#gorgoues

I’m a big fan of the Flashes, the extended Flash family, and the Flash Rogues. There are many, many, many writers who handle these characters really, really well, and even writers whose handling of the characters I often dislike usually have at least one character whom they write really well. That being said, certain writers just don’t seem to get certain characters. This post is a list of some examples. (Keep in mind that this is all subjective!) 

-I (fairly or otherwise) tend to give comic books from before Crisis on Infinite Earths a bit of a pass in terms of strange narrative choices. Are there certain Silver and Bronze Age Flash issues where some of the cast is out-of-character? Absolutely. However, the comic industry at that time was very different from the modern comic industry, and it feels wrong to hold those older issues and writers to the same standards. So John Broome, Gardner Fox, Robert Kanigher, Cary Bates, and the other writers of that era will not be a part of this list. That being said, I have to give a mention to Flash #109, which featured Barry using the Mirror Master’s tech to trick Iris into believing that she was seeing him in various reflections so that she would agree to date him again. (The Silver Age, everybody!) Not cool, Barry. 

-Mike Baron didn’t really feature any of the original Rogues. In fact, I think the only pre-existing villain in his run was Vandal Savage, who he handled pretty well. Baron also established Wally’s personality well. That being said, he may have overplayed his hand in making Wally an unlikable jerk to some extent. As big a Wally fan as I am, even I find him a bit hard to swallow during a lot of Baron’s run. 

-William Messner-Loebs used the Rogues primarily as sources of comedy. Personally, I like his take on the Rogues, but I do think it may have played into the perception of the Rogues as not being legitimate threats, which in turn lead to most of the problems that occurred with them later down the line. No complaints with his handling of Wally or the Pied Piper. He also had one of the best supporting casts of any run on the Flash. 

- Mark Waid did a fantastic Wally. I love his Wally so very much, and his Linda is quite good as well. He does a good Jay, he does a good Johnny Quick, and he does a good Jesse Quick. He invented Bart and basically invented Max Mercury too, both of whom were great under his pen. His Barry, when he got the chance to write him, was also really good, and his Reverse Flash, though different from the Pre-Crisis version, was terrific. He’s hands-down the best Abra Kadabra writer, gave the Trickster his greatest triumph, wrote a good Magenta, and handled Piper well. 

That being said, his handling of the other Rogues was rather hit-or-miss. To his credit, he did acknowledge the fact that he wasn’t good with writing them and seemed to avoid them whenever possible. However, when he did write them, things sometimes went sideways. Besides killing them off in Underworld Unleashed (which he later had the good grace to admit was probably a mistake), probably the best example of his difficulty in writing them can be seen in his handling of the Top and the Golden Glider. 

@gorogues‘s favorite character is the Top, and she has expressed a distaste with the way he was handled in the arc where he tried to become president, mostly due to the way in which he was treated both as something of a joke and as a substantially nastier character than most of the other Rogues. Now granted, the Top has a history of being somewhat more prone to putting people in danger than the other Rogues (he did try to blow up Central City during the Bronze Age), but there was never any particular implication that he didn’t get along with the rest of them or that he didn’t like the Piper in particular. This story implied both, and thus set up further problems with him later on down the line. 

The way he wrote the Golden Glider was rather more annoying. He clearly didn’t know what to do with her, so after a few brief appearances where she seemed uncharacteristically unhinged, he had her killed off to prove how dangerous the brown-haired Chillblaine was. It wasn’t exactly fridging (yet), but she was still killed off for one of the worst possible reasons (especially since that Chillblaine would promptly cease to be a threat about two issues after he killed her). It was not a good way to kill a character, even a comparatively minor one. 

Tony Stark and Bruce Banner...look at these adorable fools completely in love with each other...awwwwww!!!