Forever Evil: Rogues Rebellion 3
Brian Buccellato, Scott Hepburn, Andre Coelho
Spoiler alert! You have been warned!
Even though Meat Loaf once famously sang about how “Two outta three ain’t bad,” I’m pretty sure he wasn’t talking about the Forever Evil miniseries spin-offs. And, come to think of it, that was a pretty depressing song that didn’t exactly end on a high note. So, obscure musical reference aside, it should come as no surprise to any of the readers who have been following my Forever Evil event coverage that I’m pretty disappointed with the writing of Brian Buccellato. Add to that the fact that the Rogues themselves have never been particularly interesting to me as characters (in theory, yes, but in practice, rarely) and you have a recipe for a bland book. And then you take away great artwork from the likes of Francis Manapul (the main The Flash series) and the first issue tease of great artwork from Patrick Zircher. Scott Hepburn and Andre Coelho should not be on superhero books at all, let alone high profile event books. It’s embarrassing.
This series is pointless, and it’s almost as if the creators not only know this, but accept it. They’re crossing over with the Forever Evil: Arkham War (albeit in a weird seemingly out-of-continuity way). The issue is primarily moving along from point A to point B, with not a whole lot happening. Around half of the book has pretty decent artwork. And around half of the book has pretty awful artwork. There is a neat little fight between the Rogues and Poison Ivy. A pretty awesome (but could have been better) fight between the Rogues and a small Man-Bat army. There’s a creepy Ventriloquist cameo. And there’s even a high point, a genuine and touching scene of heartfelt humanity where one of the Rogues actually goes back to save one of his own. Granted, it’s Mirror Master. And he’s always seemed to be one of the better ones. Then we get a glimpse of things to come as Man-Bat flies directly into a giant ice wall. But it’s not Captain Cold’s doing. No, it’s Mr. Freeze. And he brought along his ally Clayface to whoop on the Rogues some more.
Now, let me get one thing straight: This isn’t a good comic. But it’s not exactly a terrible one, either. The script is decent and there are enough villains to keep just about any DC fan happy. But the artwork is unacceptable. And the fact that this whole miniseries just seems like extended Villains Month issues and could have been a big one-shot with crisp art and a more condensed storyline is starting to become very apparent to me as a lifelong DC fan. I’ll give anything a shot if it features Batman characters, but geeze. This is just cruel. Stop putting them in other books to boost the sales and start emphasizing the books own characters as a way to solidify their own awesomeness. Or, in the case of the Rogues, show reluctant fans like me why they are awesome to begin with. You’ve got three more issues left. You can do this. I’ll stick it out, especially if this Mr. Freeze and Clayface battle is as cool as I’m hoping it will be, but they need to get out of Gotham. And they need to start doing something. It’s been years that I’ve been hearing how great they are. I’d love to actually see it before the Flash comes back.
My Rating: 2.5/5
