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Old 08-20-2014, 07:32 AM   #2 (permalink)
The Batlord
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Join Date: Jan 2011
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Suicide Squad

November 2011 - Present (New Suicide Squad #2)




There have been a few Suicide Squad series, most notably in the eighties, but I haven't gotten around to those yet. This is about the newest series. The basic concept is that the US government is using a team of incarcerated supervillains to perform missions so dangerous that they don't want to risk the lives of non-douchebags. For this iteration this team consists of a rotating (and routinely dying) series of B, C, and D level villains, with the only mainstays being Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and King Shark (who looks exactly like the hammerhead dude from Street Sharks). Also popping up here and there, Captain Boomerang (smh), James Gordon Jr. (Commissioner Gordon's serial killer son), Unknown Soldier, and a few other nobodies. On the plus side though, the team has just added Deathstroke and Black Manta. All led by a ruthless government agent by the name of Amanda Waller, who controls her not-even-anti-heroes with "nano bombs" implanted in their necks.

I hear a lot of criticism about this series, and I can understand why. The characters aren't really developed all that much. Deadshot, who's sort of the main character of the series, doesn't ever really come across as much more than an amoral, grumpy guy who tends to shoot his comrades in the back at seemingly random times. Amanda Waller, I suppose the other main character, gets as much personality as anybody, but she's still just a notable version of the cold, calculating secret agent trope. Even Harley Quinn is generally just a two-dimensional, homicidal maniac whose main purpose is to be unsettlingly chipper as she crushes some poor guy's brains into pulp with her giant sledgehammer.

And the stories aren't much more than excuses for long scenes of graphic violence. Occasionally they inexplicably unfold into some kind of story arc that's just an excuse for long scenes of graphic violence. This violence usually comes in three forms: Deadshot shooting things, Harley Quinn hitting someone with a hammer, or King Shark eating people. NGL, it's pretty awesome when King Shark eats somebody. There's plenty of other people shooting things, burning things, electrifying things, boomeranging things, and... stretching people to death, but those three are the main focus.

The series also have a tendency to drop things, like characters and even a subplot or two, without so much as an explanation. If you're somebody who is infuriated by such things then Suicide Squad will likely have you pulling your hair out at times. Even characterizations sometimes change with little to no warning. But on the plus side, you probably won't care enough about the characters, subplots, or characterizations to really be too bothered.

That being said, I tore through the first thirty issues, two (boring) Amanda Waller one shots, and two issues of New Suicide Squad (no idea why they've decided to re-relaunch it). It's a "rollicking" good time, with more than enough blood, guts, and juvenile exploitation to satisfy even the most jaded of action movie fans. What can I say? I'm a whore for dumb action movies. Die Hard? **** yeah. Crank 2? Masterpiece. Expendables? Terrible, but the second one was pretty cool. So, this series is perfect for someone like me who's long on "Bitchin'!" but short on taste. I mean, how can you not love this...

God damn it! I really tried to find the panel from issue #17 where King Shark yells "DIM SUM!!!" before devouring a Chinese girl with an over-size flail, who was not at all a ripoff of the Japanese girl with the over-size flail from Kill Bill, but I have failed. Instead, have these NSFW pics of King Shark devouring other people...

Spoiler for A bad way to go.:
Yeah, that's a robot zombie. So what?






And I couldn't leave without a more in-depth look at Harley Quinn. I'm sure without her this series wouldn't exist. DC obviously didn't feel inspired to resurrect it with some grand vision and they certainly didn't give it some great writing team who could knock an offbeat title like this out of the park. They just seem to have wanted to give her a vehicle. They kinda succeeded, but her depiction is seriously lacking. I understand that they wanted to make her grittier, to fit with the new tone of DC, and that keeping her original character intact at the same time would have been a very tough job for anyone, but the guy they gave her to, Adam Glass, just flubbed it. Gone is the adorable maniac that actually made me dislike the Joker at times for how he treated her. Now she's just crazy. But at the same time she's still enjoyable. She gives the series a zany, unpredictable sense of dark fun that it wouldn't have otherwise. What can I say? I'm a whore for Harley Quinn. (call me, baby)

The one good thing they did though, was give her back her brain. That really bothered me about the Arkham games. Harley had been ditsy in Batman: The Animated Series sure, but whenever she had her own episode, she always managed to get out of a jam with an unconventional resourcefulness. In the games though, she was just a ditz, and it took away a lot of her likability. Now, or at least partway through the series (inconsistent characterization, remember), you get to see her become more competent again. She still isn't the same lovable goofball she once was, but she gets to be a bit devious. Unstable, but devious.

So, Suicide Squad, dumb fun for only certain members of the family. I certainly can't recommend it for everyone, but for the violence lovers who don't need to take their comic books too seriously then I say give it a shot.

Excelsior, mother****ers!
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Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien
There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.

Last edited by The Batlord; 08-20-2014 at 02:15 PM.
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