Keith Kenyon (Goldface)

This week’s episode of The Flash saw Barry and Ralph trying to put their hands of a weapon that would allow them to stop Cicada once and for all (by doing of the Cure exactly the one use Caitlin forbade…), but this mission leads them to dark paths. In Goldfaced, the two heroes go undercover in the organization of the greatest tech dealer in Central City, Goldface, portrayed by Damion Poitier. Goldface is a crime boss, a metahuman with a body literally made of gold, and the ex boyfriend of Amunet Black, all traits that find some correspondence to the comics counterpart, albeit slightly changed. Let’s take a look.

Keith Kenyon was born somewhere around Coast City, California, the son of a renowned labor union leader. Following the wishes of his blue-collar father, he enrolled in California University and studied political sciences, but he wasn’t exactly happy with the future prepared for him. An opportunity to change his life came when he retrieved by chance a sunken chest of gold in the bay: smelling wealth coming, Keith took it, without considering that the gold had been exposed to a number of toxic wastes over the years under water. The unique combination of chemicals had given the gold mutagenic properties, and Keith found himself covered in a gold-like aura (which he later called Auric Energy) that gave him a number of superhuman abilities. Kenyon saw in this accident the perfect opportunity to turn away from his father’s expectations, becoming rich in a faster and easier way, and he abandoned university, preferring to become a serial robber. Known as Goldface, Keith Kenyon crafted an armor entirely made of gold, that acted as a second protection that, summed to his golden skin, made him virtually invulnerable, and even built a weapon that he called the Gold Gun, a placebo tool that merely channeled his own powers. Becoming a themed villain, he only targeted gold, and took plenty of it. He slowly built his own gang of criminals, and along with them he looted several treasures all around the sea, even building his own hideout in Hawaii. It was here that his men had to poison a pilot, Hal Jordan, who had found the gold they were looking for before them. The goons apparently took care of the pilot, but shortly after Kenyon’s base was visited by the hero Green Lantern… who found himself outmatched, as his Power Ring was ineffective on Goldface’s armor, yellow as it was. During their fight, though, Green Lantern sprayed royal water on his foe, making Goldface lose his golden cover and invulnerability long enough to be knocked out with a single punch: jail was the next stop.

Goldface didn’t stay in prison for long, and he started a personal war against Green Lantern, challenging him over and over again, but ending up defeated all the times. Eventually, losing even after joining forces with other criminals like Black Hand, Goldface decided to ignore his nemesis and to focus on building a criminal empire, laying low for a while. His efforts paid off, and he managed to extend his control over several cities, having crime syndicates and even Mafia families accept his leadership… only one city resisted to him: Central City. Feeling his presence to be needed, he moved there in person, and immediately made an example of one of the bosses resisting him, Mugsy Malone. There was one other problem though: as long as The Flash protected the city, Goldface couldn’t properly rule it. To take care of the problem, he kidnapped former villain Mick Rory to extort from him The Flash’s secret identity, but Rory escaped. Goldface then enhanced his armor and publicly beat the hero, later starting to execute a cop anytime The Flash showed his face again. Eventually, after several other clashes, Goldface was defeated by the combined efforts of The Flash and the deadly Eradicator, coming back to prison. Surprisingly, it was Green Lantern Guy Gardner to break him out of jail this time, as he recruited the villain in an army he aimed to direct against Qward. On his way to the battlefield, Goldface proved his might by murdering another corps veteran, Tomar-Re, but he eventually found himself entangled in a cosmic battle beyond his comprehension, a war between the embodiment of two rival universes. Even when the universal threat was over, Goldface stayed in space for a while, involved in battles with the Green Lantern Corps, but when he came back to Earth he just wanted to change life. He served his time, then moved to Keystone City, where he married a woman, Amunet Black, and became the Commissioner of Union 242, just what his father had wanted for him in the first place. Maybe it wasn’t too late to change life: only time would have told.

Keith Kenyon is a smart and careful man, moved mainly by greed and ambition, but characterized by an undeniable intelligence. As Goldface, his skin is made of organic gold, making him extremely durable (durability increased by his golden armor) and superhumanly strong; for a time, he also manifested other powers, such as turning inanimate objects and even living beings into solid gold (a power now compensated by his Gold Gun), manipulating anything made of gold, and even negating certain forms of energy. Terribly powerful and dangerously cunning, Goldface eventually grew tired of a risky and meaningless life, and tried to turn on a new leaf… but hold habits die hard, and his fate is not as solid as the gold he’s made of.

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Carl Andrew Bork

This week on The Flash, Cicada came back in action, and he went on quite a killing spree. In Seeing Red, his first new victim is an associate of Norvok‘s, the massive Carl Bork, portrayed by Andre Tricoteux. Bork appears to be super-strong and invulnerable to physical harm, at least until Cicada’s dagger makes him vulnerable to his vengeful anger. As you have imagined by now, Bork comes from the comics, and his powers are pretty much the same we saw in the show… what differs drastically from his original appearance is his look, as he’s not nearly this pretty. Let’s see together.

Carl Bork was born in Gotham City, and this is quite enough to give away his main occupation. A dock worker, he became a professional criminal, using his job to make some extra money with illegal cargo and smuggling operations. He was known as the King of the Docks, and all illegal operation in his “kingdom” had to pass through him. One day, he was involved in a shipboard theft that brought him for a while in the South Pacific Ocean. Here, during the operation, he spotted a native boy who was about to drown: possibly for the first time in his life he allowed himself a good deed, and saved him. Before coming back to Gotham, he left the boy to his home island, that happened to be the mysterious Desolation Island: here, to thank him, the natives gave him a weird statue… a magic one that made him super-strong and impervious to any damage. The title of King of the Docks wasn’t enough for him anymore, and he now aimed to become the king of Gotham City, and not even Batman seemed to be able to stop him. The Flash came to the Dark Knight‘s aid, and together they managed to trap the villain into a cell… but Bork broke out of it using his bare fists. While Batman kept Bork occupied, Flash investigated on the source of his powers, and he tracked back Desolation Island. Here, he found the statue and, unable to destroy it, he threw it into the sun. As soon as the statue was gone, Bork lost his invulnerability, and he received quite a beating from Batman. He was arrested, and sent to Van Kull Maximum Security Prison, just outside Metropolis. He would have spent a lot of time here… only if his powers didn’t return, of course.

While he was serving his sentence, Bork started mutating: the power of the statue was still in him, and he regained all his powers… with an extra this time, as he also became an obnoxious monster. He escaped prison, and he fought against Batman and The Flash again, but his aim was oddly innocent this time: he simply wanted to see his elder mother in Newark, New Jersey. As he got there, though, the poor woman, upon seeing a giant monster in front of her, had a heart attack. Batman arrived in that moment, and he talked Bork into giving himself in to the authorities in exchange of cures for his mother: the brute agreed, and while he served the rest of in sentence without incidents, his mother received the best cures available, with her hospital bills totally covered by Wayne Foundation. He was such a meek and good-mannered inmate that he obtained parole, and he eventually got out of prison. As he soon found out, unfortunately, people weren’t exactly eager to hire an ex-con, especially when they had the appearance of a monstrous were-armadillo. The only option viable to Bork seemed to be crime, but he had given his word not to come back to his old life: luckily enough, the ex lawyer now superhero Josiah Power was looking for new talents to include into his brand new team, the Power Company, the first corporate heroes-for-hire organization in the world. Finally finding someone willing to hire him because and not despite of what he was, Bork accepted the offer, and became an associate. The Power Company didn’t only give him a job: it provided him with a life purpose, with the chance of doing something good, and with people who could be his colleagues and maybe even his friends despite the fact he was a bulking monster. He even became roommates with Sapphire, a telekinetic co-worker, and started a weird friendship with her. Maybe even he was allowed a second chance, after all.

Carl Bork is not exactly a genius, and he usually thinks with his fists, but deep inside he does have something good, something that allowed him to become something more than what he was. Now permanently struck into his mutated form, Bork is a hulking monster invulnerable to any kind of physical damage, gifted with massive superhuman strength. A good-for-nothing thug turned unlikely hero, Bork does his best to live up to his new leaf, doing it for his momma and for the sake of his word of honor; definitely more brawn than brain, though, it’s hard for him not to do too much damage in certain situations…

Raphael Van Zandt (Silver Ghost)

The Flash made a comeback with an episode all about second chances… and with another gender-bending from the comics. In The Flash & The Furious, the Weather Witch is freed by a new partner in crime, the Silver Ghost, real name Raya Van Zandt, portrayed by Gabrielle Walsh. Raya possesses another piece of meta-tech, a fob that allows her to take control of any vehicle, and that she wants to use to steal the Batmobile… or rather a heavily weaponized A.R.G.U.S. version of it, all components coming from Wayne Tech, obviously. In the comics, Raya is actually Raphael, and his abilities go far beyond that, as he can control pretty much everything… after giving reason to his name. Let’s see together.

To the world, Raphael Van Zandt was a criminal like many others, some megalomaniac who, inspired by the deeds of an entrepreneur ancestor, had decided to aim higher and to leave his mark in history, planning to conquer the island of Manhattan to make it his personal dominion. The reality was much more sinister, and quite unbelievable, even in a world where people could fly. Van Zandt was born in another dimension, Earth-X, a parallel world in which Germany had won World War II and the Nazis ruled over the planet. Van Zandt himself was a Nazi officer, and ruled with an iron fist over a helpless population; his task was to suppress the local resistance, a nuisance that had grown in scale with time, especially since it counted also the super-team Freedom Fighters. One of his closest allies in this mission was Rod Reilly, his right-hand man… who however only pretended to be a Nazi, as he actually was the hero Firebrand, a crime-fighter from Earth-Two. Thanks to Reilly’s work from the inside, the resistance won several key battles, and the Freedom Fighters eventually managed to overthrow the regime, only to come back to their home dimension, Earth-One. Before Van Zandt could realize he had been played, Reilly was long gone, escaped to Earth-One with the FF. Enraged and swearing vengeance, Raphael Van Zandt used some unknown means to cross the dimensions in turn, and arrived on Earth-One, seeking the Freedom Fighters and Firebrand in particular. It was only at this point that he put up the story of the ancestor he wanted to follow the steps of: he knew perfectly well that, if he wanted to lure the Freedom Fighters, he needed to be hunted by them.

As a welcome extra from the dimensional travel, Raphael Van Zandt found he had acquired super powers, that allowed him to modify the molecular structure of everything he touched, turning it into solid silver. Eager to exploit this new ability, he built a high tech suit of armor, renamed himself Silver Ghost, and recruited a small army of thugs, as well as a dumb but incredibly powerful circus strongman, King Solomon, as his lieutenant. As soon as he tried to take over New York‘s telecommunications network, the Freedom Fighters attacked him, just as he had planned… even if, unfortunately, Firebrand wasn’t with them. The Silver Ghost proved to be quite a threat for the heroes, as he used his powers to turn Phantom Lady, Black Condor and Doll Man into silver statues. He could have easily killed the others as well, but he wanted to do something more with the so-called heroes: before their death, they would have become criminals to the world. Blackmailing them with the lives of their frozen comrades, Silver Ghost forced the remaining members of the FF to commit a series of crimes throughout the city, mainly property destruction. When he ordered them to poison the water in New York Reservoir, though, the three heroes rebelled, and The Ray hit the water with his powers, splashing the Silver Ghost and short-circuiting his armor. Defeated, the villain escaped, while the Human Bomb figured a way to restore his teammates. The Silver Ghost crossed paths with the Freedom Fighters other times, and he even disguised himself as the legendary hero Americommando to lure them into a trap, until finally Firebrand resurfaced, and joined the FF. The time of vengeance had come at last: Silver Ghost hired the Secret Society of Super-Villains to launch an all-out attack, aiming to take the head of the traitor who had double-crossed him. Nobody could escape from the Silver Ghost, not even in another dimension.

Raphael Van Zandt is a cruel and brutal man, criminal by chance, but genocidal tyrant by choice. As the Silver Ghost, he has the ability to turn everything and everyone he touches into solid silver; anything (and anyone) undergoing this process is under his complete control. A war criminal who crossed dimension motivated by pure and simple vengeance, the Silver Ghost is a threat like few others, a maniac who haunts the nightmares of two separate worlds, and who’s more than willing to add others to the list.

John Dee (Doctor Destiny)

Series changed places this week, as the crossover Elseworlds is finally here… and it’s far more entertaining that I dared to hope for, at least as for what concerns the first episode. In The Flash, we witness the beginning of everything, with The Monitor appearing to give his reality-shaping book to an unorthodox psychiatrist, Dr. John Deegan. Portrayed by Jeremy Davies, Deegan tries to convince his colleagues to use eugenics to treat their patients, but he’s met with foreseeable contempt. Now, with such a power in his hands, he’s rewriting the world as he sees fit… with a lot of incredible side effects. In the comics, his name is slightly different, John Dee, and he does have immense powers, albeit he starts as a “simple” mad scientist with a lot of gadgets. Let’s see together.

John Dee was never a “good boy”, he even changed his name to match the one of the great alchemist from the XVII Century. He was the son of Ethel Cripps, a professional swindler, and Ruthven Sykes, the second-in-command of the dark mage Roderick Burgess, Ethel’s lover; he was born when his parents decided to betray Burgess and escape with a ton of money and mystic artifacts. Since his childhood, John was encouraged on a dark path, and he followed it willingly, using his incredible intelligence to dedicate himself to something different than magic: science and technology. Following his mother’s example, John used his talent to make money first and foremost, and he built an anti-gravitational device that he used to capture Green Lantern and to replace him for a while, until he was exposed by Green Arrow and defeated by the other members of the Justice League of America. He presented himself as Doctor Destiny, and he became a recurrent foe of the planet’s most powerful heroes, always coming up with more and more complex and futuristic devices, most notably a will-deadening beam that could break the will of even Superman. Like many others before him, though, Dee couldn’t prevail over such powerful foes, not with his tools, and he eventually decided to resort to one of his mother’s “souvenirs” from Burgess’ house, a red gem she called the Dream Ruby. This stone had been stolen by the dark mage from his most prized prisoner, Dream of the Endless, the embodiment of stories and dreams, and Doctor Destiny believed he could use it for his goals. He united his technology to the Ruby, and he transformed it into the Materioptikon, a device that could alter reality through dreams. He experimented on many patients before it was perfectly calibrated on his mind, and his first use of it was magnificent: he bent reality, giving birth to a fascist dystopia where the JLA was his personal death squad, and where he ruled as a king. The world was finally of his liking.

The real Justice League was kept prisoner and tortured by Destiny’s one, and the villain would have gladly kept everything in this state, if he wasn’t stopped by Blue Beetle, who at the time was in a coma, and thus able to access the Dream World and force Dee to return things to normal. Dr. Destiny’s power was so great that the JLA had to be drastic in dealing with him: they locked him in Arkham Asylum and, with the help of the doctors, removed his ability to dream via hypnosis and psychic manipulation; in the meanwhile, Martian Manhunter and Mister Miracle hid the Materioptikon in a place where he would have never been able to find it… theoretically speaking. One of the doctors of Arkham was Garrett Stanford, the current Sandman, and Dee, albeit shriveled to a human husk because of his lack of dreaming and his addiction to the Materioptikon, manipulated him to let him out, and used his equipment to put to sleep most of the Justice League and use their dreams against them. Some of the reserves, led by Zatanna and Elongated Man, intervened, and put an end to Destiny’s schemes locking him back in Arkham. Here, some time later, he was reached by his mother, Ethel, who brought him an amulet to protect him… and to ease his escape. Upon realizing how much her son had been corrupted, Ethel committed suicide, but she had given her contribution to the possible end of the world, though: thanks to her amulet, John managed to escape, and was drawn to the Ruby by the stone itself. With his sanity eroded by his time in the asylum, Dr. Destiny reached a diner, and used the Materioptikon to materialize the customers’ worst fears, to force them to have sex with each other, to worship him like a god, and ultimately to kill themselves… all the while influencing the whole world to go mad. Finally, he was reached by Dream in person, who was unable to reclaim the Ruby due to its corruption, but wanted to end its madness. Believing that, since the stone contained the essence of Dream, the two were bonded, Destiny shattered the Materioptikon… but by doing so he simply gave Dream all of his powers back. The Endless brought him back to Arkham peacefully, and returned him his ability to dream, hoping that this would have quelled his madness. Dr. Destiny, however, had it all planned, and as soon as he could dream again, he dreamt of the Materioptikon, bringing it back to reality…

John Dee is just as mad as he is brilliant, a full-fledged genius whose psyche has been eroded by a long stay in Arkham Asylum, by his meddling with different worlds and realities, and by his own immense ambition. As Doctor Destiny, he’s a genius scientist who invented a number of futuristic tools and weapons, and he’s also a proficient occultist, but his main power derives from the Materioptikon, a device he obtained by uniting his technology to the Dream Ruby, a gem imbued with the essence of Dream of the Endless: with it, Destiny can reshape reality starting from his or other people’s dreams, materializing nightmares, manipulating emotions, giving birth to alternate realities. Obsessed with his power and addicted to it, Dr. Destiny is not even human anymore, he’s now a creature of immense power suspended between two worlds, with all the power and the folly needed to merge them into a third, horrific one.

The Monitor

Supergirl delivered quite a satisfying episode this week, for once, and the final part was even better, an off-world prologue for the upcoming crossover Elseworlds. In the last minutes of Bunker Hill, we’re brought to a burning Earth Ninety, where a dozen superheroes (all of them familiar faces) are laying lifeless on the ground after a massive battle. The Flash from the 1990s tv series appears to be the sole survivor, and he’s immediately confronted by the one who appears to be the responsible of the catastrophe: The Monitor, portrayed by LaMonica Garrett. This particular Monitor is called Nar Novu, and he carries along a book capable of reshaping reality that he entrusts to gifted individuals on the several Earths, apparently testing them in a way that Earth Ninety has spectacularly failed. Garrett’s look is incredibly faithful to the comics’ one, but his nature is definitely different, as The Monitor is more of a benign entity originally. Let’s see together.

The being known as The Monitor was born eons ago, on a lifeless moon named Oa. Here, a scientist from an immortal race, Krona, defied all the laws of his people and conducted a series of dangerous experiments aimed to understand the origin of the universe. Probing the moment of creation literally ripped the fabric of reality, dividing the universe into a Positive Matter Universe, and a mirror Anti-Matter Universe; both this new realities, then, included in themselves a nearly infinite number of parallel universes. This was the moment The Monitor was born, from the very ground of Oa: imbued with an unimaginable amount of power, he spent thousands of years meditating, understanding his own nature and the universe itself. He expanded his infinite mind to the borders of creation, until he sensed that in the Anti-Matter Universe, on Oa’s equivalent Qward, a being with his same power was born, the Anti-Monitor. The Anti-Monitor had already used his powers to conquer the entire Anti-Matter Universe, but as soon as he sensed the existence of The Monitor, he directed his attention to the only one he could perceive as a threat. The two “brothers” fought in a war of cosmic proportions, an exhausting battle that lasted for one million years, but neither of them could prevail, as their powers had been created by the cosmic balance to be perfectly equal. Eventually, the war ended in a draw, with the two cosmic beings damaging each other so much that they rendered each other unconscious, a state they remained in for nine billion years. As both The Monitor and the Anti-Monitor slept, the respective universes grew and expanded, filling themselves with more and more complex life forms. Finally, as one reality reached its scientific apex, a young scientist named Kell Mossa replicated Krona’s experiment… awakening the Anti-Monitor and creating a breach that the Anti-Matter Universe could use to reach and conquer the Positive Matter one.

The catastrophic breach in the space-time continuum awoke The Monitor too, and the threat was so great that he immediately understood that he would have had to resume hostilities with his double, if he wanted to protect the Multiverse. He located Mossa, who had survived the end of his universe and called himself Pariah, and used him as a compass to always locate the Anti-Monitor and follow his campaign. As more and more planets and entire planes of reality fell to the Anti-Monitor, The Monitor became increasingly weaker, but he organized a counter-offensive, knowing that his counterpart had become strong enough to possibly destroy even him, but wanting to set in motion a chain of events that would have deemed his nemesis’ downfall before the Anti-Matter Universe absorbed every aspect of existence. He selected a young girl, Lyla Michaels, to be his agent, and imbued her with cosmic power transforming her into Harbinger. Along with his new assistant, The Monitor focused his attention on Earth, a small planet that had an unusual concentration of beings with superhuman powers, and observing all versions of it he started selecting the ones that would have become his champions in his upcoming battle against the Anti-Monitor. The Monitor and Harbinger selected five realities that would have been the last bastions of the Positive Matter Universe: Earth-One, Earth-Two, Earth-X, Earth-Four and Earth-S, all presenting a number of extremely powerful beings, both heroes and villains. He selected some of them, namely Cyborg, Killer Frost, Solovar, Blue Beetle, Psycho-Pirate, Firebrand, Geo-Force, Dawnstar, Doctor Polaris, Kal-L, Obsidian, Psimon, Green Lantern, Arion and Firestorm, to guard and protect the Vibrational Forks, devices that could protect his artificial Netherverse from the Anti-Monitor. Then, he sent Harbinger to retrieve Alexander Luthor Jr., a child who was pivotal to the balance of the universe… and let himself be killed by his brainwashed assistant. His death, however, gave power to the Forks, thus balancing the forces at play and giving a chance to the hundreds of champions he had gathered to fight the ultimate battle. If the universe would have survived, The Monitor would have been reformed along with it…

The Monitor is a wise and impossibly intelligent being, nearly as ancient as the universe itself, bonded to it beyond any comprehensible level. As the embodiment of the creative energy of the Positive Matter Universe, The Monitor is amazingly powerful, but the extent and nature of his abilities is never explored in depth: according to Metron, he can create with a mere thought, and he’s capable of imbuing lesser beings with cosmic powers; he’s also connected to the universe to the point that he can immediately sense everything happening in every corner of his domain, and he grows stronger or weaker depending on how much the Positive Universe is extended; he’s immortal and virtually invulnerable, and he can manipulate nearly infinite amounts of energy. A living manifestation of the universe itself, The Monitor watches over his domain and protects it from any impending threat, ready for the ultimate sacrifice to accomplish his mission.

Weather Witch

As all villains in The Flash before her, even Joss Jackam gets a nickname from Team Flash, but this one belongs to a separate character in the New Earth continuity. In O Come, All Ye Thankful, realizing that Reina Hardesty‘s character has connections to Mark Mardon and shares his powers through meta-tech, the team ends up calling her Weather Witch, something fit considering that her staff (simply an antenna on her van before the Enlightenment) grants her weather-manipulation abilities. As we said, in the comics the Weather Witch is a totally different character, and albeit she’s definitely not Mardon’s daughter, she has some ties with him… and she shares with her show’s counterpart a desire to kill him. Let’s see together.

Nearly nothing is known about the woman who would have become the Weather Witch. She was born and raised in Gotham City, and she was a very poor young woman. She became a prostitute, a gear in the huge machine that was the criminal empire of The Penguin. There weren’t many opportunities for career advancement, considering her profession, but somehow she had The Penguin notice her for a different set of skills, and he made her one of his New Rogues, a team created to replace the original Rogues, giving her an old Weather Wand belonging to the original Weather Wizard. With most of the villains exiled on planet Salvation, Weather Witch and her teammates (Chill, Burn, Mr. Magic and Mirror-Man) ruled the streets of Gotham, proving to be a valuable asset in the turf war the Penguin was hellbent on winning. Apparently, the Weather Witch was the only one who truly cared about her teammates, as she showed true concern when Burn was shot by Vigilante during a battle… although not concerned enough not to abandon him when she was ordered to. The team successfully defended the Iceberg Lounge from hostile forces, and Weather Witch had her moment of glory when she successfully kidnapped one of Penguin’s most dangerous rivals, Tobias Whale. Then, the tides of battle changed drastically when DeSaad sent to Gotham Johnny Stitches, his new favorite puppet and leader of the local branch of Intergang: with otherworldly forces at play, Weather Witch and her mates unanimously decided to leave Penguin to his destiny, and to abandon the war to look for fortune somewhere else.

As freelance supervillains, the New Rogues soon found a new boss, Libra, who welcomed them in his Secret Society of Super-Villains. The first task for the team was quite ironic, everything considered: the New Rogues had to hunt down the “old” Rogues and force their hand in joining the Society. The team moved as one, targeting the Rogues’ allies and families, striking and leaving for dead first their best civilian asset, Paul Gambi, who tailored their special costumes, and then kidnapping Captain Cold‘s father. They apparently got what they wanted, as the Rogues accepted to meet them in an abandoned meat facility… but what ensued was a battle better described as a massacre, as the old Rogues didn’t fail to make their “replacements” realize how their lack of experience put them on an entirely different level. Weather Witch tried her best to battle the Weather Wizard, but her knowledge of the Weather Wand was limited at best, and she mostly used it to create bolts of lightning, failing to grasp the wider array of skills that her weapon disclosed to her. Weather Wizard didn’t treat her with gloves because of this, quite the opposite: after mocking her for her arrogance and her weakness, he didn’t hesitate in electrocuting her with a lightning shot at short range, killing her on the spot. At least in the afterlife, the Weather Witch would have had a small consolation, as none of the so-called New Rogues survived the battle, sign of an inferiority that had doomed her and her team from the very beginning.

Weather Witch is an arrogant and violent woman, thinking too high of herself just because of the nasty toys she’s been given, but with no real grasp on the width of the game she’s been called to play. Her Weather Wand gives her mastership over all kinds of weather and atmospheric phenomenon, but she only uses it to summon lightnings. As brutal as she is, the Weather Witch is the only one of the New Rogues who shows to care for her teammates, something that sets her apart from the others… at least as long as her companions are not a hindrance to reach her main interest, of course.

Joshua “Josh” Jackam

Another episode of The Flash, an this time, the new character is two-in-one, as she’s a mix of two different characters from the comics. In O Come, All Ye Thankful, strange atmospheric phenomena have been putting in danger an experimental core, and while all suspects point to Weather Wizard, the culprit turns out to be his daughter: Joslyn “Joss” Jackam, portrayed by Reina Hardesty. This is yet another gender swap in the show, as in the comics the Wizard has a son named Joshua, rather than a daughter named Joslyn… and, unfortunately, little Josh doesn’t live long enough to develop his tv counterpart’s grudge against his father. Let’s take a look.

Little Josh Jackam was born from a one-night stand between renowned criminal Mark Mardon, better known as the Weather Wizard, and Julie Jackam, a police officer in Keystone City. Julie decided not to tell Mardon anything about her son, in order to keep him safe from his influence, and she also didn’t tell anybody who was Joshua’s father. She kept working at the Keystone City Police Department, while Josh stayed with a friend, an old woman named Rita, during all the time the woman worked. Although Josh spent more time with Rita, his mother always managed to come back home to him, never renouncing to be with her son… until she was untimely murdered by a lunatic who had been seduced by Cicada and his cult. Since the little orphan had become sort of a “kid of the precinct”, he was adopted by one of Julie’s colleagues and best friends, Detective Fred Chyre, who took him in. Not much changed for the little boy, as also Fred asked Rita to take care of him while he was out at work, thus maintaining the baby’s life protected from traumatic changes… this, at least, until Josh started to manifest metahuman powers similar to his biological father’s technology-induced abilities.

Such an information became pretty valuable, valuable enough to reach the ears of Blacksmith, who in turn informed the Weather Wizard of the existence of his son. Mardon found the news intriguing at least, and he went on the move to retrieve his son… and to dissect him, trying to understand what the source of his power was. With a power like his own, the Weather Wizard was hardly stoppable, and he passed the defenses put on by Fred Chyre and even The Flash, until only Linda Park remained to protect the baby, an obstacle he easily overcame. When the moment came, though, the Wizard found himself simply unable to harm the baby: he recognized him as his son, and he gave back the crying baby to Rita, asking her to keep taking care of him. Tragically, this peace didn’t last long for Josh: as Libra was trying to recruit the Rogues into his Secret Society of Super Villains, he decided to kidnap the baby to force the Weather Wizard’s hand, and was used as leverage to lure Mardon and his partners Captain Cold, Heat Wave, Mirror Master and the Trickster, to a stand-off. As the villains were facing each other, a third, unwanted guest appeared: Kid Zoom, the former Inertia now newly appointed assistant of Zoom, who killed the baby for no reason in the world. The battle over the corpse of the baby didn’t last long: the Rogues joined forces and attacked Kid Zoom all at once, pulverizing him with their weapons and avenging a boy whose sole fault was being born from the wrong father.

Josh Jackson is a baby who suffered far too much in his young life, surrounded by a lot of love of affection, but also by death and violence. As the son of the Weather Wizard, he somehow inherited his father’s Wand‘s powers, and he can manipulating weather on an entirely unconscious level, being an infant, usually by emitting bolts of lightning when scared or angry; he also appears to be able to increase the strength of his father’s abilities when in close proximity. With no real understanding on what’s happening to him since his birth, baby Josh passes from crisis to crisis, doomed by his father’s sins.