BUSTIN' STILL MAKES ME FEEL GOOD

I was nine years old when I saw the original Ghostbusters. For a while back then, it was my world. Oh, how I loved that film – which seems odd in hindsight when you consider how adult much of its humour is. I think as a kid I didn't even think of it as a comedy. Ghostbusting was a serious business.

My wee girl is now pretty much the same age I was when the first film came out, and we find ourselves with a new, rebooted, female-led version. You may have noticed that this has caused some consternation online, with disproportionately angry men attacking the idea at every opportunity, declaring it sacrilege, an insult and the worst film ever (months before it came out, of course...).

Naturally, all of this embarrassing nonsense made me sympathetic to the notion of a Ghostbusters reboot. As a general rule, I'm pro anything that angers people who use terms like 'feminazi' and 'SJW', or who feel an unhealthy amount of ownership over corporate geek culture. Even so, I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun Ghostbusters 2016 is. It's more overtly comedic than the original, broader and lighter in tone, but has a lot of laughs and thrills, a few effective scares and a strong story. There are also not only pleasing nods to the so-called controversy surrounding the film, but a general metatextual thread relating to the Ghostbusters asserting their legitimacy. The well-balanced main cast are all really strong, especially Kate McKinnon as eccentric and delightful scientist Holtzmann. And the final climactic showdown is ace – dare I say, better than its 1984 counterpart?

Most importantly, the girl and her pal loved it. Stories and ideas go in cycles. Every generation has their Robin Hood, their Tarzan, their Wonder Woman, their Jedi... and now their Ghostbusters. For cultural concepts to be living things, rather than dusty museum pieces, we must be open to kids approaching them on their own terms. Much as I still love Ghostbusters 1984, it's a film very much of its time. It's now more than 30 years old. When I was a kid, films from the 1950s might as well have been from outer space for all they resonated with my contemporary experience. So it saddens me that some fellow ageing geeks are angered – actually angered, for god's sake – by the prospect of the next generation enjoying new iterations of stuff we loved, in ways that are relevant and meaningful to them. My daughter now has Ghostbusters of her own, and that's something to be celebrated.

COLOSSUS: THE MOTION PICTURE - A REVIEW

Double confession: Despite expressing my lack of interest in the Deadpool movie, last night I went to see it.

Even more shamefully, I enjoyed it. Mostly.

In my defence, I had a free ticket courtesy of my friend, but even so, I felt a little grubby about the whole affair. Deadpool to me symbolises the very worst of ’90s comics, the tipping point at which Marvel turned to a crapfest of guns and pouches and everything being EXTREME. The arrival of Deadpool represented the start of what might well have been the slow death of my interest in comics. I turned away from Marvel, turned away from comics completely, only to be saved by a chance encounter with one of DC’s finest titles (as discussed at nauseating length here).

Maybe this whole comics obsession thing wasn't such a good idea after all.

So Deadpool had a mountain to climb to reach my affections. To make matters worse, I’ve never been able to stomach Ryan Reynolds in anything. Green Lantern, Blade Trinity, X-Men Origins: Wolverine… his snarky, cocky charisma clearly connects with lots of people, but I find him pretty much intolerable. Nothing personal, just a matter of taste. He's the cucumber of actors. 

And then there were the painfully unfunny trailers. It looked like a complete disaster. Never have I been less interested in a comic book movie – and I even went, with some mild enthusiasm, to see Fan4tastic, so this is a pretty low bar. Yet the entire geek community seemed to be absolutely in love with this dreck.

I have never felt so alone.

There was, however, one big, steel fly in the ointment of my wrath – Colossus. One of my favourite X-Men, one of my favourite Marvel heroes, one of my favourite fictional characters, full stop. And here he was, looking pretty good, with an actual personality and actual lines of dialogue, far more than he’d ever been given in any X-Men film. Damn you, Fox. Damn you. I may have no choice to see this after all.

Two-ton dreamboat.

So it came to pass that I found myself in a cinema, watching a Deadpool film, loathing myself a little bit. And it was… pretty good, as it happens. Utterly generic, but knowingly so. Some really great action sequences (especially the brilliant climactic battle), a startling horror atmosphere during one sequence, and some surprisingly sweet romance beats. The supporting players are for the most part excellent – Colossus was handled really well, and gets into some brutal action during his brouhaha with Gina Carano’s fantastic Angel Dust, who is in no way responsible for my burgeoning evil-women-with-quiffs-and-super-strength fetish. Brianna Hildebrand's Negasonic Teenage Warhead is a charmingly surly adolescent who packs a big punch, and Morena Baccarin’s Vanessa is a compelling romantic foil, albeit thanklessly relegated to the clichéd damsel-in-distress role during the third act.

Why no Monster Magnet cameo in this movie? Dave Wyndorf needs new bell bottoms.

On the downside, I recognise I have some baggage here, but my least favourite aspect of Deadpool was Deadpool himself. To be honest, little about the film served to change my mind about either Reynolds or Deadpool. It was unclear whether we, the audience, are supposed to like/sympathise with Wade Wilson at all. Yes, he undergoes a horrible ordeal and does everything he does in the name of love, but on the other hand he’s relentlessly annoying and a complete arsehole. It’s like being trapped in a wardrobe with Adam Sandler.

Further downsides are the agonisingly nondescript and forgettable main villain, who makes Ant-Man’s Darren Cross look like Dr Doom by comparison, and supposed comedy relief sidekick TJ Miller, who is roughly as entertaining as a dead dog floating in a toddler pool.

Squeeze, Gina. Squeeeeeeze.

My biggest problem with Deadpool is that, while it’s a pretty good comic-book movie, its focus is largely comedic. No bad thing in theory, except that, to be brutally honest, Deadpool is nowhere near as funny as it thinks it is. There are a handful of good gags, but the seemingly endless stream of witless duds is frankly wearying. If you buy into Reynolds’ smartass/dumbass motormouth schtick, maybe it’s a lot more effective, but his delivery just doesn’t work for me. In combining superheroics and comedy, it superficially has a lot in common with Guardians of the Galaxy, but the latter does so much more successfully – thanks in no small part to the naturally funny, dangerously personable and thoroughly dreamy Chris Pratt. 

What Deadpool does is weld a good, if formulaic formula superhero/revenge flick to a tiresome frat-boy comedy under the pretence of being subversive and irreverent. While there is some fourth-wall breaking and a few digs at superhero cinema (the X-Men franchise in particular), that side of it is relatively polite, almost cursory. But that's where Deadpool's real potential lies, and I feel the film would have benefitted from pushing these elements much, much further to create something far sillier and much bolder. And maybe it will do that in the inevitable sequel (which should ideally be called The Inevitable Deadpool Sequel). I’m thinking Adaptation meets Adventure Time meets Byrne's She-Hulk meets the end of Blazing Saddles. With katanas.

NO IMPOSSIBLE MAN = NO CREDIBILITY

Right, so I went to see Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four tonight. It’s possible that you might have heard about it. You know, the film that got the lowest-ever score on Rotten Tomatoes? The film that’s the worst abomination cinema has ever known? The film that’s an affront to everything that’s good and right in the world? Why are we just sitting here gabbing when we could be tarring and feathering Josh Trank? THE MAN’S A MONSTER.

OK, stop. No. You've had your fun. Can we maybe, perhaps, stop being so hysterical about this thing? No, it’s not the best comic-book movie ever made. But you know what? It’s pretty far from the worst. Here are just a few shittier comic-book movies: X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Daredevil, Blade Trinity, Man-Thing. Batman Returns, Batman & Robin, Batman Forever, Superman III, Superman IV, Ghost Rider, Green Lantern. In my own personal rankings, Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four is probably on a par with Louis Leterrier’s The Incredible Hulk – which admittedly, is my least favourite MCU movie, but it’s by no means abominable (see what I did there?).

Some context first. Being primarily a lifelong X-Men fan, I’ve had a long time to get used to the idea that movies and comics are very different things. The first X-Men film offered only the merest of glimpses of my personal vision of Marvel’s Merry Mutants – and while I loved it anyway, it wasn’t without a certain amount of internal conflict about all the things they got completely wrong (i.e. changed for cinema). Eventually I reached the stage where I was comfortable with the idea that the cinema and comic universes were very different – complementary, perhaps, but their own entities. In many ways, the relationship between comics and cinema is much like Marvel 616 and the Ultimate Universe – the latter being a more streamlined, simplified, ‘cooler’ take on the former. It’s no coincidence that the movies have often turned to the Ultimate line for inspiration. And this latest iteration is no exception, plucking most of its story elements directly from the first couple of arcs of Ultimate Fantastic Four. The MCU also drinks deep from the Ultimate well – the most stark (excuse the pun) example being the casting of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, given that his likeness was appropriated for The Ultimates. 

Point being, I can happily see my comic films as parallel worlds or What Ifs?, as counterparts to the comics. I don’t require verisimilitude. The MCU and the Avengers do not, to me, feel like their comic counterparts, but I dig them both. I’m happy to take the films on their own terms, just as I take the comics in that fashion.

The one true Fantastic Four

Given all that, which is a roundabout way of saying a) this film is not very much like the 616 universe, and b) I'm not really all that concerned about that, what to make of Fantastic Four?

Taken on its own terms, it’s… well, a bit weird. The first two-thirds, a slow-burn sci-fi character study, are actually pretty compelling. The early bonding between child genius Reed Richards and best buddy from the wrong side of the tracks Ben Grimm is handled beautifully, and their bond is palpable and believable. Reed’s encounter with Franklin Storm and his induction into the interdimensional project is intriguing. And following the inevitable accident, the subsequent transformations, before our heroes learn to cope with their powers, make for some unexpectedly compelling, unsettling scenes of body horror.

But then there’s a sudden and huge leap – a ‘one year later’ leap. And it’s here where things start to unravel. Many others have mentioned this, but it really does feel like a big, generic mega-budget superhero blockbuster was awkwardly pasted onto a pretty interesting, simmering, atmospheric sci-fi flick, and the two don’t gel well at all. [Insert your own speculation here about studio interference and/or director meltdown and assign blame accordingly.] While there are some fun scenes in the latter third, the pacing becomes a desperate dash to the finish and it’s all ultimately a bit unsatisfying. What could have been an interesting, slower, quieter take on the superhero genre ends up as little more than a slightly confused prequel to some far better films that will most likely never be made.

A few closing points, good and bad.

GOOD: The Thing looks great in motion. Pants or no pants, this is by far the best rendering of live-action Benjy yet. Sometimes he feels like he could stand to have a little more weight, but he’s a sturdy presence nonetheless.

BAD: The best scenes from the trailer, of Ben being dropped from a place onto a military installation and wrecking the joint, were cut from the film at a late stage. A pretty shocking omission.

GOOD: Miles Teller carried the film as young Reed Richards, and to me inhabited the role really well. He had the awkwardness, the drive, the intense intelligence… could have used a little mania, but I liked him. In fact, all four team members were well cast, even if their interaction could have been handled better (see next point).

BAD: Before this film came out, I was confident that, whatever else happened, Trank (whose affinity for character work was well chronicled in, err, Chronicle) could relied upon to grasp what makes the FF unique – their family dynamic. But the ball was majorly dropped here. Reed & Ben were a tight lifelong partnership, and Sue & Johnny’s sibling relationship was good – tense and cool, though warming up – but as a quartet…? Reed and Sue had some extremely tentative flirting and burgeoning chemistry, but were basically work colleagues, while Johnny & Ben barely even speak to each other until the closing scene, and there's no real sense of the four as a team. Poor.

GOOD: For all the hoo-ha about Michael B. Jordan and Kate Mara playing siblings – because oh my god, how could that ever happen in real life, apart from all the ways in which it can and does happen?! – this was played nicely and not turned into a tiresome plot point. A brief mention about adoption, and that’s all (arguably, even that was unnecessary, as Franklin had already mentioned she was his daughter).

BAD: This is the big one. Dr Doom was absolutely bloody awful. No getting around it. Looked terrible. Had no presence. No menace. No aristocratic arseholeness. While, as mentioned, I don’t require faithfulness to the comic, this Dr Doom retained nothing that’s interesting about Victor aside from the name. Nothing. Not one thing. The great thing about Doom is that he is a self-made man of power, and as such considers himself superior to the misbegotten freaks of nature that are the FF. Why Trank decided to repeat the mistake of Tim Story and portray Doom as just another superpowered freak is beyond me. And worse, Doom here is no imperious, arrogant megalomaniac, but just a mopey, slobby nihilist bent on pointless destruction because… well, reasons, OK? He was essentially fruit-dehydrating maniac Eddie from Friends, covered in broken glowsticks and duct tape, with an ill-defined assortment of superpowers. Had this character simply been renamed Annihilus or the Molecule Man, it might have worked better, but this was just a colossal waste of one of comics’, nay fiction’s, most interesting characters. Crap, I tells ya. Crap! 

(Addendum: Come to think of it...he's a creepy looking techno-organic thing, has freaky cosmic powers, he's a nihilist bent on destruction, and lives in the frickin' Negative Zone. He bloody well IS Annihilus. Well, Annihilus-lite.) 

A mid-tier movie, then. Starts well, ends badly. Shit Doom. Far from perfect, but not deserving of the nigh-universal, excessive opprobrium.

THE DEFINITVE AND LEGALLY BINDING BUT NOT TECHNICALLY ENDORSED BY MARVEL STUDIOS ULTRON IS MY ELVIS MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE END OF PHASE 2 SUBJECTIVE EVALUATION REPORT AND OBLIGATORY REVERSE-NUMERICAL RANKING aka OO, LOOK, A LIST

With Ant-Man marking the end of Phase 2, it’s time to RANK ALL OF THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE MOVIES.

It's remarkable now to think back to how we saw the teaser scene at the end of Iron Man. Surely they're not really going to make an Avengers movie...? That would be both ridiculously ambitious and almost too exciting for words. And yet here we are, 12 movies down the line. Just as they revolutionised comics in the 1960s, Marvel have changed the face of cinema and TV, for good or ill, with big-budget superheroes dominating the summer season and interconnected universes springing up all over the place. We almost take it for granted, but it's quite a remarkable achievement for a new film studio. And what's even more remarkable is the overall quality of MCU films – I like them all, to a greater or lesser extent, some with reservations, some with unfettered adoration. Perhaps I'm shockingly easy to please when it comes to comic-book cinema, but I don't think there's a proper stinker in the bunch. Of course, the downside of this is that they've achieved this consistency by arguably being somewhat formulaic – but get around this by smartly adapting the formula to different genres (sci-fi, heist, fantasy epic, thriller). 

The exact order here could change from day to day. Nonetheless, there are three distinct tiers of goodness (1–3 are wonderful; 4–8 are great, but imperfect; 9–12 are good, but have considerable issues). 

So here goes, from worst to best...

12 THE INCREDIBLE HULK 

Actually pretty strong and engaging thanks largely to Edward Norton's portrayal of Banner, but I deem this by far Marvel’s weakest effort, purely by virtue of the nigh-unwatchable and horribly overlong final battle’s grotesque, jarring, PS2 cut-scene CGI. Plus, while Eric Bana and Mark Ruffalo are both somewhat visible in their respective emerald personas, Norton and his Hulk seem like two different entities entirely. Norton conveys the sense of the monster in the man, but we never feel the man in the monster.

11 IRON MAN 2

Nowhere near as dire as I used to think, but still a confused, meandering film with an extremely weak and unnecessary mid-section. It took several repeat viewings before I began to remember anything that happened in this film. Not a good sign. But Johansson, Rourke, Gregg and Rockwell are an excellent supporting team.

10 THOR: THE DARK WORLD

This attracted quite a lot of scorn from fans, but I actually enjoyed it quite a lot. There’s much to dig here: the full-on Asgardian sci-fi-ness, the surprisingly comedic tone, Kat Dennings, the inventive final warp battle. The major downside, of course, is the criminal waste of Christopher Eccleston as blank-cypher baddie Malekith. And the fact that Anthony Hopkins is virtually unconscious throughout.

9 IRON MAN 3 

I’m still not sure why this movie is so reviled. The Mandarin was never this interesting in the comics… What I like about IM3 is precisely the fact that Iron Man isn’t in it much. I really like broken-down Stark in Spy Kids mode. On the downside, Downey's schtick does begin to grate a little and pre-makeover Guy Pearce's geeky loser is a little on the nose. However, it has some of the best sequences in any Iron Man movie – barrel of monkeys, the beach house assault, the Mandarin reveal – plus the best final battle of the trilogy.

8 ANT-MAN 

One of the more fun MCU films. Great characters, innovative action, snappy dialogue, good comedy beats, compelling father-daughter themes, nice MCU connectivity… I particularly like the fact that although Paul Rudd was theoretically the lead, he was very much overshadowed, both in performance and in the storyline, by Evangeline Lily and Michael Douglas. It felt like their movie. It was entertaining enough that I’m willing to overlook its flaws – the ethnic stereotype sidekicks, cookie-cutter bad guy, the wildly inconsistent nature of Ant-Man’s powers, the disregard for Judy Greer, the whiff of being an Iron Man retread, etc.

7 CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER 

Lots to like about this. A well-realised Cap in Chris Evans (though for me, he only came to fully inhabit the role in subsequent films), great period setting, enjoyable shifts in tone, Hayley Atwell in general, the Howling Commandos, Hugo Weaving chewing scenery… I find the pacing a little off though. A little too slow at some points, zipping forward via montage in others. And there’s no reason (except drama dictates) for him to crash into the ice. Go for that dance, you Star-Spangled fool…!

6 THOR 

Risky and preposterous it may have been, but Branagh's Thor is vastly enjoyable. Big in scope, from cosmic realms to small-town USA, funny, engaging characters, the MCU’s best villain yet, nudie Chris Hemsworth, Kat Dennings and a Kirby-design classic realised in the bloody Destroyer. Frankly, I’m not sure why it’s not higher.

5 IRON MAN

The original, yes, but not quite the best. While Downey Jr was made for this role, and almost everything about the film is note-perfect, tightly plotted and entertaining, the final battle is something of let down after everything that came before. Ending films is hard, clearly.

4 AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON 

I still haven’t managed a second viewing of this, but I did enjoy its immense sprawl, even if it was almost too much to take in at first glance. As a large-scale spectacle, far better than the first Avengers, but not quite as pacy or tightly written, nor does it quite have the absolutely bloody perfect moments of the first. And yes, it has some inexplicable Thor-in-a-pond nonsense. But it does have Ultron. And the Vision. And the Scarlet Witch. Eagerly awaiting the DVD…

(For a more on my feelings about this movie, go here: http://ultronismyelvis.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/avengers-age-of-ultron-spoiler-free.html)

3 GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

Easily the funniest and most relentlessly entertaining of the MCU films, yet far from an empty piece of fluff. There’s a richness to the unabashed sci-fi world-building here that’s compelling and efficient. All of the main characters are fascinating and relatable in their own way, the music is great (and also a character), the visuals are just beautiful. Plus this has the best climax of any Marvel movie to date – when Quill says ‘You said it yourself, bitch– we’re the Guardians of the Galaxy’, it’s sarcastic but purposeful, triumphant but full of sadness too. Bloody masterful. Makes me want to both weep and kick down walls. If Guardians has a flaw, it’s that… come to think of it, it doesn’t. Blimey.

2 AVENGERS 

It’s difficult for me to fully express how excited I was prior to the release of Avengers. It felt like I’d been waiting almost 30 years for this film. And amazingly, it didn’t disappoint. I love pretty much everything about Avengers, start to finish, from Loki’s entrance to Natasha’s interrogation to ‘Shakespeare in the park’ and ‘I’m always angry’. Infinitely rewatchable.

1 CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

While Winter Soldier doesn’t quite have the rewatch factor and gung-ho entertainment value of the others in the top three, it is for me the most interesting, impressive and well-made MCU film yet. Chris Evans really comes into his own here, Anthony Mackie and Scarlett Johansson are excellent in their supporting roles, the themes are big, surprisingly subversive and have real-world resonance, and the events of the movie caused a massive shift in the status quo of the MCU (at least for a while). But arguably the biggest star is the action – this film features some of the best, most exquisitely choreographed fight scenes outside of The Raid, Ong-Bak or Enter the Dragon. A big 70s conspiracy thriller mixed with dystopian sci-fi and bone-breaking martial arts brilliance? Count me in.

FKA 'DEFINITELY GOING TO SURVIVE SQUAD', PRE LAWSUIT

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’.

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.

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)