Suicide Squad #1 – Review

Written by Adam Glass, Art by Federico Dallocchio, Ransom Getty, and Scott Hanna

The Story: Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to vanquish the Thunderbolts in a game of softball. And by choose, we mean “if you don’t do this, we blow up your neck.”

What’s Good: The ending. Or at least, it has the promise of being something interesting with an insane mission the Squad is thrown in to. And to some extent, we get to know our characters.

What’s Not Good: This is not a #1 issue. this is a .1 that is kind of a throwaway tale to tell between two arcs. Unfortunately, a very overused plot device takes up 90% of this first issue, and what you learn about the team from it isn’t surprising in the least. It almost feels as if Glass is relying on people having read Thunderbolts to get the gist of this book. A team of villains forced to do good but have a code among themselves. Honor among mass murderers sort of thing. But Glass is no Jeff Parker, and every turn in this issue is one anti-climatic moment after the other until the last page when they’re literally thrown into a mission that screams “yeah, this isn’t really the mission at all.”  The issue sets it up to make you want to care about Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and El Diablo. Yet the only character I really wanted more from was King Shark, and he only uttered two words the entire issue. In a mess of #1’s, this just doesn’t stand out. It’s not bad enough to fume about, but not good enough to talk about. It’s just kind of there. Even the art is lukewarm. There’s just nothing special to it. And really, the torture scene in the beginning– what exactly are they doing to Deadshot? Cooking live rats on him? I’m really confused by this. It feels like the artist and writer weren’t on the same page at all. And for some reason, Harley’s facial expressions never seem to match her dialogue.  ALSO, they spoil the first arc of Detective Comics. Not cool, DC… Not cool.

Final Thoughts: I love the Thunderbolts, and I wouldn’t mind a DC version of it, but this issue started on the wrong foot…in the wrong town. I’ll try it for a little while longer and see how the future issues turn out. Maybe it’s misguided, but I still have a little faith in this title still.

Grade: C

-Roman Colombo

Adventure Comics #528 – Review

By: Paul Levitz (writer), Geraldo Borges & Ransom Getty (pencillers), Marlo Alquiza & Rob Hunter (inkers), Hi-Fi (colorist)

The Story: Now would be the time to sing the Legion Academy school song, but no one has kazoos on hand, do they?

The Review: Back when Jim Shooter took over the Legion “Three-boot,” the estimable comic book blogger Rokk Krin compared the move to getting a famed football coach out of retirement to rework the magic with a failing team.  I think that analogy works very well to summarize the situation we have with Levitz on the current Legion.  No one can deny his now legendary run with the team back in the day, but that’s where the brilliance has stayed: back in the day.

The formulaic writing which drove me away from Legion of Super-Heroes has undeniably reared its ugly head in the sibling title, as this entire issue reads much the same as almost every issue prior.  Developments, both in terms of plot or character, come minimally, if at all.  Mostly Levitz just recycles the same talking points that have long since failed to illicit anything approaching excitement, or even interest to see what will happen next.

Take the Legion Academy graduates.  Their final exam back in Adventure Comics #525 should’ve been the last we ever saw of these guys, especially since they offered virtually no worth or substance to this title to begin with.  But once again, we have to devote ourselves to far too many pages listening to them bemoan their fates about not getting into the Legion (because whining is such a cherished virtue among Legionnaires).