Top (comics)
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- This article is about the Flash Rogue, Roscoe Dillon. For the Cure album, see The Top (album).
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The Top was a DC Comics supervillain and one of the earliest rogues of The Flash's (Barry Allen).
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[edit] Character history
Roscoe Dillon was a small-time crook who turned his childhood obsession with tops into a criminal persona. Roscoe taught himself how to spin around fast enough to deflect bullets and produce other semi-useful effects. The Top soon discovered that the spinning somehow increased his intelligence as well, allowing him to create a variety of trick tops. His unique gimmick and moderate success in crime soon made him a respected member of the Flash's rogues gallery. He even dated Golden Glider, Captain Cold's sister, while coaching her on ice skating. Eventually, the Top developed immense psionic powers-apparently, years of spinning moved dormant brain cells to the outer areas of his brain, endowing him with mental powers. Unfortunately, the newly activated brain cells were destroyed by close proximity to the Flash's superspeed vibrations. The Top died within days from the injuries sustained by his brain.
When Barry Allen's parents were in a car accident, Dillon's spirit was somehow able to take posseson of the vacant body of his father, Henry. Realizing who Barry Allen was, he, along with Golden Glider, plotted to kill the Flash and take over his body. He failed when he was tried to take over the Flash's body while he was alive, leaving Henry's spirit to repossess his body.
[edit] Brainwashing
About a week after, he took possession of another comatose body and began wreaking havoc with anyone Barry Allen knew. The final straw came when he dug up and desecrated the grave of Iris Allen (who was dead at the time). After knocking him out, Barry took Dillon to the Justice League watchtower and asked Zatanna to alter his mind to make him a hero. It worked at first, but he soon became insane with guilt for all the trouble he caused. His villainous nature came into conflict with the spell Zatanna put on him, driving him mad. During that time, he used his mental powers to "fix" the other rogues by implementing mental programs to make the reform. Some of them rejected the programming altogether, such as Captain Cold, Weather Wizard, and Captain Boomerang, while others were still under the programming, including Pied Piper, Heat Wave, and the original Trickster.
Dillon seemed to have returned to his villainous ways after inhabiting a new body, one of Senator Thomas O'Neill, a vice-president nominee. He had planned to become President by setting Piper up to assassinate his running-mate after they won, but was stopped by the new Flash, Barry's successor, Wally West. He drifted from crime to crime since then, more disoriented and insane than before. His "mind-over-matter" powers seemed to evolve to where Top could cause vertigo in others.
During the events of Identity Crisis, Wally received a note from Barry about what he did with the Top's mind and asks him to restore his mind back to its original state. With Zatanna, he manages to find Top in an abandoned toy factory and repair his mind. Now sane, the Top told them about his "fixing" of the rogues and swore to remove the mental programming and return them back to their villainous ways.
When Captain Cold and his rogues were warring against Trickster and the reformed rogues, the Top appeared with his set of rogues consisting of Plunder, Murmur, Tar Pit, Girder, and Double Down after he altered their brains. He removes his programming from Piper and Trickster. After removing Heatwave's programming, he stood in front of Cold and declared himself the new leader of the rogues and had his group of reprogrammed rogues attack Flash. Captain Cold flash-froze Top and "shattered" his body in retaliation for messing with the rogues' minds and setting them against one another.
[edit] Powers and Abilities
The Top is able to spin at incredible (but not superhuman) speeds. The spinning for some reason also gives him increased intellignce, but only while he is spinning. The Top’s spinning eventually gave him powerful telekinetic and telepathic powers due to some of his brain cells moving (due to all of the spinning he did). Since his soul returned from hell the Top has developed a new mental ability that allows him to induce severe disorientation and vertigo in his victims. The Top also uses spinning tops with gimmicks to them such as glue, explosives, oil and gases. He also once built a massive "Atomic grenade top" that could have destroyed half of the world.
[edit] Other media
In Justice League Unlimited, Top appears as a member of the Legion of Doom. He made a cameo entering a bar with Weather Wizard before Flash's enemies attacked the Flash Museum.
[edit] External links
- Alan Kistler's Profile On: THE FLASH - A detailed analysis of the history of the Flash by comic book historian Alan Kistler. Covers information all the way from Jay Garrick to Barry Allen to today, as well as discussions on the various villains and Rogues who fought the Flash. Various art scans.
