Each Flash faced fearsome and formidable foes that based they weaponry and approach on crime relating to color... or lack thereof. In the first of many parallels between the Scarlet Speedster's rogues gallery, these two are among the most marked in their similarities. From being clad in black spandex and a winged vest, to their usage of light gathering beams, to their rather particular fetish for artwork... these baddies are two of a kind!
While Roy G. Bivolo was a gifted with a talent for painting, and a curse of color blindness. Thankfully, his optometrist father (one wonders if he named Roy before or after learning that the lad had this disability, given that the name is an acronym for the colors of the rainbow!) devised a pair of googles he thought might aid his son in tackling this problem. Alas, he then died. Double alas, the googles didn't cure Roy's blindness, but allowed him to project beams of light which he could ride through the air, and various colored rays that effected the emotional centers of humans differently. He used this in battle against the Flash while stealing works of art throughout Central City.
While there were colorless crooks on Earth-One such as Hawkman's foe the Shadow-Thief, and colorful criminals on Earth-Two such as Vigilante's enemy the Rainbow Man, what made these two Flash foes distinct was their absolute mastery over varying forms of light. While these were each dramatically opposing forces, both Rainbow Raider and Shade shared common irreputable goals... except on the one occasion when they actually met as the former flooded the latter's world with diverse color, leaving his own a dreary black and white existence. As this interfered with the Shade's own malevolent machinations, he journeyed to Earth-One to recruit that world's Flash to team up versus his own counterpart, resulting in Rainbow Raider's defeat. Whether the two dopplegangers ever met again and made up is unknown, but highly unlikely.
No comments:
Post a Comment