Suicide Squad #23

This issue looks like a lot of fun!

I've got other writing projects to work on, so I'm thinking about changing the way I do things here. Although changing my routine hurts me in the space in my brain where most people feel love and affection. I feel comfortable doing the same thing over and over again. Which many of you have probably noticed if you've managed to read my commentaries for more than one month in a row. Same old Superboy jokes over and over. Same old Scott Lobdell attacks. Same fucking swears, over and over and over. But that's why I was thinking about trying something new! I was thinking a way to make this less time intensive on my end was to do one comic per day in the normal way, writing the commentary as I read the comic book. And then for the second commentary of the day, I'd just read the book and comment on it afterward. The biggest problem with beginning this new format will be beginning the new format. I'll have to think about it for a bit. Maybe the next time I read a comic I've become bored with (like Batwing!), I'll do the commentary the new way.

Now that the boring business part of the commentary is over with, it's time for the boring commentary part of the commentary!

Last issue we learned that everybody was going to die because the Samsara Project was causing everybody to reject their souls. This issue, Amanda Waller has some 'splaining to do!

And James Gordon Jr. has some Foreigner to sing.

This is my art paragraph! So far, I really like the new artist! I think this is his first book for The New 52. That was my art paragraph!

Apparently John Lynch was behind all the non-Waller chaos of the last couple of issues. The reason it doesn't feel at all tacked on is because Waller was withholding the information the way she normally does. So it totally makes sense that Anarchoterrorists weren't really behind trying to flood Las Vegas with Shit Monsters or that Harley Quinn wasn't actually trying to break out of prison when she eventually worked out a Suicide Squad Benefits Package with Amanda. But anyway, John Lynch is their real enemy. You remember him, right? The dick leader of Team 7? The reason for all of this chaos? Not to test his Hypnotizing Billboard Technology. No, no. It's to fuck with Amanda Waller.

So the Suicide Squad is busy trying to infiltrate their way into Mingowee. The last time I had a Geography class was in 7th grade where I wrote an oral report about Icebergs by simply copying the text out of a sixties encyclopedia. Seriously, how could I not plagiarize something so fucking boring as icebergs? Was I supposed to punch it up with some dick jokes?

Oh, also, Comic Books tend to make up names for fake countries! So Mingowee is probably a fake name and Ales Kot made it up because it sounds like a hurt vagina in British Slang.

"Oh look! A pale white clown woman with a pie in her picnic basket! This should be fun and isn't suspicious or weird at all!"

There's a bit of a flashback where the details of Harley and Amanda's new benefit package are discussed. The neck bombs have been removed from the Squad and they'll all be released in a year to work as informants. So the deal is to become a snitch? Sounds like a pretty shitty deal. If they, you know, stick to it. I can't see King Shark (or Harley (or Deadshot!)) becoming informants.

Look out! She's got a pie! She's also looking mighty adorable!

I bet her pie is full of a slow acting poison that will give the guards horrible diarrhea and kill them in a day and a half. Or she might just use the gun that's next to the pie. Either way.

Cheetah runs around setting off landmines for some reason. I suppose to be a distraction? Because I doubt Waller is sending in any military vehicles to help the Squad out. And Deadshot is sniping John Lynch in the face.

Just like Call of Duty! One shot in the head doesn't fucking do a thing! At least John Lynch didn't lunge from this distance with his knife and kill Deadshot. Then it would have been exactly like Call of Duty! Also, where did that piglet come fro...oh, never mind. It's John Lynch's hand.

And then the expected Small Terrorist Nation Super Villain Team shows up! First up against Harley is Crow Jane. The Crow versus the Clown! She either has the ability to command crows, or she's really good with .32, .44, and .38 caliber pistols. She also might be talented at finding roadkill.

Or maybe she has bird vision and sees things slower so she can count bullets from an automatic weapon. You know what's easier than counting bullets, Crow? Listening for the gun to stop making POW POW POW noises! She probably burned through the entire clip in just a few seconds.

Next up is Lamplight. This guy looks like a second-rate Green Lantern and his Lamp is powered by a hand crank. He calls King Shark ugly because, and I'm just guessing here, Lamplight has never looked at himself in a mirror while wearing his ridiculous outfit.

Impetus goes after Cheetah because he's the fast one and the fast people always have to fight the fast people. That's stupid thinking! What I would do is have the fast villain go after all of the heroes except the fast hero. Then I'd have all the villains that are left team up against the fast guy. It might work if you're the one doing the ambushing! Nobody expects to be doing one thing and then to be tied up and naked and hanging from a tree one second later!

Lastly, Amaze pins Deadshot to the ground with her foot. So it looks like a Dollar Store version of the Justice League's big Five minus Superman. Maybe Lynch was saving Superman's slot for the day he could once again have Majestic under his control.

So Lamplight's powers are nonexistent and King Shark has powers I didn't know existed. Sonar? Really?

Isn't what King Shark describing simply really good hearing? I'm not saying he doesn't have sonar; it's just that he wasn't actually using it at this moment, was he? He just heard this idiot coming. And speaking of this idiot, did Lynch simply tell him he had powers that he doesn't actually have? Is this one of his hypnosis tricks? I suppose I actually just answered my own question when I called him an idiot.

Oh yeah! Lynch called for help from Titan when he was shot in the face. So Titan is the Superman equivalent on this team.

Impetus is defeated by Cheetah's landmine bees. Those are bees that smell dynamite and lead people to land mines. Or something. I don't know! I seem to have let my Great Moments in the Advancement of Modern Warfare Magazine subscription lapse. Even if the bees could detect landmines, I'm not sure why they needed them. Cheetah could have simply run across the entire field before the bees even found one mine.

Crow Jane ends up being less like Batman and more like Black Canary. I should have guessed by her Ross Dress for Less version of Dinah's old outfit. She actually looked more like Zatanna when I first saw her. But now she tries to scream at Harley and just gets hit in the face by Harley's landmine pie. Good thing the bees didn't set it off!

You know, this Super Villain team might actually be decent if they didn't have to scream their imaginary super powers at their enemies.

Deadshot defeats Amaze with kissies and doing its. Although before they can get to the doing it part of the plan, Titan cock blocks him. But then Deadshot proves that Titan's no Superman.

Too bad he uses up his one cock block for the day because he could have used it here.

Once Titan is down and Deadshot gets clear with Amaze, Amanda Waller has dozens of drones (and a stealth bomber!) bomb the crap out of Mingowee. Lynch seems to be somewhat immortal or something, so he'll probably be back. But for now, his plans of taking over a small nation state and using their oil and gold resources for his own ends has fallen through. And not just because most of the nation's super team has been beaten but because the Leader, Paris Mingowee, has been killed as well.

This page made up for all of the horrible jokes throughout the issue. Plus Harley is looking adorable again.

Suicide Squad #23 Rating: No change. I'm always wishing comic books would be more whimsical and fun. And then Ales Kot adds a lot more of that aspect to this book. Which I think it definitely needs. He nails it in that last page I scanned. I really liked the lightening of the mood in most places but I found some of his attempts awkward and ill-fitting of the mood. Like when he announces Mingowee in the Narration Boxes as "Some Country Somewhere Far Away" and then gives the president's title as a long joke title. I'm not against this kind of thing; it just didn't work for me here. I'm still not a fan of James Gordon Jr. being in love with Waller and not acting anything like a sociopath or psychopath. If it weren't for the fact that he's Narration Boxing all of his love feelings and his sudden philosophy of kindness, I'd believe he had some kind of ulterior motive. Perhaps Bab's Batarang caused some brain damage when it went through his eye.

Suicide Squad #22

"Oh my God! They've reruined Harley again again! Fuck DC! Give use the old new Harley back! Change is scary! I hate growing up! Why does everything die?!"

This is a phrase I couldn't stand hearing back when Harley first appeared and now I get to hear it all over again due to Palmiotti and Connor's upcoming Harley Quinn book: "I liked the old Harley better." There are subtle imaginative and creative variations on this statement but it all comes down to the same statement: "I liked the old Harley better." You know who you're surprising with that wildly creative criticism? Absofuckinglutely nofuckingbody! Although I'll defend your right to say uncritical, unintelligent, boring personal opinions because of America and shit. But I'll super-defend my right to say those opinions bore the ever living glory out of me. You know the main reason I hate hearing "I liked the old Harley better"? Because I seriously fucking doubt that any DC fan out there has taken the other side of the argument! "No, no! You're wrong! This new Harley written by the fabulously insightful Adam Glass is heads and shoulders and over-sized mallets above the old one!"

Hmm. You know what? I take that back! This is the internet where the Kings of Devil's Advocatism reign! "The new Harley Quinn is a mature, postmodern look at a woman driven past the breaking point by the abusive man she can't quit. She's a strong woman that has shaken the shackles of her love bondage from her mind and freed herself completely to be the intelligent, sexual, whimsical, serious Übermensch she always had the potential to be. Shedding the one piece footie costume was metaphor for breaking out of her cocoon. Her multi-colored ponytails have unfurled as her new wings. She wears less clothing to illustrate her greater freedom. And she fucks the shit out of Deadshot simply so she can make a joke about her vagina being like a clown car."

Okay, I almost had myself believing the new Harley was a genius creation until that last line where I remembered she once called her vagina a clown car. Oh Adam Glass. That was just awful.

Why do I always end up talking about Harley and her fans?! It just makes people angry because I always speak from a place of authority instead of backpedaling and mewling and placing "I thinks" and "in my opinions" in front of every Goddamn sentence! I should contemplate King Shark more. I wish he'd get his own book. Although I really don't like the King Shark being written by Ales Kot. In my opinion, Ales Kot has decided that King Shark was a Shakespearean Actor before he became a Man-Shark God. I think that's a poor way to take the character. If you'd allow me my humble suggestion, I would rather he maintained a mysterious persona driven mostly by the desire to eat the faces off of people.

This issue begins like an episode of Dragnet.

"This is the city. Las Vegas, Nevada. It was established in 1905 as a place to bury murdered prostitutes. Every month, more marriages end here than begin here. And that's a lot of marriages since Las Vegas is known for its quickie Elvis Impersonator Drive-thru Blackout Drunk Marriage Chapels. The economy is based on gangsters, pickpockets, and the sex trade but don't worry: it's family friendly. It also sports one of the highest "suicide" rates in the country. I just did air quotes with my fingers around suicide as I narrated. That's because those "suicides" are actually gangland hits. And when those "suicides" turn up in the desert, somebody has to figure out how they died. That's my job. My name is Waller, Amanda Waller. My partner is James Gordon, Jr."

The Suicide Squad have arrived in Las Vegas to participate in the "suicidal" body count. Deadshot and Harley are undercover playing Roulette when a pit boss approaches them for mysterious reasons. Usually those reasons are because security thinks they're cheating, they have bad body odor, or they're kids have just fallen in the fountain and drowned. It's also possible that they were recognized since Harley still has the white skin and she's wearing a mask. Oh! Wearing a mask will also bring security down on your heads pretty quickly!

I don't know why Deadshot is playing Roulette! He seems more like a Craps man to me. You get to accurately throw things. It has the best odds of survival. You get to kiss people for good luck. Maybe I'm just projecting. I love Craps and I would never play Roulette! I also think I have a gambling problem although I haven't gambled for many, many years. So it's not much of a problem now!

By the way, Harley looks great in her showgirl costume. I like that in the privacy of my home office, I can look at Harley and say she looks great in her non-footie outfit and not have to hear anybody say, "I liked the old Harley better."

On the third page, The Unknown Soldier appears on a billboard by a big breasted woman in a chain mail bikini (No, no. She's blonde) and shoots a terrorist in the face. It's very possible that these first three pages alone have been more entertaining than the entire 21 issue run previous. This is how a Suicide Squad book should begin! This is how these fuckers should act! These three pages have set the bar pretty high for the rest of the comic book. Hopefully Ales Kot doesn't just saunter on under that bar.

Although, if this issue does continue to be this good, then I really have to wonder what the fuck DC is doing driving Kot off of the book? So in a way, I hope it gets worse so I don't have to feel the Squad was finally headed in the right direction, only to be fucked by DC's editorial Fist of God.

The Soldier allows the terrorists to drive themselves to Waller since he promised them freedom and also to not shoot them in the face if they help The Squad defeat their employers. If these guys knew anything about Amanda Waller, they would have chosen to be shot in the face. Instead they head to their Mother with King Shark following.

Harley and Deadshot beat some more information out of the guy that I thought was a pit boss but was apparently an Anarchoterrorist working for Project TMA-3 ("Too Much Ass 3"? Are they stopping a porn production?). They also continue to say fairly unfunny things. If that's one thing I haven't liked much since Ales Kot took over, it's the not very funny snark coming out of Deadshot's mouth.

At least Harley still looks cute.

Amanda Waller sends Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and The Unknown Soldier into the worst hotel room in the world. It's because Dick Halloran isn't around to warn them not to go into it. But apparently there is a switch in the room to turn on the hypnosis billboards. Cheetah and King Shark are attacking The Mother's headquarters which seems fitting since The Mother is asking her children to consult their spirit animals.

What good is consulting your spirit animal? How many different types of advice can it give you? If your spirit animal is a kitten, it can advise you to "eat" or "potty" or "attack some string" or "spaz the fuck out" or "head bump" or "run around a table leg fifteen times." I guess some of those are good advice!

My spirit animal is a raccoon. It usually just tells me to "search the trash" or "wash your hands." I never listen to it.

When King Shark crashes through the roof, he reveals his secret identity to the enemy.

Maybe it's not his secret identity. Perhaps it's just gas from the escort he ate earlier.

And then The Mother reveals herself!

Nightshade! I thought I recognized her crazy hair profile in the shadows but my mental block kept telling me it was Medusa. My mental block is fucking stupid and doesn't know the difference between DC and Marvel.

I suppose The Suicide Squad is going to defeat her and then shove her on the team at a later date. At least, that's what would have happened had Ales Kot continued to write the book! Now I have to hope Matt Kindt (or whoever continues the series) remembers her!

After the billboards go live, the anarchists fuck monkeys at the Luxor and a shit monster rises out of the sewer treatment plant. So, you know, a usual Tuesday night in Las Vegas.

Waller radios Deadshot to tell him a gigantic shit monster is headed his way. And then Ales Kot finally makes me laugh. I mean, he's been trying so hard up until now that I kind of feel bad that it took so long.

The monkey primed me. Monkeys always prime me! Especially in Las Vegas.

Nightshade gets away while the rest of the Squad converge on the Human Shit Monster. As I noted in the previous issue, it's actually made from people. Speaking of being made from people, this is what I heard while eating at The Laughing Planet yesterday: "Who ordered the Soylent Green?"

But I'm still going to refer to this creature as a Shit Monster. But since I'm going to simply say they defeat it next paragraph, I'll only refer to it once more that way.

The Suicide Squad defeat the Shit Monster with bullets and shark's teeth. I'm not sure what the billboards hypnotizing people had to do with it. Perhaps because it was really a Suicide Corpse Monster and the billboards were causing people to commit suicide. Not that any of that matters now because you know what they say about Vegas. If you don't, fuck you. I'm not going to say it because it's a stupid slogan to have for a city.

While Amanda and Gordon are celebrating their first victory as a team, Waller's scientists come in with some terrific news!

Yay! No more Samsara Project! Or Deadshot. Or Waller. Or Harley Quinn. Oh well, at least no more resurrecting!

Suicide Squad #22 Rating: +5 Ranking. I don't know how Ales Kot's leaving is going to affect this but this will now be considered the First Issue of The New 52 Suicide Squad. The previous Kot issues can be Prequels. And those issues actually work much better if we ignore the previous issues the same way that Ales Kot ignored the previous issues! But I guess we'll simply be starting again in a few months, eh?

Suicide Squad #21

This is my favorite image of Harley so far. And Amanda's looking a little pudgy there, so that works too.

Even with the potential to blow off their heads at any moment, Amanda Waller doesn't think the Suicide Squad know their place. So she brought in a consultant to help her treat them poorly, James Gordon Jr The Corinthian. While her psychological bullshit may have truly fucked with the majority of the Squad, Harley Quinn trained with the master of the mind fuck. So she wasn't fazed at all. Also Voltaic exploded while being Samsara'd. Hopefully Amanda will have to go back to the stupid plot device drawing board with that program while Squad members actually have to die for a bit.

The non-real beginning begins with a gigantic creature composed of corpses smashing up Las Vegas while the Suicide Squad tries to stop it and keep Amanda Waller alive. Hopefully this King Kong Korpse is a by-product of the Samsara Project and proof that it's not feasible to keep it going. But forget that opening. It doesn't actually matter yet. Let's go back to the present where Harley Quinn is proving what I said last paragraph.

From what I've seen of The Unknown Soldier in G.I. Combat, he'll merely be slightly inconvenienced by that wound.

The Corinthian ditches Amanda Waller to go fuck with The Unknown Soldier while Amanda Waller makes an "I used to be fat" joke with her lockdown password. But the lockdown fails and Harley knocks Amanda out and gets control of the Nanocite Neck Bomb Master Detonator.

Surprise! Amanda Waller has enemies!

Harley frees up Deadshot and while he's cracking stupid and killing guards, Harley decides to do a little analyzing of Amanda. Harley, like me, wants to know why Amanda decided to play all of the stupid games last issue. Harley thinks Amanda is afraid and needs to tighten her control of things so she can control the uncertainty which breeds the fear. I think Amanda was fucking with the Squad to test out The Corinthian and maybe even The Unknown Soldier.

Deadshot meets up with The Unknown Soldier and defeats him in hand-to-hand combat. While I like that The Unknown Soldier seems to be fairly human in that his belly wound has made him vulnerable and that vulnerability causes him to lose the fight, it simply doesn't jive with Gray and Palmiotti's Unknown Soldier from G.I. Combat. But I hated that unstoppable machine, so I'm willing to accept this toned down version of The Unknown Soldier. The G.I. Combat Soldier was like the Suicide Squad backed by the Samsara Project. Too much power with not enough consequences.

It doesn't really matter that Deadshot beats The Unknown Soldier anyway because The Corinthian sneaks up on him and knocks him out. And then The Corinthian comes to rescue Amanda Waller whom he is in love with.

Dammit. Giving him sunglasses which he can flip up and show his normal eyeball just ruins the illusion! Now I can't ignore the fact that it's James Gordon, Jr.

Now that James has a gun on Harley and Harley has a knife on Amanda and Amanda has a job offer on James, they've found themselves in an Insane Asylum Inmate Standoff. They work through it like any other rational business people in the murder industry. Gordon accepts a job as intelligence analyst and Amanda accepts Harley's deal to make the Suicide Squad better. She doesn't explain the deal but judging by Deadshot's belief at the beginning of the issue that he'll be free in eleven months, it seems a little Suicide Squad restructuring is going on.

Suicide Squad #21 Rating: No change. No change just yet although it looks like big and better changes are coming. It seems Harley's deal will get the Squad into a place where the roster will rotate more frequently. I'm sure her deal is one that makes the previous illusion of risking their lives for early release a reality. So with Voltaic's explosion and this King Kong Korpse beast attacking Las Vegas, I think the Samsara Project is probably at an end (next month hopefully we'll learn the Korpse beast is a result of the Samsara Project). That would go a long way to making this book better. And if Harley's deal to fix the Squad really does begin to free up prisoners as they run one or two missions at a time, we'll see more villains in the mix and, hopefully, more deaths! In next month's Squad, they already have a new member: Cheetah with a Death Machine! So while I could have raised the Squad's ranking with this issue based on my speculation, I'd prefer to wait and see what happens next issue.

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.