Suicide Squad

[sgt.null]

The original Suicide Squad featured in The Brave and the Bold consisted of Rick Flag, Jr., his girlfriend Karin Grace, Dr. Hugh Evans, and Jess Bright.

The Suicide Squad was revived in the Legends mini-series, with writer John Ostrander at the helm. The renewed concept involved the government employing a group of supervillains to perform missions that were almost certainly suicide runs.

Suicide Squad (vol. 1) lasted 66 issues, with one Annual and one special (Doom Patrol and Suicide Squad Special #1).

After the series' cancellation in 1992, the team went on to make several guest appearances.

Suicide Squad (vol. 2) was published in 2001, written by Keith Giffen, with art by Paco Medina.

Suicide Squad (vol. 3): Raise the Flag was a limited, eight-issue mini-series published in 2007.

Suicide Squad (vol. 4) A new Suicide Squad title written by Adam Glass and drawn by Federico Dallocchio launched in September 2011 as part of the New 52.

I started with the Legends mini that launched volume 1. the book was a refreshing change from the standard comic books that had been offered up to that point.

it centered mainly on villains. it centered mainly on obscure characters. these people died, and didn't come back. the groups purposes were often ambigious, and the often failed at their missions. there was focus given to "ordinary" characters. the group was run by Amanda Waller, a non-powered black woman. their were psychiatrists, a helicoptor pilot, a priest. and they crossed over into other books but managed to retain the integrity of the original concept.

and there was a small central cast, but many others roatated in and out of the group. this allowed other writers to create groups that fit their story purposes, without ruining the central group.

in volume 1, Ostrander was allowed to finish his story. and it is a satisfying read. if nothing else, volume 1 is a must read.

and we got some great art : Luke McDonnell [#1-24, 35, 38-39, 44, 46, 49-51]
John K SnyderIII : 28, 31, 33, 34, 36, 37
Geoff Isherwood : 40-43, 45, 47, 48, 50, 53-66.

[sgt.null]

I have...

Legends : #1-5

Suicide Squad (vol 1) #1-67, A1 (#67 was a Blackest Night tie-in]

Secret Origins : #14 (the Squad), 28 (Nightshade)

Captain Atom #11, Detective Comics #582 (Millenium tie-ins)

Checkmate! (vol 1) #16, 17, 18 Manhunter #14 Captain Atom #15 (Janus tie-ins)

Firestorm #64

Doom Patrol / Suicide Squad #1

Superboy #13-15

Chase : #2

Suicide Squad (vol 2) #1-12

Suicide Squad (vol 3) #1-8 (Ostrander wrote this as well)

Checkmate (vol 2) #6, 7

Manhunter (vol 3) 33-37

Suicide Squad (vol 4) 1-12 (the current New 52 series)

[Fist and Faith]

I have the Legends mini and all of Vol 1. I thought it was great. (Also Checkmate from that time period.) Loved the Jihad, Stalinvolk, Cobra, and many other stories.

The flaw with the series was the comic industry's absolute lack of guts when it comes to killing characters. How many members died throughout the run? How many of them were characters that anybody heard of? They just threw in a red shirt when they wanted to pretend to be brave and kill someone.

But Ostrander was great. Did some really good things back then. (I don't read anything these days, so no idea how he is at this point.)

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Interestingly--or unnervingly, depending upon how you look at it--the Suicide Squad is how governments would treat metahumans if they really existed. Ultimately, metas would be given four choices: register and not use your powers except in times of civic need, join the government super team, be incarcerated, or go rogue.

Well...there is a fifth option--metas take over and become the ruling class.

[sgt.null]

Hashi - there would have to be lots of Metas for them to take over. especially with the tech we possess nowadays.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

You would be surprised--or maybe not, given your knowledge of metas and comic books--how effective even a small number of metas can be, especially if they include a decently-skilled telepath and a cyber-psi. "Take over" doesn't have to mean "all-out war".

Give me one telepath, one teleporter, one cyber-psi, one gadgeteer, one invisible, one shapeshifter, and one who can shift into shadow form and the world is mine. Other metas would simply be icing on the cake.

Now back to our regularly-scheduled Suicide Squad discussion. I had several post-Legends issues. Deadshot was always a good character but I never did like Boomerang--he was useless. Amanda Waller was also probably one of the best characters DC created during that time.

[Fist and Faith]

I think Charles Xavier could take over our world all by himself. Probably someone less powerful than him, even. Storm could manage to destroy it, I imagine, by herself. Magneto too. GL, Superman, any of the powerhouse mages, and any number of others, individually, could either destroy our take over.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Xavier, one of the most powerful telepaths ever, could easily implant the same suggestion in the mind of various political and military leaders: "always trust everything I say". This presumes he isn't trying to go so far as to telecontrol them. Storm...no, she could do nearly-incalculable property damage but only on a regional scale at a time. Magneto...yes, he could open up the Earth's magnetic field, leaving holes in it and thus exposing us to significantly-increased solar radiation but if he were sufficiently destruction-minded then grabbing a spacesuit and mass-driving us with meteors containing sufficient metal could result in planetary change really quickly, possibly even a mass extinction event. Green Lantern...too many limitations--color, length of ring charge, etc. Superman--yes, by tunneling through volcanoes to the mantle he could devastate the planet quickly.

My usual presumption is that if superhuman powers were ever to become real then within 20 years either the normals would kill them all as uncontrollable or the metas would take over. The first thing that would happen would be government teams, though--this would be a matter of national security. Based on this, comic books teams like X-Men, Justice League, or Avengers wouldn't exist--only government teams would be allowed to be active and there wouldn't be multiple, independent teams; rather, there would be one agency with regional teams. For example, here in the United States you would see teams based in Seattle, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Kansas City, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, D. C., and New York City.

The poor metas who happen to be teleporters would always be the first responders, either by themselves or bringing someone with them. An assessment of the threat would quickly be taken, the apparent powers of the threat compared against a database, and a response team formed based on that analysis that will be the most effective at dealing with the threat.

[dANdeLION]

Great, now I have the "Charles in Charge" theme song running in an endless loop in my brain.


Thanks a lot, Fist.

[sgt.null]

I am going to assume that the first thing that would happen during a "Meta Awakening" is that the governments of the world draft their own superhumans. much like Hashi suggests.

and there are many places in the world where Meta births would be killed outright. first at the first sign of meta activity, then in utero.

unless a certain religion would suddenly find it in their holy book that these metas were a gift from their god.

of course if it takes til puberty for most metas to find their powers, then we would have droves of them hiding out, away from our government. a committed underground could be very dangerous. imagine Timothy McVeigh with powers.

we would be debating the rights of these metas. our congress passing bills denying them basic civil rights, as they are a "danger" to society.

Fist - Ostrander did what he could. the fact that editorial let him kill anyone at the time is pretty amazing. of course it led the the wholesale slaughter of red-shirts. but at least Ostrander did it well.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Actually killing a comic book character is always a brave thing. I thoroughly dislike the "*gasp* such-and-such is dead" only to find out six months later that "the reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated" through some stupid plot twist.

Had I been in charge of DC in the late 1980s, I would have ruled that Superman was really dead and would stay dead. This would have led to the other heroes all becoming a little darker as they slowly begin killing supervillains rather than risk another high-profile death. Necessity would dictate at some point, though, the heroes turning to a powerful mystic like Dr. Fate to call back Superman's spirit and bind it to a clone of his original body, thus resurrecting him. However, I would have made them go to someone considerably darker than Fate and thus be left with the moral dilemma--they resorted to dark magic to bring back a hero and they would have to answer for the villain deaths that had occurred. There is a lot of good plot and character development to be had there.

In a "real-world" meta situation (very ironic, that--"real" metahumans *laugh*) supervillains wouldn't get to go on rampages--they would be met with overwhelming force, detained, then given the option of conscription to the government team or personality wipe by telepaths, resulting in a tabula rasa to be reprogrammed for civic service...or death. Personality wiping criminals is still very morally gray--their fundamental human rights would be violated by this.

I believe in mature comic book plots.

[Fist and Faith]

It could be the personality is as much a part of their powers as the body, and wiping the personality would be the end of the power. Heh. Obviously not in all cases, but it's a neat idea.

[sgt.null]

This episode follows the Squad to the fictional island of Badhinisia, where the team has been dispached to prevent the Brimstone Brotherhood from causing an earthquake. During the events, the Squad is confronted by the Justice League, having learned of the teams existence from Batman. Waller shares her intention to blow the bombs in their necks if they are captured by, or surrender to the League. The Suicide Squad are defeated by the Justice League until Killer Frost absorbs a portion of a weakened Superman's life force and freezes everyone.

Back at Belle Reve Penitentiary, the Justice League has been captured by Amanda. Batman escapes his confinement and confronts Waller about her plans for the League. When the plot reveals the approaching threat of Max Lord and his super-villain team, the two teams must pool their efforts in order to prevent the theft of a powerful weapon from inside Belle Reve.

As the story progresses, Lord succeeds in stealing the Heart of Darkness (aka the Eclipso Diamond) and uses it to control the League, and through them, gains control of the world. Batman rallies Lobo and the remaining Squad members to make a final stand against Lord; escalating to conflict with the compromised Justice League. Meanwhile, Amanda observes that Lord himself is falling under the influence of the Eclipso Diamond, and warns him of this when Lord has her brought to the White House. Lord realizes too late that Waller's warning held truth. In the following chaos, Batman deems them the new Justice League. Although Lord is able to bring most of the Squad/League under his control, he is defeated when Killer Frost, acting on Batman's instructions, is able to create a prism of ice that reflects Superman's heat vision in a frequency that will disrupt Eclipso's control of the heroes, Eclipso himself being vanquished by Killer Frost as she draws on the life energy of the rest of the heroes and Squad members present, thus limiting the drain on any one of them. In the aftermath of the crisis, Killer Frost is officially released while Lord is kept in Waller's custody, Waller musing that she will use him for 'Task Force XI'.