Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge #3

Again, there's not a lot to annotate here--as opposed to Lo3W, which I won't be able to get to for a day or two. I'll note that the whole thing appears to be happening on day 5 of the timeline below, since the ultimate unsolicited e-mail hasn't happened yet.

Pg. 1:

Fairly close to an accurate quote--and Twain again! The actual sentence, from Twain's Autobiography, is: "That idea pleased me; indeed there is more real pleasure to be gotten out of a malicious act, where your heart is in it, than out of thirty acts of a nobler sort." And yes, it was Weather Wizard's brother's observatory, as everyone but me figured out.

Pg. 2:

You know, describing them as "blue-collar" is pushing it, given that Mardon's brother appears to have had his very own observatory.

Pp. 4-5:

I'm out of the country at the moment and don't have my back issues at hand: when did the Top build Speedrebro in the observatory?

Of what state is Central City the capital? I mean, I realize the DCU U.S. is so big it's got two presidents at any given time...

I love Mick's "Can I burn it? Huh? Can I burn it?" routine.

Pg. 6:

Inertia's real name is Thaddeus Thawne, and who wouldn't turn to a life of destruction with a name like that?

Pg. 7:

Zoom's motivation is kind of fantastic, but it always makes me think of that routine from the Sacred Wars: "You know what builds character, don't you? Conflict! PRAISE conflict!"

Pg. 12:

Mirror Master not only killed the Pied Piper's parents in (I believe) FLASH #174, but framed him for it. Guess McCulloch is a homophobe too.

Pg. 13:

Why does Libra think that's blasphemy? It was established--by Desaad, I believe--in COUNTDOWN #10.

Pg. 14:

Wasn't Iris Allen taking care of Josh for a while? How'd he go from that to "bouncing around"? (According to Josh's Hyperborea page, Chyre had wanted to adopt him too.)

Pg. 19:

Persuasion doesn't quite cut it as Libra's power, especially since we've seen so many people resist him (like Luthor, for instance). It also doesn't quite make sense why Libra utters his little expository speech here about speedsters being "the breakers of the Bleed"...

Pg. 20:

"He won't have a gun" is a callback to FLASH #197, I believe. Grodd growling is from the sequence where Hunter was crippled in FLASH #193.

Pg. 21:

"Honor among thieves": the formulation goes back to Cicero, but one of the first documented uses of something similar in English is from Peter Motteaux's early-18th-century translation of Don Quixote: "The old proverb still holds good, Thieves are never rogues among themselves."

Heat Wave established last issue that he can melt the Flash's boots. What was the first story where he did that, though? [ETA: Kris Weberg points out in the comments that it was FLASH #266.]

Pg. 24:

"Year": really? Let's check the chronology--specifically, the DCU Timeline. The "year" would have to begin with the death of Bart, which coincided with "The Lightning Saga," which appeared to begin around U.S. Thanksgiving time. That coincided with the first dozen or so issues of COUNTDOWN, but COUNTDOWN didn't take place over a year--more like a few months--and SALVATION RUN, which takes place over the course of about five weeks, starts midway through it. So it's been a brutal five months for them, let's say.

Pg. 25:

Zoom "was to be the messenger of Darkseid"? A guy with boom tubes needs messengers?

Pg. 28:

"The one place no speedsters will look": wait, what?

4 comments:

Kris Weberg said...

pp. 4-5, center panel: Policeman Jared Morillo is visible in one of the mirror-scenes; the shaving scene recalls an earlier one in which Morillo discovered his Cicada-induced healing powers in Flash v.3 #173.

pg. 13: It's blasphemy because part of Libra's religion of crime seems to be that only Darkseid has the ALE, and Daerkseid's scheme in Final Crisis appears to involve the Apokolips gods of the Fourth World refusing to give way for the Earth-born gods of the Fifth World. If thart's Darkseid's goal, then a mortal like the Piper can't be considered a "muse of the New Gods."

pg. 19: Libra's pwoer seems to be a weaker version of the evil New God Glorious Godfrey's; Godfrey's power didn't work on exceptionally strong-willed individuals either.

pp. 23-4: This is, of course, visually as well as narratively parallel to the Rogues' murder of Bart Allen in Flash: TFMA #13.

pg. 25: Presumably Zoom could spread the word without everyone who hears the "BOOM" knowing exactly what's going on. Alternately, this is the "breakers of the Bleed" idea; Zoom could take Darkseid's message to the infinite parallel worlds.

pg. 26: "Lightning storms with no rain? Red skies?"

These were, of course, the most visible effects of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths.

pg. 27, panel 2: Cold used the Flash Museum basement as a hideout in Flash v.3 #185-6, during the "Crossfire" story arc.

I see, going clockwise from the upper left, a stack of the Mirror Master's mirrors, a statue of Abra Kadabra, a Flash statue like the one in front of the museum, Mr. Element's mask, a bust of either Grodd or Solovar, and one of the Top's various top-weapons.

Kris Weberg said...

The first time Heat Wave melted the Flash's boots was way back in Flash v.1 #266, his first outing as a solo villain. (Prior to that story, he had never been seen outside the company of other Rogues.)

Douglas Wolk said...

Kris, this is great stuff--I'll try to integrate it a bit later. Thanks so much.

Cahse Garland said...

The speedsters being the "Breakers of the Bleed" goes back to Flash V.1 #123, wherein Barry discovers Earth-2. As I'm sure you know, of course. =P

They don't break the Bleed as in destroy. They break through it. As it stands, I think speedsters are the only mortal heroes that can traverse through Earths.