The Rogues May Be Coming To 'The Flash' — And Soon

As a long time comic book fan, I have come to learn that without a good villain, superhero stories just can't work. While the build up and reveal that Harrison Wells is the Reverse-Flash was awesome on multiple levels, pretty much every other villain on The Flash hasn't been memorable. Thankfully, the writers have decided to develop Leonard Snart, aka Captain Cold, in a big way. In the Jan. 20 episode of The Flash, "Revenge of the Rogues", we saw Captain Cold team up with Heat Wave and escape custody thanks to his sister, who should become more important as the show goes along. Are we going to be seeing more of Captain Cold on The Flash? A lot more — and he won't only be teaming up with Heat Wave. By the end of the first season, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Rogues teaming up on The Flash .

Here's the lowdown. The Rogues are a loose criminal group led by Captain Cold who primarily focus on thievery and being antagonists for The Flash. Along with the Reverse-Flash and Gorilla Grodd, the Rogues are the series' most important villains. Major members from the Rogues in the comics include Pied Piper, Weather Wizard, and The Trickster. As the preview below shows, we'll be meeting Pied Piper during Tuesday night's new episode.

Additionally, the casting for the second Weather Wizard was recently announced, and we'll see Mark Hamill again as The Trickster, albeit in a new iteration than how he developed the character on the '90s TV adaptation of The Flash. The appearance of all these important villains isn't a coincidence.

In an interview with IGN, Wentworth Miller, who plays Captain Cold, mentioned the casting of another Rogue, Lisa Snart, saying, "They just cast Peyton List as my sister [Lisa Snart / Golden Glider], so the Rogues are now three, I guess, and that’s made for some interesting complications."

And I expect the Rogues to continue expanding by the end of the season. Developing Captain Cold first lays the ground work for him to lead the Rogues in the future. It makes sense that his desire for a challenge would bring him within the orbit of metahumans and criminals with their own grudges against our Scarlet Speedster. The writers of The Flash are smart to be developing villains beyond the Reverse-Flash. He is immensely important to the story of Barry Allen, but he's not the only villain to have an impact on the superhero.

The Rogues also are pretty different than the kinds of villains people are used to seeing in comic book adaptations. They're smart, underrated, extremely intelligent, and have their own moral code. Plus, it's fun to see Barry have to outsmart villains rather than only relying on his superpowers.

The development of Leonard Snart/Captain Cold has already proved to be golden for The Flash. As Captain Cold, Miller mixes snark, pathos, and just the right amount of scenery chewing. While it does feel like the show plays kind of loose with Barry's abilities to make more sense of him going up against non-superpowered criminals, I love what The Flash is doing with Captain Cold and Heat Wave.

And I can't be the only fan who loved seeing the crazy fun of Heat Wave and Captain Cold in action. If the Rogues expand to include Pied Piper, Weather Wizard, and The Trickster by the end of this season, expect things to get even worse for Barry Allen as these dangerous villains team up, but even more entertaining for us viewers.

Images: Cate Cameron/The CW; DC Comics; theflashgifs/Tumblr