Flash 155 - "The Gauntlet of Super-Villains " : first Silver Age appearance of the Rogues as a team.

Did you read it and did you notice the following facts :

- Gorilla Grodd's "force of mind" : it is described as a "mind over matter" power able to teleport the Rogues.

(The "mind over matter" idea will be used later by other writers to describe the power of the Top)

- There does not seem to be any leadership but Mirror Master seems to be the organizer of the "Rogues gallery".

(Captain Cold being the leader of the gang is an idea of Geoff Johns)

(On the Hyperborea website, Sam Scudder is described as the "most respected" of the Rogues Gallery)

Personally, I always saw Cold as leader post-CRISIS... but that's after Scudder died. Mirror Master I, on the other hand, seems like the sort that WOULD lead the team before that... without ever reading this original appearance, I had him as organizer of the Rogues in my home DC Heroes campaign. So, yeah, I'm excited to see this.


TJB

And my, it was brilliant stuff. Grodd using his mental powers to gradually drain Barry's speed, for example, is a clever enough plot gimmick without the assembled villains turning up. And the series of battles in the department store remains one of the best action sequences of the Silver Age.

One of the more interesting bits in the story for me has always been Captain Boomerang and Heat Wave arguing Rogue privilege over who gets to take out the Flash. For all that Cary Bates and, later, Geoff Johns did to make the Rogues' inner organization and personalities distinctive, John Broome was doing it almost from the start.