For more reviews and bookish posts please visit: http://www.ManOfLaBook.com

The Flash, Vol. 3: Rogues Reloaded by Joshua Williamson (illustrated by Carmine Di Giandomenico) is a graphic novel where The Flash is fighting a litany of villains, or is he helping them? This graphic novel collects The Flash #14 – 20.

The Rogues (currently Captain Cold, the Mirror Master, Heat Wave, the Weather Wizard, the Trickster, the Pied Piper, the Top, and Captain Boomerang) have left Central City after finally pulling of that “one big score” and are living it up in a beachside mansion. Only that that “one big score” was done on the backs of the wrong people, who are out for revenge.

The Rogues are not stupid, they know they’ll need help from The Flash in order to survive this ordeal.

Frankly I did not expect this graphic novel to be this good. The Flash, Vol. 3: Rogues Reloaded by Joshua Williamson (illustrated by Carmine Di GIandomenico) combines great visuals and character driven story in one fantastic package.

Even though the main story line focuses on Thee Rogues and their issue, there are several short, but to the point, stories focusing on Barry Allen’s relationship with his girlfriend, Iris West, and Wally West (Kid Flash). The main story line adds some vagueness to the question of whether The Rogues are good or bad.
The best villains are ones that do bad things for good reasons.

The writers seem to have a problem though, what to do with Iris West?
She’s supposed to be an ace reporter, yet can’t figure out that Barry Allen is The Flash?
Is she waiting for him to tell her, but she already knows?
Barry is dying to tell her is The Flash every other page.
One the bright side, Kid Flash wasn’t as annoying.

Even though this graphic novel was a bit predictable, I still enjoyed it very much ( )

There were three main stories in this TPB.

It started with the Rogues (hence the title of the TPB). They got outta town after the speed storm, but they really couldn't help themselves.

Captain Cold and Co. plan a super complicated job, and as usual there were definitely interesting different levels in the plan and story. It was the Rogues classically reloaded, but then their plan took them to another whole level.

Then there was a Kid Flash/Flash mentorish story were truths were revealed as Wally went to look for his father who had supposedly been moved from Iron Heights. It was interesting, but also not surprising.

Finally there was a short story with Iris investigating some grave robberies and getting sucked into a Black Hole thing and also starting to worry about her relationship with Barry.

Oh my, and that ending. Yikes. Another cool Rebirth title for sure.

I was given this ARC by Netgalley on behalf of DC Entertainment. ( )