Good
day, bawlers and brawlers. Welcome once again to my BARGAIN BASEMENT OF
DOOOOOM. There hasn’t been a visit to this greasy locale for quite some time,
as while looking for some tasty back issues to showcase, I clambered up a stack
of yellowing longboxes, triggered an avalanche and found myself trapped
helplessly beneath several thousand copies of NFL SuperPro #1. I lay interned in a heap of low-grade gimmick
comics, the hours turning to days, the days to weeks. I had to eat my own
delicious flesh to survive. Soon, only my lips and teeth remained. But then,
with one herculean Ditko-esque effort straight out of Amazing Spider Man #33, I was free. Free! Free to end this
ill-conceived meandering digression and present this instalment’s cheapie-bin
classic: SUICIDE SQUAD.
Well,
perhaps not so cheap now. Their appearances on Arrow and in the (fairly dismal) animated film Batman: Assault on Arkham have already considerably raised the
Squad’s stock – and with the just-released trailer for the upcoming 2016
movie, they seem set to go stratospheric and mainstream. It is therefore all
the more galling that my entire run of Suicide Squad didn’t survive one of
several brutal collection purges. This has led to no small amount of regret and
a torrent of geeky tears that, despite their abundance and high saline content,
inspire no sympathy from my wife and child, who apparently ‘need the space’ for
their ‘things’.
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| My daughter's bedroom. |
There have been several incarnations of the Suicide Squad, starting way back in
1959, but the one I’m talking about here first appeared in the 1987 Legends
miniseries before graduating to its own title for a 66-issue run between 1987
and 1992.
Mostly
written by John Ostrander and drawn by a number of artists – but most notably
Luke McDonnell and Karl Kesel – Suicide
Squad is one of the highlights of what I consider to be a particularly
fertile period in DC Comics history. The concept is a pretty simple one: the
Squad (known more formally as Task Force X - because the name 'Suicide Squad' was deemed off-putting to potential recruits during the annual quality-assurance evaluation of the recruitment process) is a group of extra-normal
operatives, mostly super-villains, cajoled, coerced or threatened (by means of
exploding bracelet) to take part in dangerous and dirty covert missions. As the
Squad’s name implies, survival is very much not guaranteed, and quite a body
count is racked up as the series progresses. Many, many wild and wonderful
characters come and go, but the core team consists of Colonel Rick Flag Jr,
Vixen, Bronze Tiger, Enchantress, Nightshade, Captain Boomerang and Deadshot.
This motley bunch are brought together and (mostly) kept in line by the
one-woman force of nature known as Amanda ‘The Wall’ Waller. A far cry from her
tediously sexy New 52/Arrow revamp,
the original Wall was a superb character – short, heavy-set and extremely
domineering, gifted with no powers save for an acid tongue, a talent for
subterfuge and an indomitable will. In #10, Batman decides to investigate this
covert organisation. He takes down the entire team and finally confronts the
Wall – who threatens him enough to make him scurry back to his cave with his
pointy ears a’ droopin’. Yup, she beats Batman with words alone.
As an aside
for Bat-fans, the series is also notable for featuring the first appearance of
a post-Killing Joke Barbara Gordon, reborn (at first anonymously) in #23 as the
information broker Oracle. She reappears throughout the rest of the series, and
is the star of arguably the best cover of the entire run (#49).
The team’s
first mission finds them going up against the Jihad – a pretty crassly named
super-powered terrorist organisation that would return, in various forms,
throughout the series. This conflict illustrates the advantages of working with
villains, who take down the Jihad with no nonsense and little difficulty – even
a cowardly fifth-rate crook like Captain Boomerang despatches his opponent with
ruthless efficiency and a cold-blooded quip. In subsequent issues, the Squad
become embroiled in political intrigue, mired in international incidents and
deal with gangsters, terrorists and conspiracies. Although largely based in a
super-powered spy/espionage milieu, the Squad’s adventures also took them
off-world and into strange mystical realms – from Apokolips to Nightshade’s
home dimension to the weirdly, wondrously psychedelic world of Steve Ditko’s
Shade the Changing Man (who ended up joining the team).
Aside from
the Wall, the standout character for me is Deadshot. With his complete lack of
concern for his own mortality, Floyd Lawton most fully embodies the title of
the series – be it gleefully attempting a blue suicide or an incredible scene
from #54 where he enters into a Mexican standoff with the latest unwilling
recruit, Russian super soldier Stalnoivolk (the Steel Wolf… a favourite
character of mine), while plummeting, sans parachute, from a plane. The
greatest and most celebrated Deadshot moment comes in issue #22, when Rick Flag
decides to assassinate a corrupt senator who is threatening to expose the
Squad. Waller orders Deadshot to stop Flag killing the senator – ‘by any means
possible’. Deadshot’s overly literal solution? To shoot the senator himself.
Suicide Squad really stood out from the other titles on the
shelf at the time, particularly those being put out by DC. Mainstream comics
often operated in a clearly delineated binary of good and evil, whereas the
Squad operated in a far murkier world of lies and manipulation and murder, of
ends barely justifying means. Even its most sympathetic, honourable and
quote-unquote moral character, Bronze Tiger, is a jaded former assassin, only
too aware of the many shades of grey that ethics can encompass. It was also a
remarkably violent title for the time, in the wake of the post-Watchmen/Dark Knight Returns darkening of comics, but before such things
became gratuitous, overblown and absurd in the 1990s. However, it’s no empty,
amoral splatterfest – there’s a really strong emphasis on character here, with
great interplay between the main protagonists, and the team’s in-house
chaplain, support staff and psychiatrists serving as tools with which to
explore their warped heads.
In short, a
fantastic series, much missed around these parts. I’m both excited and anxious
to see the Squad transferred to cinema. Excited because of my love for
the characters and the concept, and it looks like a pretty solid action flick.
However, as soon as Joker turns up (and to some extent, cosplay mainstay Harley
Quinn), I must admit… I just sigh.
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| Following severe dental trauma, former Coal Chamber drummer embarks upon lamentable career in cartoon mayhem. |
One of the things I like about the Squad is that it consists
of D-list villains and lesser characters, who form a fascinating group in their
own right. The presence of such a huge pop-cultural icon as Joker, be it as a
antagonist, supporting player or whatever, seems too blatantly obvious and
cynical. It’s not even an aversion to Jared Leto’s nu-metal-style version of
the character – I'm just bored of Joker being the go-to villain. I want a
Suicide Squad film, not a movie where everyone's waiting with bated breath for a
figure already familiar from a million T-shirts and tattoos. I don’t want Deadshot
and Enchantress playing second fiddle to this overrated green-haired goon. With any
luck, he'll just be there in flashback. But I wouldn’t count on it.
P.S. To
whoever ended up buying my back issues – you’d better treat them well, lest I
unleash my inner Waller.
P.P.S. Not
Rik Waller.
(modified and extended version of post originally published on The Big Glasgow Comic Page)
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