Convergence: Suicide Squad #2

Thanks, Comic Book Store, for giving me the most beat up cover in the batch!

Speaking of beat-up covers, I dug out my copy of Walking Dead #1! Wait, I phrased that wrong. I meant that the cover wasn't beat up at all. In fact, it looked flawless! When should I sell it? Has the show jumped the zombie shark yet? Oh man. I hope at some point Rick jumps a zombie shark to prove to some other gang of survivors that he's the coolest. And then the term "jumping the shark" would have to begin meaning the opposite of what it means now!

I was going to reread the Baxter edition of The New Teen Titans from the eighties next but I think I need a break from that decade. Instead, I'll be heading into the mid-nineties and rereading one of my favorite series of all-time, House of Secrets. I went digging around the Portland Comic Book Hoarder Store, Future Dreams, and found issues #1-5 packed up for ten dollars. I picked it up because my run of House of Secrets begins with #6. I have the trade collecting the first five issues but now I have the complete collection! Which isn't even worthy of kissing the feet of Walking Dead #1. In terms of value! I love House of Secrets more than Walking Dead #1!

This issue begins with a "NOW" tag but Amanda isn't lying on the floor bleeding out, so it's at least prior to the events which began Convergence: Suicide Squad #1. Frank Tieri is just trying to be confusing now. Unless now is twenty four hours ago. Then he was confusing yesterday.

Can fat people not turn their heads? Or open their eyes?

I totally don't know the answer to that question in the last caption. At least, I can open my eyes and turn my neck so I guess I'm not Amanda Waller fat! I mean, I'm so thin that if this were a picture of me shooting a gun, I would be staring at the floor because I'm too skinny and weak to hold up my head.

The "now" part of the story lasted two pages simply so Frank Tieri could get a splash page featuring dozens of costumed characters. Supposedly this makes the reader want to read the rest of the book. It's too bad the page following the one featuring dozens of characters is a scene from a middle school conflict at lunch. We've got Captain Boomerang making fun of other villains' names (not that he doesn't have a good reason for it! It's just that it paints the middle school fist fight mood). Bane retorting with the scathing "No, you!" elementary playground comeback. Deadshot and Deathstroke in a half-hearted fist fight (it must be half-hearted or Deadshot would be dead before the first panel. It's a fistfight! Deathstroke wins! If Deadshot were to win this fight, the brawl would have been over before Deadshot was within 100 yards of the room). Somebody calls somebody else "garbage." The somebody else claims they aren't garbage at all! I think the cover was misprinted. It should have read Convergence: Degrassi Junior Suicide Squad.

The conflict between Old Suicide Squad and New Revamped Flashier To Hide The Poor Writing Abilities Of Frank Tieri Suicide Squad happens aboard Kingdom Come Lex Luthor's ship which is headed to New Oa. The ship crashes through the side of it and the exciting battle begins!

No, really! It's going to be super exciting! Because the combatants are Deadshot and Deathstroke and Cyborg Superman and Bronze Tiger and Captain Boomerang and Poison Ivy and Bane and Count Vertigo and Black Manta and Amanda Waller and Kingdom Come Lex Luthor and Kingdom Come Hawkman and Kingdom Come Kid Flash and Kingdom Come Atom and Kingdom Come Power Girl and Kingdom Come Batman and Kingdom Come Speedy and loads of other Kingdom Come people that I don't recognize due to my ignorance or Tom Mandrake's style! It's practically a Royal Rumble! If you're not super excited about this match-up, maybe you should be reading The Importance of Being Earnest. I believe that features a tea party and cucumber sandwiches! Dullsville, baby!

Let's see Oscar Wilde write dialogue like that!

During the fight, Cyborg Superman takes over Kingdom Come Robotman and Kingdom Come Alloy (unless that would just be Alloy?). He immediately begins using them to attack other members of the Suicide Squad. But since Amanda Waller insisted on being part of the action instead of overseeing the group to make sure none of them did anything stupid like this, she doesn't notice and therefore cannot blow the nano-bomb in his face before he's able to deactivate it. This is why Generals don't insist on fighting in the front lines, Amanda! Do your stupid job correctly next time.

Star Sapphire takes it upon herself to become a nano-bomb since Amanda wasn't doing her job correctly. She wraps herself around Cyborg Superman and is all, "This is for ruining my business and dropping the stock prices through the floor and making me meet with the stupid fucking shareholders that don't actually do anything for anybody except make the world a worse place!" Then she blows up taking out nearly everybody. But not Green Lantern! Or Lex Luthor! Or Captain Boomerang! Because they're too cynical to be knocked unconscious by a stupid love explosion!

It's hard for a writer of average intelligence to come up with the motivation for a genius.

Speaking of geniuses, did anybody watch that week long 500 Questions game show? Was nobody at all surprised that the majority of the contestants were nerdy white males? Not because of any inherent sexism in casting! But because it's nerdy white males that generally need some sort of claim to being a genius. So however the casting call for the show went out (I'm assuming some kind of push via the internet? And I'm sure there are "game show agents" nowadays too (which nerdy white males who think of themselves as geniuses would acquire!)), I'm confident that 95% of the people who replied were nerdy white males.

I love game shows so I watched the entire thing. I also love train wrecks which helped me to watch the entire thing. Because there is nothing train wreckier than nerds (actual nerds. Not "I love things in pop culture so therefore I'm a nerd" nerds!) trying to act the way (and I'm not judging anybody as better or worse here! It's just that people are different and have different strengths and weaknesses) they think socially competent people act.

The show claimed to be the hardest quiz show ever because it doesn't have multiple choice or lifelines. But seriously? Hardest? It might be difficult approaching it from an endurance point of view. But contestants only have to answer 166 or 167 questions correctly (what am I? A genius? You do the math betterer!) to make it through the entire game show. Plus they get to shout out multiple answers for ten seconds hoping that one of their guesses is correct. That's not hard at all! The main thing going against a contestant is that over time, the likelihood that they will get three questions in a row that they can't answer increases. So to get through to the 500th question is difficult but it's not like they actually have to answer 500 questions correctly. Geniuses my asshole!

Oh! I was distracted so I forgot to mention that the person putting the bullet in Lex Luthor's head in the panel above was Captain Boomerang. That's why I mentioned him as one of the people too cynical to be felled by the Love Explosion.

Captain Boomerang discovered recently that he had cancer and that it was probably due to one of the Suicide Squad missions he went on. So he decided to screw up the mission and take the entire team (plus The Wall!) with him. Captain Boomerang tries to shoot Amanda in the head as well because he forgot his name is not Captain Gun. But Green Lantern stops the bullet and declares the battle over. Kingdom Come has defeated the Suicide Squad! Amanda Waller gets to live!

No wait. Scratch that. They all lose and they all die. Suicide Squad!

The "whatever that was" Amanda mentions was the earthquake. Which somehow shook the floating city of New Oa because Frank Tieri was mandated by editorial to include it in his story. Plus, you know, it's more like a Telos orgasmic shudder which probably rattled the atmosphere as well.

Convergence: Suicide Squad #2 Ranking: I suppose it's fitting that Amanda Waller gets to commit suicide and destroy the entire Squad on the last mission. At least, it's fitting for a pitch meeting. "Picture this! The final issue of Suicide Squad! Amanda Waller...wait for it...commits suicide!" Gasps! Shocked utterances! Accountants scribbling on pads trying to add up all the money about to be made! Frank Tieri carried from the room on the shoulders of his superiors! Champagne corks flying across the room! Cocaine being snorted in every bathroom! Female and male hookers fucking everything that moves! Meth being cooked in the snack room! Russian Roulette being played in the lobby! Jizz flowing in rivers down the halls! A new age of decadence has begun and thy name is The DC Age! Four Suicides out of Ten.

Divergence: Aquaman
"A new look and a new direction as Aquaman finds himself on the run and Atlantis wants him dead!"

Fucking dickholes. Cullen Bunn on another book? Can somebody help this guy win the lottery so he stops turning all of the comic books I'm reading into boring, trite bullshit filled to the brim with horrible Narration Boxes?!

Oh wait! He's trying something different in Aquaman! No Narration Boxes! Maybe this will work out after all.

Aquaman is being hunted by Atlantis (as the "Here's how we've made the comic book worse!" blurb mentioned) because, I suppose, everybody was pissed off at him for finding his mother.

Oh. He doesn't need Narration Boxes because he talks to himself now. I hope he's talking to somebody via radio or else he's gone nuts.

The Atlanteans attack Aquaman with space ships because I don't know. Whatever. But look at this! Here we go again! Has the comic book reading world been asking for Bad-Ass Aquaman again?

This ain't your father's Aquaman anymore! Actually, being that teenagers and young twenty-somethings are probably reading this, this actually was your father's Aquaman for awhile.

Of course, Mera is hunting him down. I guess he finally slept with Ya'wara and she's pissed.

I hate this comic book so much already.