So.. you’re thinking to yourself.

“The Royal Flush Gang? You have GOT to be kidding me.”

 

Nope. The Royal Flush Gang. Interesting premise and over the years the writers tend to get more inventive with them and because they are villains, they are more changeable than our heroes. They are a natural team in a world populated with Brainiac, Cheetahs, and Jokers.. well, could this card themed group really have been far behind?

The Royal Flush Gang employ weapons based on their card motifs. Spade shaped grenades, illusion scepters, lasers, hypnosis, and they ride flying cards. Come on, Flying Cards! It’s like surfing!

Aquaman and Firestorm open up our adventure on the open seas, where Aquaman is giving Firestorm a test. While Firestorm is a JLAer, he’s still the rookie and so the other Leaguers try to help him along a bit with his training. Unfortunately, the two JLAers are ambushed by people wearing outfits that look like playing cards and they are riding playing cards. Weird, huh?

 

Before long, many JLAers fall to the Royal Flush Gang. Superman. Wonder Woman. Green Arrow. All the JLAers who are zapped by the Royal Flush Gang’s weapons go into a sort of debilitating coma.

We eventually get to meet the Royal Flush Gang.

Ten is a female Hal Jordan, disgusted with the open sexism in the field of test pilots. Jack is a gigolo who stopped at nothing to get a score. Queen is a washed up actress looking for the role of a life time. King is a “King of the Road”, a hobo dying of cancer. Finally Ace is revealed as a robot working for an unnamed master who has hand picked his Royal Flush Gang due to their moral failings.

The JLA enters the House of Cards to fight the Royal Flush Gang and all of them fall but Black Canary whose wiles have turned the Jack against the rest of the deck. With the Flushers in custody all Black Canary can do is hope that the rest of the JLA snap out of it.

 

(nice to let the ladies have the bed, eh? who says chivalry is dead?)

No fear however. Firestorm’s body may be still but his mind’s half isn’t as Professor Martin Stein sees the unseen mastermind, a Green Lantern villain named Hector Hammond. Hec is a man born with a freakishly large head that gives him grand psychic powers. Professor Stein and Hammond fight on the astral plane and Hector is banished and without Hector around to suck up the energy of the JLAers, they all awake safe and sound.

Next up, we’ll check and see why those Titans are having fights with Russian heroes, living statuary, and the Disruptor.