- Condiment King: The thing about Snart is that he always made everyone else pay the tab.
Rogues is a 2022 limited series by DC Comics as part of their DC Black Label written by Joshua Williamson with art by Leomacs. While famed for his extended run on The Flash, this is Williamson's Villain Episode for that corner of the DC Universe.
It's 10 years into the future, and the Rogues have all split up and gone straight with their lives. Some are doing well, some are fighting bad habits, and some are in between. However, upset about how far he's fallen in his life, Captain Cold decides to get the rogues back together for One Last Job so they can finally retire proud of themselves and away from their current situations.
However, in order to do that, they'll have to go up against an old Flash associate: Gorilla Grodd, and his changed Gorilla City. And when going in after so long, things might not go how ANYONE expects it.
Rogues provides examples of:
- Adaptational Villainy: After years of growing bitterness, Leonard Snart has become far worse than he used to be, breaking several of the Rogues's old rules in the process of the heist.
- Ascended Extra: Sam from Angel and the Ape ends up being a major supporting character in the story despite being a bit character in most of DC.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Offscreen trope. In the 10 years since canon, Gorilla Grodd managed to take over Gorilla City and turn it into his crime headquarters.
- Big Bad: Gorilla Grodd. New king of Gorilla City, and the target of the heist.
- Bond One-Liner: Cold's coup de grace on Grodd is a confirmation of what he mocked Snart about. "You're right. Everyone close to me dies."
- Boom, Headshot!: The ultimate fate of Golden Glider and Bronze Tiger at the end of the book.
- The Cameo: Condiment King's bar is the setting for the prologue and epilogue.
- Caper Crew: Well, these are the Rogues. For this "final" iteration, it's Captain Cold, Golden Glider, Trickster, Magenta, Bronze Tiger, Heatwave and Mirror Master.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Condiment King, a master of mixing things now runs a pretty successful bar.
- The Trickster, being a clever and comically themed villain found great success in "retirement" being a comedian for older people.
- Bronze Tiger plays with it. He's now channeling his combat ability into self defense classes, but unfortunately, they don't nearly pay as much as they could since he's an ex-con.
- Darker and Edgier: This book in the Black Label is very R rated. With gruesome deaths, dark themes and a harsh reality for everyone after their glory days.
- Death Seeker: Heatwave has lost his will to keep on making fires and living in obscurity, so part of joining the old crew is looking for a good death. He finds it protecting his friends.
- "Everyone Dies" Ending: Every leading character dies. The Rogues, Grodd, much of Gorilla City. There are a few minor characters who survive, but they're fewer and far between.
- Fatal Flaw: Leonard's biggest flaw through this whole story is Greed. He wanted to have ALL the gold as part of creating a perfect final heist, and to be rich beyond all measure in the aftermath. If he'd been willing to be humble and only take enough of the gold to retire comfortably, the heist would've gone off near flawless. Instead, Cold got everyone killed by getting the team divided and picked off.
- He also suffers from Wrath due to his outrage at being made fun of at work.
- Freeze Ray: Captain Cold still has his Cold Gun.
- Good Feels Good: This is something that Lisa managed to internalize while Leonard never quite got. She ended up becoming a female crisis center worker because of this more altruistic heart.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Heatwave ends up blowing up his pursuers in order to give Lisa and Ben time to escape to the surface.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: Cold hides the Rogues in Africa in plain sight with camera equipment so they look like a documentary crew.
- Killed Offscreen: Weather Wizard and Captain Boomerang are mentioned to have died sometime in the 10 years.
- Killer Gorilla: Gorilla Grodd is the Big Bad that Rogues have to face, and is now the ruler of Gorilla City.
- No-Respect Guy: Cold feels this way about himself. Even though he got a promotion at his work placement, he still hears the murmurs from others around him about his being a loser.
- Number Two: Captain Cold might've pulled everyone together, but it was Golden Glider that all the other rogues truly respected to give them direction.
- One Last Job: Why Cold wants to get the gang back together: to rob Gorilla City of its gold reserves.
- The Reveal: The reason Grodd has changed Gorilla City so much is because he took over the worldwide drug trade.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Despite his reputation, Bronze Tiger took a vow to never take another life after all the bad he did. Something he remarkably keeps even as things start collapsing around the mission.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Nobody wins, the gold of Gorilla City is lost in the mirror dimension, and all the villains die. Cold's ambitions are never paid off, and he dies surrounded by the misery he created.
- Slashed Throat: The Trickster gets this treatment from Golden Glider after he pushes his sick nature a bit too far regarding infant kidnapping.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Trickster makes this observation in regards to Magenta and Bronze Tiger. That after the deaths of Weather Wizard and Captain Boomerang, they needed another "heavy hitter" and "scapegoat" to replace them as part of the caper.
- Time Skip: From an intro in Condiment King's bar, it skips forward 10 years to when the real story begins, showing how things have changed since the Rogues’ Glory Days.
- Tragic Villain: Magenta has the least reason to want to go back to crime. Particularly because her powers are starting to go out of her control without medication. But because living on parole doesn't help cover the medication anymore, she's roped into joining the job.
- Villain Episode: Nearly the entire book is from the perspective of Flash villains. In fact, The Flash doesn't even make an appearance in the story.
- What The Hell Villain: Mirror Master is furious that Captain Cold's direction ended up in Magenta killing herself.
