Heatwave goes the distance in his attempts to stick it to Cyborg one last time.
What They Say:
FLASH FACT: Cyborg stands as the last defense against the world’s greatest villains, and they plan to play dirty. They don’t even care if they die…
The Review:
The Legion of Doom series hasn’t gotten a lot of good press since its release but it’s a series that I have to admit that I found to be fairly fun in a way because it dealt with a character that doesn’t typically get to run lead in a series. Heatwave’s an ass to be sure and he has reasons to be that back it up, but watching his plan unfold in the prison has been really fun. The villains have had their time in the sun and seeing how Heatwave worked things in his favor even when he took a beating made him fun to watch. His motivation definitely worked in his favor and I loved his use of Plastic Man to achieve his goals in a creative way in the second issue.
And the use of Plastic Man in this issue is very good as well, as he’s running into some problems himself now that he’s aligned himself with Heatwave. With the grudge that Heatwave has, it’s not a surprise that he’s trying to take things even further to take down Cyborg. What becomes the problem is that even he’s taking it further than some of the villains want it to go by crashing the whole prison into Detroit. What is surprising is that Plastic Man, the seemingly overly violent version of him, really doesn’t like the whole idea as it’s involving innocent bystanders. He does have some standards, it turns out, since he just wants to deal with those that have wronged him.
Most of the book though deals with bringing everything to the point where Heatwave and Cyborg face off against each other. It tries to go big with the way they want to crash the prison into the city but Cyborg has some natural talents at taking control of things electronic in nature so it doesn’t quite go to plan, but it does lead to the face to face encounter. And the two have some real history that comes out here in the way they trade blows, and with how Heatwave has such anger issues in general and with him in particular, it gets fairly brutal. But what works is that throughout all his Flashpoint appearances, Vic has come across as the epitome of a hero and the good guy that this gives him another chance to shine with it by the way he takes the abuse and does his best to change the tide of things without becoming what he’s fighting against.
Digital Notes:
This Comixology edition of Flashpoint: Legion of Doom contains the main cover as seen with the print edition with no variants or other extras included.
In Summary:
The Legion of Doom miniseries suffers from some basic plot device problems and plot holes you can drive the prison through at times, but it still worked well when it got down to the characters. Heatwave is someone I had zero interest in prior to this but they made him a fun character to watch here as he tries to work his plan from inside the prison. Cyborg has his moment here but he’s mostly a foil through the rest of it and much of what we got is Heatwave plotting and planning from the inside. The real surprise for me was just how much fun this incarnation of Plastic Man is and he gets some of the best panels in this book. I didn’t have any expectations with this book but it proved to be a fair bit of fun overall even if it’s in a way I can’t quite pinpoint.
Grade: B
