Tuesday, April 12, 2016

New Suicide Squad #19


Get it? Fists of Cain!

The Review
Tim Seeley is making this book readable. It was always sort of readable but now it's even more readable than before! I have a feeling I'm using "readable" too much, especially since it's one of those words that doesn't really fucking say anything. I mean, legible graffiti in a truck stop restroom is readable. Maybe I should say something like, "This is the version of the Suicide Squad I've been not-so-patiently waiting for!" Sure, it still has the problem of being full of members who DC won't kill off (although the possibility of killing off Diablo remains high. Especially since he's probably going to be one of the members that dies in the movie). But it's getting better by introducing stupid characters like The Hunky Punk and Deathtrap! Characters that are so fucking ridiculous that I love them immediately and feel attached to them and don't want them to die! Also I don't have a crush on them like you're probably thinking. If I did, I would say so in the same way I called Crush Dibs on Vampire Tig, Maps, Alysiah Yeoh, and Supergirl's Bum. I'd also like to say to anybody at DC Comics who might be reading this: give Seeley a Great Britain Suicide Squad comic book! Maybe make it a Young Animals imprint (which I just learned about today and now I can't shake this boner!).

The Commentary
I enjoyed the Internet when it was truly the Wild West. That was when it actually took some effort to have a presence on the web. Now everything is done for you! Stalking people is easy thanks to Facebook. Trolling people is easy thanks to Twitter. Acting like a self-righteous twat who knows everything is easy thanks to Tumblr. Bitterly pointing out how awful comic book writers and artists are is easy thanks to Blogger. Nothing is as fulfilling as it used to be when you actually had to do some research and learn some coding. You even had to be a lot more careful about who you hassled and how you did it because your only email account was either your college email with your real name or the one attached to your parents' AOL account! And if you were banned from AOL, how the fuck were you going to Player Kill innocents in Neverwinter Nights?!

After thousands of these commentaries, maybe it's time I should be honest about some of the stuff I write. I can't say I have ever been a trollish dick on the Internet. I suppose sometimes I'd go into random chat rooms on my Aunt's AOL account while drunk and act like a smart ass. I like to think it was performance art! Oh, and I suppose my cousins and I would sometimes get on the CB radios my uncle got us and troll random truckers. Although I'm sure everybody talking on CBs in Santa Clara, California in the late seventies were all other kids pretending to be truckers too.

You know what? I don't like the whole honesty angle. I think it's better if nobody knows whether something I've said is true or false. That way, I can always deny the truth of anything really embarrassing I reveal. Like that time I admitted to masturbating in the bathroom sink. That was so obviously a joke and not something I do on a nearly regular basis.

See? That was a joke again! Probably!

When we last left the Suicide Squad, they were fighting for their lives in a murder game devised by The Fist of Cain in a German castle called the Fleischhaus. Luckily the title of this issue is a translation of that word, "The House of Meat." Because nobody would have figured that out at all ever. Although I knew it easily because I tend to make up stupid German words like Ziegentasche or Steinschlampe or Totenmeerschweinchen.

Since the Squad is essentially trapped in a building full of murderers, you might be thinking, "Yes! Finally one of them will die!" Also you may have looked at the cover where it seems like maybe Diablo is dead (I would bet my mother's life that he isn't). But hold your ponies, ladies! Another group of super-powered misfits who admire the Squad have also been locked in the castle! So I have a strange feeling that they'll be taking the brunt of the dying.


First nobody down!

Deadshot, crawling around in the air ducts, is lucky he knows German because he comes to a grate that says "FRISCHE LUFT" over it. Fucking hell, Seeley! I was really into this story about a murder cult tricking a government murder squad and a team of murder squad groupies into a long standing German castle called the Fleischhaus and then you had to go and pull me out of it by trying to convince me that a grate leading to outside the castle would be labeled on the inside with the phrase "FRISCHE LUFT"?! I'm seriously thinking about forgetting all of the good shit you've written for DC Comics because of this one mistake on your part! Of course, maybe this wasn't your fault at all. Maybe in your script, you just wanted Deadshot to say "frische Luft" when he felt fresh air blowing in from a grate to the outside and then Juan Ferreyra took it upon himself (or, more likely, was told by an editor!) to write the words on the grate! That seems more likely, especially the part about the editor being the one who thought the comic book needed more explanation. Why can't editors leave well enough alone? Except for those times when they should be getting more involved, like when they're reading Scott Lobdell scripts! I suppose I'm just never really happy, as evidenced by taking up a paragraph to rant about a grate with FRISCHE LUFT carved into it.

The duct that Deadshot is in collapses just as he's about to escape the castle (which, according to Adam the Gamemaster, would just wind up with Deadshot's head being blown off) and falls into a shower where Kilgore, another nobody groupie, is being hacked to pieces by the Fist of Cain. Of course they all decide to fight over Deadshot when he appears because he's practically a seven letter word on a triple word score.

Actually Deadshot's only worth fifteen points. I apologize to all of the Scrabble players about my hyperbole, especially since there's no possible way to create a seven letter word on a triple word score for a measly fifteen points. The bonus alone would shoot you right past fifteen!

Meanwhile Amanda Waller is trying to figure out how to save her Squad. But first she has to humiliate the man who came to visit her for some reason that I can't quite remember. His name is Dorian Ashemore and he's got a fake Who's Who entry!


I know it's fake because it's silly. Also I have my Who's Who right here beside me and there is no entry between Human Target and Hunter's Hellcats.

The Hunky Punk might have the best origin story in the history of the DC Youniverse. Too bad he's not real! I mean, I guess he is real now! Real in a comic book way, of course! I'm not insane! I wonder if I should tear out this page and stick it in my Who's Who?

The whole Hunky Punk plotline just seems to have come out of left field. It's like Seeley decided to write an Elseworlds story in the middle of his Suicide Squad book. That isn't a criticism. I think the Hunky Punk story should be Plot A and the Fist of Cain story should be Plot B! Luckily for me, Amanda wants to lure Hunky Punk to her team of villains. Unluckily for me, he probably won't survive Rebirth.

Back inside Fleischhaus, Deadshot is saved by Deathtrap! Deathtrap is the groupie's real name and not the name I made up for him, in case anybody was confused by the name's stupidity. Remember, he's a parody of the 90s!


Fucking DC! You finally got the right writer on the job to create a Suicide Squad full of nobodies I'm interested in learning about and you're going to Rebirth him! Deathtrap and Hunky Punk are perfect for the Squad! Ridiculous characters that I already like enough to hope that they might survive the next mission while knowing that there's a large chance they won't!

Deathtrap reminds me of Gunfire from Bloodlines. But in that way where you remember something stupid simply because somebody made a version that was better because it didn't take itself seriously and also just because it was better. I wonder if Len Wein has a script for a Gunfire movie gathering dust shoved behind some shoe boxes on the upper shelf of his closet?

Deadshot uses his new Bathroom Tile Gun which--I'm just guessing here--must fire grout bullets as he and Deathtrap make their escape.

Getting back to Tim Seeley's vision of this book, could this be one of those internal pilots? Is Tim Seeley pitching another Suicide Squad which works out of Great Britain? I would read that book with all new villains who, instead of saying "should have," say "should have done"? It already sounds hilariously exciting!

Deadshot and Deathtrap manage to locate Diablo, Cheetah, and Harley Quinn. Now they can make their last stand together! And Deathtrap can make guns for all of them out of whatever's handy! I wonder if he can make guns out of dead bodies? Probably! Why would Tim Seeley limit his power?!

Back at Belle Reve, Amanda puts on some body armor because she's always way too eager to go on missions herself these days. I know back in Ostrander's day she once picked up a huge fucking gun and went toe to toe with Granny Goodness (unless I'm remembering it wrong and then never mind), but that was because she didn't have a choice. Amanda is currently in Belle Reve with lots of bad guys to choose from and she chooses to go on a mission with Captain Boomerang and The Hunky Punk! Although I could be wrong and the body armor is just because she's leading the mission and she won't actually be putting herself in any danger. Although what are the chances of that? She was once a member of Team 7!

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