Flashpoint: Legion of Doom Issue #3

Alright. Last week’s issue was stupid. I mean really stupid. The last issue in the series can not be as bad as that was right?

. . . right?

Well I for one want to get this over with. This is Legion of Doom issue 3.

This last cover is really the worst of them all. Cyborg in fire. I would have liked to have seen Cyborg and all the villains of the prison facing each other. This, however, just feels a bit lazy. Sure the fire effect could have taken a while but really, it is not that great to look at long term. 

The comic begins with the Prison falling from the sky in the middle of the day. Wait, wasn’t it night at the end of the last issue? I was pretty sure it was. Or was it just really overcast? There is one thing I can’t fault the comic for. Idiot people screaming and point at the thing that is about to crush them. Either run away or stay there and accept your fate. Doing neither of these is just dumb. Of course this is all we get for external for a while as we cut right back into the control room.

Plastic man is saying that he might not be a hero, but killing innocents is against his code. Heatwave and him fight about this for a bit until Heatwave brings out two villains to fight Eel.

The people we are going to kill off this time are Batman villain Lock up, a super guard of sorts who felt that killing criminals was the only true way to stop them for good, and Sportsmaster, a super powerful gym coach of sorts. Plastic man pokes out Lock up’s eyes and rips out Sportsmaster’s heart. I am not a master of anatomy, but how do you get the whole human heart out of the mouth? I’d rather not think about that one too hard. Anyway, Heatwave says that these guys were not meant to beat Plastic man, but only to be a distraction. From what you ask? From Heatwave to slowly pull out his fire arms and blast Plastic man.

…

So how were those guys a distraction when you did nothing new or smart? And how are your toy guns going to beat Plastic man?

The heck?! Stop making Heatwave all powerful! Seriously, the body count here is getting annoying.

After this fun little scene, we cut to Cyborg stopping a couple of car jackers. Cyborg tells them there are easier ways to make money like hacking a bank website or something. Cyborg, not everyone is a master hacker. Some people are stupid. Why, there is a whole prison full of such people falling right towards you.

Cyborg does see the prison falling right over his city. He comments that the prison only lands when it needs to pick up more crooks and there are none going there from Detroit at this time. He comes to the conclusion that the villains are running the air ship and want it to crash into his city. Of course he is not going to let this happen. Cyborg hacks the onboard computer remotely and starts to steer the ship away from the middle of the city.

On the ship, Heatwave demands the thinker to tell him what is going on. The Thinker, in DCU, is an AI given form by the first Thinker, a Jay Garrick Flash villain. Right now though, this Thinker is just a navigational computer. He says that Cyborg is moving the ship. Heatwave, the calm rational man that it is, yells at the top of his lungs to find something that they can blow up and drive right into it. The Thinker finds an indoor pro hockey game currently in progress.

Cyborg figures out that the only reason anyone would want to do any of this would be personal. As Cyborg gets on the roof, he says that it is too late to evacuate everyone and produces from his body a bunch of cords. The cords do have a point in a few panels so just hold on for a second.

Using his new connection to the indoor rink, Cyborg says that he needs to take their power for a bit for a plan that he has and for the people not to panic. Now see, that is smart. The hero has a plan that would scare the people but to stop the fear he tells them what he is doing, more or less. Adam Glass seems to write smart heroes, but his villains just are not that great. Of course this one panel still confuses me to this day.

What cat? Is that Cyborg’s nickname or is this just a Microsoft Word / typing error and the guy wanted to say ‘Cy’? I dunno, but hey, the people trust him. That is impressive in the Flashpoint world, where a hero is not always the good guy. So Cyborg finally sees inside the window at who is driving and notices Heatwave. Heatwave says that Cyborg is going to burn but just then, Cyborg lets loose his super attack.

Alright, I am nothing if not fair and this scene is pretty awesome to look at. As much as I love her, I don’t think the Canary Cry is going to be able to do this. Cyborg says that he has to manually steer the prison into the river. That is why he has a few cables attached to the prison ship. Again, it is a pretty smart plan. Since he knows that the sonic blast drained his power, and that remote control has already failed to work, he just moves onto the next option. Like I said before, smart heroes and brain dead villains.

Cyborg gets right to the edge of the dock when the ship crashes down. And I mean right at the edge. The ship is about 50/50 in the water and on the dock. It is just one of those “Oh, so close but sorry you lose” moments. 

Of course Heatwave, leading is group of lackeys, bust out of the flaming wreck and claim victory. Yes because destroying an empty dock equals the same glee as putting a whole city in flame.

Alright, seriously, they are happy since they think they finally killed off Cyborg. They did not mind you as Cyborg is seen just in the next panel, armless and with his tech based powers offline, making him just a handicapped man. Heatwave says that he is not going to kill Cyborg but make him watch his city burn. Stupid villain. Kill the hero and just be done with it. So what if he has to live in shame that he failed? Just kill him SAYING that you are going to burn the city would be enough to make his life end on a low note.

Cyborg calls Heatwave a chicken and that is enough to make Heatwave fight Cyborg one on one with no powers or gadgets. Even with Cyborg broken and drained, he is still smarter than the villain. 

So as Heatwave is beating on Cyborg with Cyborg’s own arm, he is ranting how Cyborg took everything away from him and blah blah blah villain speech. I do like how he says he is going to burn everything. Good luck with Atlantis.

Of course, Cyborg’s arm can still be controlled by him and he uses it to strangle Heatwave. Sure it is dirty fighting when Cyborg said no powers but come on. This is to protect lives. Heatwave goes for his guns but Cyborg breaks them. It is at this time we get the anti villain speech from Cyborg, which is to say that all the problems in Heatwave’s life are ones that he choose to act on. Cyborg is just a target for Heatwave’s hate.

So Cyborg wins and the other villains surrender. Heatwave still gloats that he made Cyborg’s city burn. Dude, you burned an EMPTY DOCK! Get over yourself. And that is pretty much what Cyborg says to Heatwave as well.

So our story ends with Heatwave in another jail. He gets a new roommate and look who comes out to play. Guess Heatwave was not as ‘all-powerful’ as this book was leading us to believe.

This was a bad mini-series. The story is just one bit love letter to Heatwave, taking him from a nobody to a psycho who can kill anyone he wants to. And he kills some pretty big names in the DCU. He kills half of Firestorm, gets Cluemaster killed so Plastic man can get in, Zsasz, Buddy Baker, Ray Palmer, and Plastic Man. Well ok, he assumes he kills Plastic man but still. I’ve had enough Flashpoint for a while, so come back next week. . .