Heatwave begins by calling out the "hot little ginger." At first I thought he meant Hyena but it seems like he's going after Plastique. My gut reaction when calling the pairs was to put these two together but it just seemed too dangerous! I don't think anybody is going to win this fight because they're all going to become trapped in a burning building whose structure has been weakened by dozens of explosions!

See!? Remember, this is all going down in a hospital corridor!

It turns out I was slightly wrong. For some reason, Plastique and Heatwave took their fight outside. Safety first! I noticed because on the next page, Weather Wizard and Typhoon are measuring their tidal waves out by a fire hydrant.

Weather Wizard's is bigger.

Trickster matches teeny, tiny wits with The Hyena while Captain Cold battles Black Bison because they're the leaders of each group. Captain Cold also has to battle Multiplex because why not? Put down the guy giving orders and the rest of them won't have to listen to any more orders! I think that helps in battle somehow. Although Mirror Master isn't listening to Captain Cold's orders anyway since he leaves Lisa's side to help Captain Cold with Multiplex.

Ha ha! Mirror Master is going to kill all of Multiplex's clones by starving them to death!

Since Mirror Master was supposed to be watching over Lisa, that means Black Bison probably now has her and is going to threaten her life to get the Rogues to stand down. That's just the kind of wacky thing that usually happens during gang fights.

Except Black Bison never reappears with Glider because there are only two more pages left. One page is used for Captain Cold to yell at Mirror Master for not following orders and the other page deals with the appearance of Deathstorm and Power Ring. They're here to kill the Rogues because what else can you do to those assholes that click "decline" on your party evites? Fuckers.

Rogues Rebellion #1 Rating: I'm going to start this at Rank #26 because it was a pretty decent comic-book comic book (can you use a noun as an adjective to describe the exact same noun? Is that allowed anywhere besides my commentaries? It's more than allowed here!) but there really wasn't anything extra special sauce about it. The worst part of the entire experience was having to look at that advert for Scott Lobdell's next big story arc, KRYPTON RETURNS! Can't he just fucking write his comic book without rubbing his stink glands all over the other Superbooks? Stop uniting them with ridiculous "alternate timelines" stories. Why couldn't he leave his X-men shit at the door to DC's offices?