Suicide Squad #20

With a change of writers, I'm hoping more people than just Lime Light will end up dying. Fucking Adam Glass! How hard is it to make Suicide Squad successful? You change up the team every few issues, you kill off old B-List villains hardly anybody remembers, and you put Captain Boomerang on the team! That one sentence was a more successful issue than any Adam Glass wrote!

Last issue Deadshot was killed. Again. Also The Unknown Soldier showed up because the main thing this team has been lacking is a Rick Flag wannabe. Also the comic has been lacking a guy with bandages all over his face. And a guy with an enormous penis. I mean a guy with an enormous penis that isn't also a shark.

The issue begins back at Belle Reve where Deadshot is undergoing another infusion of Samsara. Voltaic is playing Scrabble with Harley Quinn but zombies suck at Scrabble so he doesn't stand a chance. A mysterious classified person meets with Amanda to discuss some of the other inmates.

David Graves, the cancer-ridden writer that's currently writing a book for Amanda. I think. That was a long time ago. Cheetah, the God of Cheetahs. She's waiting around to be rescued by The Legion of Doom The Secret Society of Super-villains. King Shark, the Shark. He's busy reading and turning into a giant vegan pansy.

I suppose with a new writer, a lot of characters are going to go through instant changes without any rhyme or reason.

See? Voltaic is no longer simply a reanimated corpse! He's a real, living, talking, Scrabble playing boy!

The Unknown Soldier doesn't stand for any disrespectful lip from zombies, so he beats the unliving shit out of Voltaic. The team is really coming together with The Unknown Soldier at the helm! Two members down and they haven't even gone on a mission yet! Speaking of the down members, Amanda and the secret classified man decide to check in on Deadshot next.

Yeah, could you please stop doing that? Or at least sell some of that Samsara shit to Bruce Wayne.

The Classified Man and Amanda Waller turn their attention to King Shark's cell where a woman is flirting with King Shark. The Classified Man says, "That is low, Waller." Waller responds, "I don't take personality assessments from scumbag serial killers." A-ha! So the Classified Man in the shades is a serial killer! Well, now I know who I'm hoping he is!

Come on! No Whammies! Please let it be The Corinthian! I know it won't be. It's probably going to be stupid James Gordon Junior instead.

Meanwhile in Harley Quinn's cell, Amanda and The Classified Man James Gordon Jr. The Corinthian (I'm just going to pretend it's The Corinthian from here on out just like I pretend that Light is Lime) have sent in a Joker Like-a-Look to try and send her back into crazy town. She's been much too rational lately since her Doctor Quinzel personality has come on strong. The Unknown Soldier is sent in to blow The Joker's head off while The Fake Joker tries to kill Harley. Except the Fake Joker didn't want to kill Harley so the plan sort of went tits up.

Is there enough Samsara to use on nobody's like Fake Joker?

King Shark bites the head off the prostitute when she slaps him and she turns out to be a robot. So King Shark is still King Shark even though he went through a one page phase where he was trying to be something else. Or something. Why bother? Wait, I'll bitch about this comic book as a whole after the rating. There's still some more stupid crap to talk about.

Voltaic is trying to be Samsara'd again after The Unknown Soldier beat him to death but he gets too much and explodes in the Resurrection Room. Good! Enough with the Samsara already!

The comic ends with the reveal of the actual identity of The Classified Man: it's James Gordon, Jr The Corinthian! And he's not a sociopath anymore because he's learned empathy! But he's still a serial killer. Except now he's in love with Amanda Waller. Holy fuck this is some bullshit. Except the part where The Corinthian is a member of The Suicide Squad now! Yay! He really should have fallen in love with Lime instead of Waller.

Suicide Squad #20 Rating: -2 Rankings. This entire issue is just Amanda Waller fucking with her team for no reason. She feels like she needs to put them in their place so they'll follow orders and work as a team better. But she already had nanocite bombs in their necks for that. She simply wanted to punish Deadshot for threatening to quit. And why the fuck does she need a sociopath as her right hand man? Oh, forgive me! He's now big time into empathy! Hey, Ales Kot? Guess what sociopaths don't understand? Yeah, fuckwad. It's EMPATHY! He might be able to pretend and go through the motions based on how he's seen people react. But he doesn't actually know what empathy is or how to feel it. Like the Androids in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. They think they can manipulate people because they know how empathy and emotions make people act. But they can never actually experience empathy and thus have no idea how powerful it can truly be. It's their big downfall! They think they can break humanities spirit by proving Mercer is a fraud and yet the fact that Mercer was a fake doesn't fucking matter because that isn't the important bit! It's the empathy and the joining of feeling that people get through Mercerism that matters! You stupid James Gordon Jr Sociopath! I think there was a point in there somewhere!

Anyway, I guess it's all just one big interview to see how well The Corinthian can manipulate the team's emotions. But I have no fucking idea why he's here anyway. Yet again, someone goes from Gotham to Belle Reve instantaneously. There must be some kind of wormhole I don't know about. And what the fuck, by the way, was that bullshit with King Shark? Just make him a fucking shark that likes to bite people's heads off! Stop trying to produce a character that the reader can connect with. There are plenty of those! I just want a fucking shark!

And the Samsara thing where Waller just gets to keep bringing everyone back to life if they die? Lose it already. Who the fuck cares if anyone dies if they never really die? Who thought that was an amazing new take on the Suicide Squad? It's really fucking dumb.