2 out of 5

Ah, the late 90s.  ‘Rogues’ was part of New Year’s Evil, a ‘fifth week’ event of one-shots that included the ‘Prometheus’ one-shot Morrison wrapped into his JLA run.  Similarly, and rather obviously, ‘Rogues’ would appear to be part of the then-current Flash continuity… so it’s actual status as a one-shot is rather questionable.  AND by the way, fifth-week events were a new concept to me; wiki describes them as fill-in events for those months with extra weeks (the ‘fifth week,’ womp womp).  Wiki goes on to say that they’ve become rare, since month-long universe-wide crossovers are now the thing to do, so feel free to weep for simpler times with me.

Which is where this comic gets some points – it’s a simpler time.  The villains were more colorful, the stories weren’t as heavy.  That doesn’t make ‘Rogues’ a particularly great read – there’s some nonsense mythology on the first page that makes it really off-putting for a new reader – and the tale of the Flash villains teaming up to steal an artifact which should help them out with some Neron problems (assumedly part of the New Year’s Evil shtick) white washes over years of villainy as the boys bicker over whether or not they should be ‘good’ in order to save their souls, relegating what could’ve been a fast and funny theft into a lot of generic exposition.  Ron Wagner’s pencils and Bill Reinhold’s inks look grand – very classic, touches of Kubert in the squared, lanky characters but with a very healthy 80s style batch of square-jawed expressions, and the panels and pages are packed with great backgrounds, well chosen composition, and appropriate color fills by Noelle Giddings.  The action gets a little too big for its britches toward the end, but you’ve already checked out of the story by then, so no big whoop.

One-shots are tough because, if they’re in addition to an ongoing series that’s not creator owned, they’re generally inconsequential.  The trick is to not make them seem inconsequential, and ‘Rogues’ doesn’t fool us on that for even a moment.  But it’s pretty to look at.