#flash rogues

Rant about a change they made to a character of your choice.

Honestly I do in general like most of the stuff with Hank and think it makes a cohesive story so you're gonna get another James rant which I think everyone wants.

I think Post-Crisis/Pre-Flashpoint James Jesse has such a good storyline, I think it's amazing, I love the reformed villain who genuinely becomes better and while a lot of people are like "he only fully reformed because he screwed over Neron" I am generally a bit more supportive because like... he chose to screw over Neron to protect other people, he chose to save the world, and the average Trickster crime is like...

Robbing a bank by supergluing people to a ceiling fan by their trousers anyway. Trying to kill Barry Allen is bad but he does genuinely seem to not want to hurt anyone who isn't Barry Allen as long as his friends aren't hurt or he isn't actively at risk at dying. Did Barry Allen consider not shutting off his anti-gravity shoes when he is 100ft up in the air? Maybe Barry is the problem /j

I also like how he is very readable as a closeted gay man and cares about Hartley so much, I love the fact that he dies while protecting him.

And when they bring him back... god it's an excuse to try and make him a Joker ripoff, he gets tortured in prison for 2 years but absolutely no one acknowledges just how horrific what he went through is, Joshua Williamson said he "faked his death" at some nebulous time that is obviously supposed to be Countdown, even though that makes no fucking sense at all in the context of Countdown like he just casually decomposed for three days and kept his annoying mouth shut when Hartley cut his fucking hand off then?

Williamson in general has a lot of bad stuff to say about Countdown (while also being the one writer who is notably worse no offense to Countdown) and it's like... what was so bad about Countdown? The fact that he was gay? Literally what do you hate so much about Countdown when tumblr users don't like it it's the homophobia but I HIGHLY doubt that that's why he doesn't like it...

Everything interesting about his character from pre-Flashpoint? Gone. Being a super genius, loving Hartley, he's much more willing to kill when I cannot stress this enough when I say James is the ONLY founding Rogue to never kill pre-Flashpoint, his parents are randomly con artists too? And like... they've always been abusive but it's so weird he implies he hates them for being lying cheats even though he is a proud lying cheat and also claimed that being a lying cheat is what he likes about Catwoman. Being a con artist is clearly a thing he likes so I genuinely do not think it makes sense for his parents to cause it.

He refuses to acknowledge that James is kind of a softie and generally the guy that is actually keeping the Rogues in line and sometimes convincing them to be more heroic but I guess we can't expect this when he clearly wants to be writing the Joker instead.

ALSO Williamson acted like the Rogues hated James even though it is overtly obvious that they LOVED him even in the aftermath of Countdown. Len kills Roscoe because he HURT James (and Mick and Hartley) and then when they rejoin the Rogues says they are family.

ALSO they only have him use bombs in some issues like this is the TRICKSTER. No one is asking for you to use him at least give him some actual interesting tricks.

Basically give me HIM back:

Okay so my idea of a bad Flash run is any one that tries to take itself too seriously, anything that feels too Batman, or feels like the Flash CW, basically if you're writing the Flash you have to keep in mind that this is a city that the first Trickster lives in and also you cannot change the first Trickster to make him more like a Batman villain. There has to be an element of joy and whimsy and everyone has to be just a little bit stupid.

Or

Bad Flash Comic: I was a worker in the factory when the Rogues attacked. Heat Wave fired his gun and the building caught on fire, everyone acts like the Rogues are just silly thieves and I hate that. When the flames reached the workers Heat Wave smiled.