Suicide Squad #10 – Review

By: Adam Glass (story), Fernando Dagnino (art), Matt Yackey (colors)

The Story: Harley shows off the psycho in psychologist.

The Review: I don’t wish this on anybody, but in my experience, there are three ways for the magic to run out in a relationship.  Sometimes, you’re chugging along fine and then, like a bolt out of the blue, it happens and you’re left dazed afterwards.  Sometimes, it’s a gradual sapping away, with you helplessly but lethargically watching as it proceeds to its eventual doom.  And sometimes, you don’t realize it’s happened until it already has and it’s too late.

I feel that third situation pretty much sums up my feelings toward this title.  Maybe an issue or so ago I sensed not all was right, but only during this issue did I suddenly realize how tired and disinterested I was in reading it.  It all comes down to the fundamental truth about stories: you either have to love the tale being told, or you have to care about its characters.  In this case, I can’t honestly say either one of those things is working out for me.

Suicide Squad #9 – Review

By: Adam Glass (story), Fernando Dagnino (art), Matt Yackey (colors)

The Story: It’ll take more than loose teamwork to kill the man who can’t be killed.

The Review: Gosh, this week sure has been one for mini crossovers, hasn’t it?  By now, you’ll have grasped the qualities of a strong tie-in: a story which can stand on its own, without having to pick out plot points from a completely different series; the issue doesn’t feel like a jarring departure from the kind of reading you’ve come to expect from the title; and most importantly, it doesn’t feel like a waste of the series’ monthly dosage.

In nearly every respect, this issue offers the opposite of all that.  Last time, the Squad had only just received their marching orders to take down the irritatingly unkillable Resurrection Man.  This issue opens on the man who won’t die, lying on the dirt, done in by a headshot (accidental, as it turns out—Deadshot’s aim isn’t quite what it once was just yet).  Next to Mitch Shelley is a hysterical woman named Kim, apologizing to his cadaver for something.  Unless you read Resurrection Man #8 (which I did not, having given it up three issues before), you will have no idea what went down between the Squad’s last issue and this one.

Suicide Squad #8 – Review

By: Adam Glass (writer), Federico Dallocchio (artist), Matt Yackey (colorist)

The Story: And Amanda Waller wonders why she never gets called a people person.

The Review: Perhaps the reason why team books are so popular is because they have a built-in potential for variety.  Since each character presumably brings something different to the table, you don’t have to stick to any one kind of story or tone for too long.  Of course, this requires the writer to make sure each team member actually does have a unique voice and background.  If everyone acts and talks the same, what’s the point?

Suicide Squad runs pretty close to this kind of problem.  This issue sports a couple scenes where Waller interacts with Savant and Deadshot, and aside from slight variations in their choice of words, they tend to have the same acidic sarcasm (“I’m sick of being head cheerleader.”  “Do I look like your mamma, Lawton?”).  Unlike the colorful tapestry of characters you had in Gail Simone’s Secret Six, this series has a general sameness to its proceedings which it rarely varies.

To focus the lens a little closer, let’s look at Waller.  Throughout the issue, she spouts pretty much the same threatening demeanor she does all the time.  This would be easier to handle in brief doses, but Glass seems content to let her ramble on even when no one’s listening, like in her rant to the comatose Harley: “Thank God we had a warehouse full of patsies to pin the riot and your escape on!  For all anyone knows, you never left Belle Reve and went on a crazy killing spree looking for that psychotic excuse of a boyfriend of yours.”  Besides the pointless anger, it just seems like an excuse to cover some exposition without much effort.

All-Star Western #3 – Review

By: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Moritat (artist), Gabriel Bautista (colorist), Jordi Bernet (feature artist), Rob Schwager (feature colorist)

The Story: A rough beat for a Gotham cop is…pretty much everywhere in Gotham.

The Review: One of the more intriguing elements to this series has been the “fish out of water” story placing Hex within the trappings of an increasingly urbanized city.  Gray-Palmiotti haven’t played up this aspect so far, but they’ve made it clear Hex can’t wait to get the men on his list and leave this crummy town.  At the same time, the plot has slowly revealed that even if Hex has no use for the city, the city needs him.

This issue makes that need very clear.  Commish Cromwell turns out a pretty decent guy, and now armed with the knowledge of how far the Religion of Crime goes, he plans to clear out the roots of evil before they implant themselves into Gotham’s fabric (terrible mix of metaphors, but this isn’t Shakespeare, so…).  Unfortunately, all his hopeful plans, as so much does in Gotham, comes to naught.

From the very start we saw the number of high-powered men whose rings identified them as the followers of Cain, and last issue showed they’ve already laid down their plans for taking control of the growing city.  Add that to the fact they’re well aware of how much Cromwell knows about them, and you can easily predict that no matter what, the Commish’s time in office would be limited, even if the Crime believers have to go all Rambo to do it.

All-Star Western #2 – Review

By: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Moritat (artist), Gabriel Bautista (colorist), Jordi Bernet (feature artist), Rob Schwager (feature colorist)

The Story: As long as there are donuts at the end of it, sign me up for the Religion of Crime!

The Review: At first, it wasn’t clear why of all the new 52, this one had the rare price point of $3.99 while even the most popular titles clocked in one dollar lower.  But now it’s clear that even in this latest era of DC comics, the co-feature has its place—which is fine, so long as their stories feel self-contained and substantial on their own merits, rather than novel pieces of filler material.

Unfortunately, the latter is exactly what “El Diablo” winds up being, with the titular character a mix between Hangman (of Archie Comics fame, star of a short-lived DC series) and your typical wandering vigilante who happens upon a frontier town in its hour of need.  A cowboys and zombies mash-up was only a matter of time, and here it comes off just as ludicrously as you can hope for: “Once the dead have been called, only a demon can kill the cursed.”

Not surprisingly, the co-feature, with forgettable art from Bernet, appears thin and uninspired compared to its bigger counterpart in this issue.  Given your druthers, you’d probably forego the distraction of El Diablo for more of Jonah Hex and Dr. Arkham’s mystery in early industrial Gotham.  This is especially the case when considering the interesting new developments in the story that don’t quite get to play out as far as you’d like.

Gray-Palmiotti do a good job linking up all of Gotham’s major historical threads together by introducing the Religion of Crime and its Bible into the investigation.  Speaking as someone who apparently never read the original work where these concepts came from, I appreciated the brief explanation Arkham gives us early on: “…a dark faith…of crime based on the story of Cain and Abel…”  It’s nice to actually have some substance put to the names.

Suicide Squad #2 – Review

Written by Adam Glass, Art by Federico Dallocchio and Andrei Bressan, Colors by Val Staples

The Story: Suicide Squad is dropped into…some stadium (they forgot to give us the name in this issue and I’m too lazy to go back to the last one to figure it out) and are instructed to kill everyone inside because they’ve all been turned into CRAZY TECHNO-ORGANIC ZOMBIES. Kid, meet Candy Shop. Candy Shop, meet Kid.

The Good: Man this was a good first issue. Oh wait…this was the second. Damn–would have made a much better first issue. In fact, after reading this, I’m really not sure what the point of issue one was. Everything a #1 issue should be, Suicide Squad #2 is. It gives us a story. It sets up the characters in a natural way, showing their characteristics unfold while the plot does. No shoehorning, no gimmicks. It’s…and this pains me to say after the first issue was handled so poorly…pretty well written. You actually get to feel for the characters this time. Deadshot is shown to be a capable leader of the team. Diablo’s pain is seen instead of shown. We don’t even have to know what he did to be so concerned with innocents (I didn’t care enough when I read it in the first issue and I still don’t) to feel his genuine need to redeem himself. Even Harley gets some nice character moments. But even while the other members are becoming more interesting, it’s still King Shark who’s the most fun. As Deadshot says, he’s the wild card. Predictably unpredictable. Willing to eat techo-zombie flesh.  The design of the character might not be great–and as someone pointed out last month, taken almost entirely from another series–but his character is great. I don’t even want to know his back-story. I’m perfectly happy with King Shark being King Shark (and I thought I’d hate this character the most). Glass leveled up since the last issue and is really bringing us some good material now. There are great surprises and the promise of an insane story. Let’s hope he can keep it up.