New Suicide Squad #11

Greatest book cover to exist since book covers were invented that time that guy threw a goat hide on top of the ten commandments.

Last issue ended with Captain Boomerang given a death sentence for teaching a bunch of children how to play soccer. That's fair. This issue begins with Deadshot wondering why his teammates never came home the night before. My guess is that one of them is dead and the other one is pissing on the first one's grave. Manta didn't really like Boomerang. Hell, nobody really likes Boomerang! But he can't actually die in the Suicide Squad because he's a team staple! Even if this is an entirely new universe and an entirely new Suicide Squad, it just can't be the same without Deadshot and Captain Boomerang on it. It definitely doesn't need Harley Quinn though. I won't mind if she's killed.

Could you imagine if DC Comics allowed Sean Ryan to kill Harley Quinn? DC Comics has made some bad decisions in the past but I'm fairly certain they're smart enough to recognize a cash cow when it's abused by its psychotic boyfriend and then is left by him and then has nothing to do but make DC money in a number of other comic book titles, unshackled from Gotham City.

Deadshot finds Black Manta but Captain Boomerang is in jail for corrupting the youth. I hope nobody ever busts me on youth corruption charges. I don't think they would stick because I know in at least five of my commentaries, I tell kids they shouldn't be reading my commentaries! I think I did my due diligence!

Black Manta has become sympathetic with The League because he's a weak-willed jerk. Why else would he be the arch-nemesis of Aquaman? If he had any imagination or ambition, he'd move on up to being Booster Gold's nemesis or Cyborg's nemesis. But now he's enjoying being a terrorist because they're super serious and hate goofing off which is how Black Manta describes himself on his Tinder page.

Back at Belle Reve, Amanda Waller's soon to be skinny friend has some intel that she probably shouldn't share in front of Vic Sage since he's secretly working for Checkmate. Probably.

The whole point of the Suicide Squad is so that the government has plausible deniability! So nobody should really care about ally targets being destroyed by Task Force X operatives.

Bonnie's idea is to have the extraction team keep the main team from blowing up the Lazarus Pit Duplication Factory but without compromising the mission. That seems like a dumb idea because Harley Quinn and the Parasite are absolutely certain to compromise the mission. Also, I don't want anybody to stop this mission. The more ways for characters to be resurrected which are destroyed in this comic book, the better.

The mercenaries protecting the Corvus Factory are members of the Pearl Group. That's the group who tried to recruit Vic Sage. So I guess he's not working for Checkmate but for this group I've never heard of before. That must be why he was so eager to stop the destruction of this factory that really, really, really needs to be destroyed.

A huge battle takes place but none of it matters much. It's just League guys battling Pearl Group guys and who cares about any of those guys?! But then Deadshot gets a chance to shine! Apparently he sucks at shooting people ever since Deathstroke tortured him. Deadshot is also addicted to pain pills now. So I guess he's totally useless. Maybe he should die instead of Harley! All the new readers coming to this comic book because of the movie expect him to be black now anyways, right? So kill Floyd and put a new guy under the mask. What do I care?! I've only been a Floyd Lawton fan for thirty years!

Before Deadshot has a chance to be useful, the extraction team arrives to muck up the entire plan.

A frozen Parasite is not a dead Parasite. Nice attempt, Suicide Squad, but eleven issues in and you still haven't earned your comic book title.

The League wins the battle because the extraction team was terrible at their job. Reverse Flash was blasted far from the battle and possibly into a low Earth orbit while The Parasite and Harley were taken captive. Black Manta has proven his loyalty to Saladin, the leader of The League, either because he loves him or he's just really good at his job. My suspicion is that Black Manta is good at his job because he's basically a loner. I think that's why he loves being Aquaman's nemesis. Who needs a whole gang full of thugs and henchmen when you're battling fishboy?

New Suicide Squad #11 Rating: No change. This issue was mostly fighting with a twist that already took place in the first story arc (a teammate turning traitor) but which will be a twist on that twist (Black Manta is just acting and doesn't really enjoy the taste of Saladin's asshole as much as it seems)! The comic book didn't continue getting better like it did the last two issues but it didn't falter either. It was just light on plot and heavy on guns being shot. I guess the other big revelation this issue was that the Pearl Group who was courting Victor Sage is a mercenary organization. So they're rivals to the Suicide Squad and they've got a plant in Belle Reve with access to Amanda Waller. If Sean Ryan is into twists for the sake of twists, it'll wind up that Vic Sage turned down the Pearl Group offer and is really trying to work with Waller while Bonnie is the actual spy! I'm not a fan of that twist and prefer to simply have the story play straight with the reader but it's not a totally improbable twist. It just feels like if it happens, it happened because comic book writers and editors never want anybody to guess where the story is going. Look at what happened in Armageddon back in the nineties when it was obvious that Monarch was Captain Atom. But it was so obvious that it was Captain Atom that DC decided that it better not be Captain Atom at all and they made it Hawk instead which made no sense. I guess in later years they gave the Monarch job to Captain Atom but I wasn't around to read about it.