greenygal

So with the latest issue of Countdown, people are complaining that Jimmy Olsen knows who Dick and Jason are and that Superman isn't bothering to do anything about Red Hood wandering around. They have a point.

But the thing is, I'm really reading this book because of the Trickster & Pied Piper plot thread, and consequently the thing that I want to complain about is this business with the other Flash Rogues mistrusting them because they were all reformed and practically the Flash's sidekicks and everything!

First, while "Flash's sidekick" is a perfectly reasonable description of Piper, Trickster would rightly take it as an insult. I honestly can't recall a single instance where he helped Flash out or worked with him on anything; they had a couple of civil conversations during the period where Trickster was working for the FBI, but since Trickster was hiding pretty much everything important from Wally in those conversations, it doesn't quite seem that it counts. But hey, maybe to the Rogues, "reformed" and "working with the Flash" are the same thing. I can live with this one.

But what really, really doesn't work is having this fuss about Trickster and Piper being side-switching goody-goodies while Heat Wave is standing right there being one of their accusers. Heat Wave, you see, reformed twenty-five years ago. He relapsed briefly at one point, went to Hell, came back, and intelligently straightened up again after that. On which moral side he then remained until a couple of years ago when Geoff Johns retconned him into only having been brainwashed to reform (and a mass murderer, to boot), whereupon he switched sides again. Which is, come to think of it, exactly the story that Piper and Trickster are claiming. Am I missing anything out of this summary? Oh, yes: for over two years prior to the grand climax of mass unbrainwashing and side-switching, Heat Wave was working with Trickster and Piper to take down the Rogues who were still criminals. All the Rogues know this. You would think, if they were going to be all picky about who can be trusted, they would have added Heat Wave to their hit list, wouldn't you?

Look, I know, and the writers know, that Piper and Trickster are the heroes of this subplot and that Heat Wave is not. It's comforting, actually, since one of my fears for the characters was that they would go straight-on villainous again, and it's nice to see their reformed status recognized, even if it has apparently taken the form of signs on their backs saying "NOT REALLY BAD GUYS." (I'm sad about Heat Wave, mind you, but since the mass murderer thing largely destroyed the possibility of playing the character as a genuine good guy, I'm prepared to cut my losses on that one.) But it would be nice if the Rogues had some reason to know all this. Otherwise I'm left with a scene in which a formerly reformed supervillain gets all huffy about people who have SWITCHED SIDES!! and, well, I don't think I was supposed to be laughing, was I?