Detective Comics #19

I don't know. What is the goo?

Eighty pages? Are you fucking kidding me? It takes me nearly two hours to do a stupid twenty page comic book. I'm going to be here all day! I have to figure out a way to make this easier on myself. Perhaps I'll just make a quick comment on each page instead of trying to pull together some kind of coherent summary of the entire issue. You don't think I see you smirking because I called my commentaries "coherent"?! I'll show you!

Page 1: This is the page where they stick the credits but nothing else when DC publishes an extra long issue. So now the issue really only has 79 pages because no fan would actually count this as one of the pages. This is a page for Roman Numeraling! It informs me that there will be five stories and some pinup art. Oh boy! Bombshell shots of Batman in one pieces! Woo hoo!

Page 2: A splash page showing an indeterminate number of Men-bat (well, indeterminate if you're too lazy to count them) flying down from the moon with Kirk Langstrom, the inventor of Man-bat Flavored Gator Water, declaring, "I did this." Luckily the Men-bat are wearing pants so Gotham isn't going to be covered in Man-bat Guano come morning.

Page 3: Gordon and some nobody fire up the Bat Signal to inform Batman that Gotham has a Man-bat problem. Has someone already written a story where Killer Moth is captured by firing up the Bat Signal and waiting for him to start flopping and flapping around the light?

Page 4: Citizens of Gotham are running about the streets helter-skelter getting Men-bat caught in their hair. Kirk Langstrom holds his serum the way he usually holds his penis. His girlfriend begins fucking him from behind. That's a thing, right? I can't wait to see what women have in their panties some day! I hope it looks like the thing in my panties because that thing is E-ROTIC.

Kirk's girlfriend is fugging uckly. She should lose the glasses and lower the hair. Then she might be presentable. Or super duper hot!

Page 5 Advert: This page is an advertisement for Midtown Comics in New York City. It has a picture of Batman taking a crap while riding a horse.

I'm pretty sure fecal accidents are fairly common in Batman's line of business. Alfred definitely knows his way around sewer pants.

The real Page 5!: The Man-bat outbreak occurred in a part of Gotham called "The goo" by its residents. They call it that because it takes place on the goo block between 9th and 10th. Batman doesn't patrol this part of town very often because the residents aren't crazy or Irish or black or Italian. Hey, Batman is the racist, not me! Blame Bruce Wayne for his fascist, racist policies to manipulate real estate prices.

Page 6: One of the goo shop owners lets a woman and her baby into his shop after closing and pays the price when they turn into a Man-bat and Batboy. If he were being interviewed after the case on Judge Judy, the lesson he would have learned would have been "Never help anybody."

Page 7 & 8: This is the staple of The New 52 Detective Comics: the double page splash title page with Batman flying across both pages. In this one, he's surrounded by about 800 Men-bat.

The goo must refer to the Gotham suburb and the Man-bat Serum!

Page 9: Batman flies about fighting Men-bat and thinking about how they resemble Talia al Ghul's Man-bat army. I would be wondering why they all have jeans on and nothing else. Does the transformation include the clothing into jeans?

Page 10: Batman takes a sample of blood from a Man-bat that he fell out of the sky with. Batman is okay though because he landed on the Man-bat. I guess the Man-bat is okay because Batman would be sad if he inadvertently killed one. I hope Batman doesn't discover that he has to douse Gotham in his semen to cure everyone. No wait! I DO hope that!

Page 11: A large shot of half one-quarter of the Batcave.

Page 12: Another quarter shot of the Batcave! Batman is spouting cliches at Alfred who is just telling Batman that he can't speed up the Bat Computers! If Batman wanted the blood screening faster, maybe he should upgrade his 486 PC to something modern. Also the dinosaur in the Batcave is in this shot. I think it should have feathers and be peacock colored. Unless it's a female dinosaur. Then it's probably the right color.

Page 13: Alfred is also running a program on Batman's computer to try and identify a recent John Doe that appears to be a victim of Victor Zsasz. But the thing that's taking up most of the 486's memory is Alfred playing Pools of Darkness on it.

"But Batman! I'm in the middle of a huge battle with dozens of Bits 'o Moander! I can't shut it down until I get an opportunity to save!" "Alfred. Shut it. The fuck. Down."

Page 14: Batman lies to Alfred.

Page 15: Batman lies to the readers.

You would never be able to tell the Bat Family was angry at Batman in any book written by Lobdell! They were all hanging out like nothing happened in Red Hood's Death of the Family aftermath!

Page 16: Batman Narration Boxes about how he doesn't want to hurt any of the Men-bat because they're just simple, innocent goo victims. He wants to learn the antidote for their condition. I think the cure will be one of Kirk Langstrom's bodily fluids. You know? His goo!

Page 17: Alfred figures out where Patient Zero lived so that Batman can investigate the cause of the outbreak. At the apartment, he finds a body with a Talon dagger embedded in it.

Page 18: Batman discovers the source of the infection and the goo and Zsasz-bat all at the same time.

I bet Victor Zsasz has 900 scars on his body.

Page 19: Zsasz-bat attacks Batman in a big splash page. For the first time ever, I wish there were more splash pages. Eighty pages is ridiculous!

Page 20 and 21: Batman ties up Zsasz-bat and tackles him out of a window. Batman is getting a lot of mileage out of the "fall out of the sky and land on top of a man-bat to survive" move during this adventure.

Page 22: This story is still going on? Batwoman arrives with Kirk Langstrom and Francine in tow. Kirk mentions how this is all his fault but he knows how to fix the problem! All he needs is a hot air balloon, a really powerful fan, and some hot man on bat pornography. Luckily Batman has two out of three of those. And he knows of a place to rent balloons.

Page 23: Kirk Langstrom begins priming the pump so he'll be ready to spurt his cure into the fan once they're high over Gotham.

"Kirk, NO! Let me do that!"

Page 24: Langstrom releases his DNA into the atmosphere.

Gotham is the grossest city in the DC Universe.

Page 25: Langstrom transforms into a Man-bat and attacks Batman. I guess the antidote reverses the process for everyone but Langstrom. So now Langstrom has to be a Man-bat so that everybody else can return to normal.

Page 26: The Man-bat infestation has ended and Zsasz has been caught and returned to Arkham. Zsasz mutters something about the bird giving him the goo but nobody listens because Zsasz is a crazy bastard. Well, nobody listens on THIS page! You have to wait until Page 27 to see that Batman is listening.

Page 27: For the first time, Batman is hearing about Emperor Penguin. That can't be good for Ogilvy. Meanewhile, Ogilvy is harassing Poison Ivy so that she'll do a favor for him. See, he buried her alive for Penguin but then helped dig her up again, so she owes him her life. I know he actually just made things even by saving her after trying to kill her but she doesn't know that! And that's the end of the first story. Just four more to go!

Page 28: Story #2 is called "Birth of a Family" and it stars Man-bat.

Page 29: Francine, Man-bat's ex-girlfriend, is Narration Boxing about how much Kirk loved bats. He knew all the bat facts there were to know. Which is why when he wanted to create some way to help people in the world, he decided to use Bat-Genes to inject into people and make them more like bats. He was trying to help deaf people by giving them the bat DNA goo shot so that they could use echolocation to help them hear. Except they can't hear so how the fuck is echolocation supposed to help them?! Stupid Kirk Langstrom.

Page 30: Man-bat screams at a puddle.

Page 31: Francine reminisces about her life before Kirk Langstrom turned into a giant bat. He told her he's going to find a cure for deafness and says it's a shameful, disgusting character flaw in Francine that she doesn't know sign language. I know how to say cookie! And raccoon! And goat! Oh, she also remembers that she married Kirk.

Page 32: She falls in love with Kirk because of his terrible, terrible idea.

As a person that can hardly stand most of the noises I hear now, I would hate to suddenly hear even higher frequencies! There might be a very good reason humans have evolved to hear only what they can currently hear. Perhaps those that could hear higher or lower frequencies were driven insane or their heads blew up or they just sat their unable to function. I'm okay with the restorative features of the goo, but fuck that biosonar bullshit. Can you imagine how fucking confused and dizzy you would become in a city with a bunch of people squealing away?

Page 33: A man on Page 32 asks Kirk if he's encountered any side effects and Kirk shrugs them off and says they're working to remedy them. In the meantime, he's got a lab full of screaming bat-children tearing the place apart. I'm not so sure those are "side-effects". I guess if you were using acid to remove a wart, you would call the loss of your appendage a "side-effect" too.

Page 34: Back in the present, Francine is getting super horny watching the lab bats hanging on their branches together. So she gets a really super hot and sexy idea!

Page 35: Francine drinks the goo so that she can become a Man-bat as well! Also, Page 35 is the first page of the second half of the comic book according to the staples I'm looking at. Which means the adverts also count as part of the 80 pages! What a fucking ripoff! How dare you proclaim an "80 page spectacular" when about ten of those "spectacular" pages are advertisements! Now my whole counting system is off! Jerks!

Page 36 & 37: A pinup by Alex Maleev and Nathan Fairbairn of Batman having anal sex with the Bat Signal. It looks like the Bat Signal really likes it because it's shooting its load straight into the sky.

Page 38: A pinup by Brett Booth, Norm Rapmund, and Andrew Dalhouse of Batman farting in Clayface's face.

Clayface looks horrified.

Page 39: The Bane story begins with Bane inspecting his army at a prison. Or else he's delivering a gigantic throat lozenge to the warden.

Page 40: The story is called "War Council." Bane has overtaken a prison and become king shitheel. He now has some Brainstorm looking nutjob working on a prison version of venom out of the toilet.

Page 41: Malicia, Wolfspider, Brute, Bane, and the Brainy Guy are planning on taking over Gotham. So they're in the prison courtyard discussing plans on dealing with the other mob bosses and crazies of the city.

Page 42: A year previously, Bane was going to reenact The Dark Knight Rises but was stopped before he could even begin by unknown forces.

Page 43: Those unknown forces were The Court of Owls' Talons. They killed all of Bane's men. I guess all of Bane's men were on The Talons' hit list.

Page 44: Bane tears the head off a Talon or two but doesn't exactly finish the story about that night. What night was it? If there were that many Talons, it had to be The Night of the Talons, right? Because they were brought forward that night. The Talons make Bane so angry that he screws up in his next fight against The Batman.

Page 45: That next fight against The Batman, that fight that takes place after The Night of Owls, is the one that takes place in one of the worst story arcs of The New 52: David Finch's Scarecrow run in The Dark Knight. I guess The Dark Knight #1 doesn't even take place until after The Night of the Talons. Maybe that would shine some light on why the fuck Venomized Deathstroke drops out of the sky and onto the Batplane just before Batman fights Superman and Bane.

Page 46: Bane was approached by one of the Court of Owls at the base of the cliff Batman just threw him off. It's probably Sebastian Clark already setting plans in motion to destroy the Next Generation Court of Owls rising from the ashes of his failed Court. So he tells Bane the rhyme and that the Court were as much responsible as Batman for Bane failing and Bane believes this mysterious asshole because he's a gigantic pile of shit that can't accept his own failures. He's always got to blame somebody else even when that somebody else is an urban legend.

Page 47: Bane reveals to everyone his personal item he smuggled into prison up his ass.

Notice their reaction to the mask? They know exactly how Bane smuggled that thing into prison.

Page 48: Bane walks away from the smashed and stinking mask and heads to Talon #7 while his army prepares. The End.

Page 49: This fucking comic book is way too long! I can't believe I paid $7.99 for it. I skipped dinner because of this comic book! Oh, and this page is another pinup. It's by Chris Burnham and Nathan Fairbairn. It depicts Damian Wayne spending quality time with his mom and dad.

Page 50: Another Bat Pinup. This one by Jason Fabok and Emilio Lopez. It depicts Batman standing on a roof trying to untangle his bat grapple's rope.

Page 51: The third story begins. It is called "Birdwatching" and it stars Mr. Combustible. Hopefully this story ends with Mr. Combustible trying to smoke a cigarette and killing himself instead.

Page 52: Emperor Penguin is using the cover of the Man-bat infestation to send his minions (in this case, Mr. Combustible!) to loot the city. One of the minion's minions removes his gas mask to scratch his nose and Mr. Combustible has him killed. He's volatile!

Page 53: Mr. My Head Is A Glass Flask Full of Flammable Gas's thugs refuse to shoot Rizzo. Right up until he turns into a Man-bat.

Page 54: Rizzo is shot to death. Mr. Combustible looks at his watch. How does he tell time?! Does he have eyes somewhere inside his glass flask face? He's like Mr. Monopoly and Mr. Peanut and high school Chemistry Lab all rolled into one.

Page 55: The voice of the Narration Boxes always hint that the story is being told to a second party somewhere in the future. But that's never the case so I just grumble and rant and move on. But this time, it turns out that Mr. Combustible IS telling the story of the night of the goo while in prison on a prison phone to whoever his visitor might be. Oh wait! I just realized who is visitor is! It's him! He's the visitor and he's relating Emperor Penguin's plans of that night to The Penguin! Ha ha! In your face, Ogilvy!

Page 56: Mr. Combustible wasn't the only criminal on the street working for Emperor Penguin. Mr. Mosaic and Hypnotic and Imperceptible Man and all of the new second string Gotham Mob Bosses were out stealing shit for Emperor Penguin that night.

For somebody who once preached lying low as the key to success in Gotham, Ogilvy sure is reaching for the fucking stars.

Page 57: The Penguin blows a brain gasket and freaks the fuck out.

Why does Mr. Combustible have to hold the phone up to the side of his flask?

Page 58: By kidnapping and threatening the Judge's family, Mr. Combustible helps to get The Penguin out of the stupid fucking trespassing charges that Batman seemed to think were going to put The Penguin away for life. Or at least that's the premise. The actual courtroom battle to determine if The Penguin is guilty of trespassing continues in a future issue. I don't even know why it matters! Trespassing probably will just result in community service. And Oswald Cobblepot loves serving his community.

Page 59: A Batman pinup by Andy Clarke. Batman is either skulking in an alley lit by a single streetlamp or he's delivering a Shakespearean soliloquy on stage under a spotlight.

Page 60: A pinup of a thug terrified by the bat shadow puppet that his friend just made. It's by Francesco Francavilla.

Page 61: The final story begins. It's called "Through a Blue Lens" and stars the Gotham City Police Department. I smell graft!

Page 62: The scene takes place in a hospital room where one of Gotham City's less than finest is recovering from a broken arm. He had turned into a Man-bat and got into a scrape with Batman. His fellow police officers toast to his fighting Batman.

Page 63: While the men foam at the mouth about Batman getting his comeuppance for making them all look lazy, Nancy Strode stands up for Batman. She's the police officer that had to guard The Joker's face in one of the earlier backup stories for Detective Comics. I guess she's trying to become as recognizable as Renee Montoya or Harvey Bullock.

Page 64: The most rabid officer declares that Batman first appeared in Gotham five years ago. I guess. Maybe he was just an urban legend up until he joined the Justice League. This officer's first meeting with Batman ended with him taking some shots at Batman.

Page 65: Nancy suspects this asshole was just pissed that Batman got all the credit for taking down the man he was after. Although if I were a cop and suddenly some guy in a scary Bat outfit that was created to scare people suddenly jumped out from the dark, I might shoot at him too! If I wasn't a cop, which I'm not, I wouldn't have though. I was just trying to put myself in the shoes of a police officer and I know they love to shoot off their weapons because no court on Earth will convict them even when they kill an innocent bystander as long as they keep repeating, "I thought he was armed."

Page 66: The other cops get pissed and storm out because Nancy is speaking her mind instead of towing the fraternal line. After they're gone and Nancy is leaving Hector the Ex-Man-Bat, he tells her to hold up. He lied to the others about what happened with The Batman.

Page 67: He remembers wanting to kill. And he remembers Batman breaking his arm to stop him.

Page 68: Strode and Hector become the best of friends. The end!

I think all police forces in the DC Universe should be disbanded and replaced by Super Hero teams. I think there are enough B-list super heroes to fill out the major cities' departments.

Page 69: A Batman pinup by Cameron Stewart showing Batman sitting on the top of a skyscraper and looking into the abyss.

Page 70: A pinup by Dustin Nguyen. Batman and The Joker are engaged in strangulation sex play. From the looks on their faces, they're both thoroughly enjoying it.

And that's that! It was really just a 70-page spectacular with 10 pages of totally terrific advertisements! Holy fuck. What an ordeal.

Detective Comics #19 Rating: +1 Ranking. I'm giving it a positive ranking even though I think I'm completely burned out with Batmen and Men-Bats and any other combination of bats and men you can think of. But I'm not burned out on Emperor Penguin and most of this comic was about his scheming and being a generally arrogant douche.

Also, yes, I fucking know it was about the 900 and not about goo. Sheesh.

Suicide Squad #18

Instead of the letters in the title representing a gun and a target, they should represent dead people coming back to life.

I just finished rereading Giffen's 12 issue run from around 2001-2002. I remember really enjoying it back when it came back and on rereading it, I liked it even better. Just about every character probably says "What's that supposed to mean?" or "Meaning what?" a fair number of times past too often, but the dialogue was still fun. I liked the set-up in that there were really four stories being explored throughout the series. There was the Suicide Squad field team, the Suicide Squad Operations team, Amanda Waller and her daughter, Havana, and lastly Frank Rock and Bulldozer and the mystery of why they were still alive and, ultimately, who they really were. My guess is Rock was actually The Unknown Soldier but no idea about Bulldozer. Perhaps it actually was him getting younger and Amanda's statement at the end of the series that Rock and Bulldozer died in 1945 was simply because every member of the Squad Ops Team constantly gets a new identity while the old identity is killed. Anyway, it worked and it was a nice take on the Squad and people died a lot and stayed dead. Well, they stayed dead in the pages of the Suicide Squad, anyway. I also really liked the art but then I've always been a big fan of exaggerated features and animation style. As long as exaggerated features are consistent and you can tell the artist can draw! I'm not talking about accidentally exaggerated features that don't match up from panel to panel ala Rob Liefeld.

Next dip into the Suicide Squad's past will be to read my favorite comic book series of all time after Shade the Changing Man, Ostrander's run on the book. That should set me up to read Gail Simone's Secret Six since I only just recently realized that Ostrander writes some of those issues and also comes through with Suicide Squad #67 many years later! Can't wait for that! But until then, I've got Adam Glass's superficial Resurrection Squad which I am enjoying for what it is. Unless I'm only really enjoying blogging about it. At this point, I can't see nor do I care about the difference!

Back to the current Squad, Regulus had just returned from the grave surprising nobody. For some reason he's hanging out with Red Orchid. I suppose that's the reason the Squad has been assigned to kill Red Orchid. Or it could be that the package really is Mitch Shelley which is why Regulus and Amanda are after him. They're both apparently in the resurrection business (Regulus could be in the cloning business!), so they'd want the guy that could really kick up their profit margin. Even though Amanda already has one of his hands. I bet having his brain would be much better.

Okay, I admit it. Lawton missing his mustache is pretty annoying. Not enough of a reason to tear your hair out about about The New 52! And not as stupid as making Amanda skinny and extremely competent in combat. And not as big a deal as changing Harley's costume although I did prefer the "cute" version over the "hawt" version. But it's definitely annoying. None of these are reasons to point to Suicide Squad as a bad title though. Look to the writing for that!

If Suicide Squad were the best written book of The New 52 and people were calling it shit because Harley had a new costume or a new attitude, or because Amanda was skinny and physically dangerous, or because Lawton was missing his mustache, you'd think they were being superficial jerks and probably wave their opinion away while taking another sip of tea and ringing for your butler to escort them off the veranda. But since this book has been, at best, half-assed on the writing front, these excuses just seem to add to people's hatred for the book. Anyway, I don't deal in hating books for shallow and superficial reasons.

If I lost anybody, that last sentence was a joke. My hatred knows no bounds! Once I sniff out a bad writer, I'm on that carcass beak deep! I'll find every last giblet to tear down and deride! If I truly hated this book like some of the others in The New 52, you can bet I'd be bitching about Lawton's lack of facial hair every third sentence! Every third sentence because the other two sentences would be dealing with Harley's looks and Amanda's skinny jeans.

Shut up, King Shark. You know the plan! Eat shit!

Yo Yo's premise that Basilisk won't survive without its leader is flawed since Basilisk has already survived once without its leader. In fact, it brought its leader back from the dead. Or maybe Basilisk has a whole bunch of clones of Regulus since they know they can't survive without him! I guess if King Shark eats him, Basilisk had better hope for the clone thing because I don't think anybody but Yo Yo is surviving being eaten by King Shark.

Yo Yo's declaration actually sounds like something someone would say to set up an excuse to drop all of the Basilisk crap. If Regulus is dead, we can ignore Basilisk since Yo Yo declared it was no longer a threat! And since Basilisk hasn't really turned out to be very interesting, I can see Adam Glass backgrounding it for awhile. When The New 52 first started, it seemed like Basilisk was going to be a huge threat much like the Daemonites. But both just kind of petered out and never quite lived up to their potential. Although Regulus and Amanda seem to have some kind of personal grudge against each other, so Basilisk may live on for quite some time in Suicide Squad. Perhaps similar to Ostrander's Squad's Jihad? I said similar to! Not equal to!

So Yo Yo takes the hood off the package.

Yawn.

I forgot Kurt Lance was running around for Amanda keeping a tab on the Teen Titans because Amanda won't rest until she's running every super group in the DCnU. And that Kurt was captured by suddenly alive again Grey Lora and a mysterious person that I assumed was Regulus (and indeed must have been) in Teen Titans #17. Unless it was Red Hood #17. So this mission has simply been to get Amanda's secret agent back. Yawn. Wait, did I say that already?

Meanwhile Voltaic gets his head bitten off by a man-eating plant that grows out from between Red Orchid's breasts while she says, "You can't fool Mother Nature!" Except the comic book makes it come across less classy than I made it sound. And Voltaic already came back from the dead once and was stabbed through the heart and survived, so he might be okay with a partially digested face.

King Shark tries to bite off a face as well, this one belonging to Regulus. But since King Shark has been such a mystery in the pages of Suicide Squad, Adam Glass decides to clear some of his history up while making him more mysterious by way of Regulus knowing all about him. Terrific short cut to building a character and his history! Make the bad guy know all about him!

I like King Shark just being King Shark. Don't give him any history! Oh, and look at that! Voltaic's head is still on. Boooo!

Red Orchid captures the entire squad up in vines while Kurt Lance moans in pain and doesn't turn off anybody's powers. Except for Yo Yo's. I don't think I like Kurt Lance being in the mix. It's easy enough simply accepting people have super powers for whatever reasons their origins give. But it's simply too difficult to believe that, somehow, somebody can turn those powers off. As if the power isn't inherently a part of their biological makeup. Can he turn off Superman's powers? Or can he only turn off powers related to a person having the Meta-Gene? Is that still a reason for most super powers in the DCnU? Solstice's power is simply who she is! A big sulfurous stinky smoking woman. But he can turn that off and simply make her human again? Really? You're asking a lot out of my cynical suspension of disbelief!

Regulus doesn't only know all about King Shark. He also knows why Amanda has such anger issues toward Basilisk and himself. But he doesn't seem ready to tell anyone.

I think I've seen enough commercials for CSI-type shows to know that Deadshot's DNA sample is already contaminated having been in Regulus's eye goo! Oh, and Deadshot's DNA sample is spit, you sicko perv.

Harley escapes with the help of Yo Yo's tongue (non-stretchy) and a sickle tucked in her boot. Yo Yo's plan is to have her escape with Kurt Lance while the rest of the Squad get their powers back and/or die. I guess King Shark's sharkiness isn't a power since he didn't suddenly turn human. And I guess Voltaic's power can't be turned off since he shocked King Shark into silence about his secret partner. Or else Yo Yo was the only one targeted by Kurt. I wonder if Kurt can turn off skills as well as powers! Can he make Deadshot a dud shot? None of this matters at the moment anyway since Harley is prevented from running off with Kurt Lance when Regulus bashes her in the head with the flail.

First off, it isn't Harley's weapon so its being impractical has nothing to do with her practicality. Also, weapons aren't chosen for how efficiently they fit on the belt! You can get a fuckload more power out of a flail than a mace. So, you know, practical! What would be impractical is a mace with the length needed to gain the same power as a flail!

Oh! And see that fish tank behind Kurt? Anybody want to place a bet on that being smashed so that it interacts with Voltaic and shocks the shit out of the people that need their shit shocked?

You know what else Regulus knows that I'm pretty sure he should have no idea of knowing? The fact that Harley has been hearing voices. Can we call a moratorium on villains that know shit that they shouldn't know because Regulus has filled this month's quota in just a few pages of Suicide Squad alone.

Harley tosses her sickle, knocking out Kurt Lance. With Yo Yo's stupid power back, the Squad is now sure to win! Yo Yo gooses Red Orchid who drops the rest of the Squad. Deadshot shoots the glass on the Aquarium which knocks Regulus back so King Shark can rescue Harley. And surprise! Nobody gets their shit shocked at all. Instead, the water causes Red Orchid to go into overdrive and she recaptures everyone, leaving Regulus to steal Harley's communicator and taunt Amanda personally. He's about to expose Amanda's secret relationship to Kurt Lance when she disconnects the communications. This causes Regulus to shut up.

Why do writers hold on so desperately to minor pieces of information? They horde them like gold thinking it's this little bit of knowledge yet to be revealed that keeps people reading. You know what keeps people reading? Revealing secrets like whatever Regulus was going to say which would reveal new motivations and character insights, leading to new stories where more secrets can be revealed in a steady and timely manner. I think we've had enough with dropping small hints at things over and over and over again. We get it. King Shark is a Shark God with an ulterior motive for being in the Squad. Kurt Lance is the only man Amanda has ever loved and may or may not have had a child named Havana with him. Let these stories play out naturally instead of teasing the reader with the same bits of information over and over again. I don't mind the slow revelation of story bits. But Adam Glass's technique here is to have a character ALMOST say the thing and then suddenly get cut off so as not to reveal it. It's ridiculous.

Regulus wanders off with Kurt Lance while back in Belle Reve, Amanda loads a shotgun and storms out of the communications room. Where the hell does she think she's going? Does she have a teleporter to get to Regulus? It's possible since Red Hood and Starfire just took down bolt in DC Universe Presents #17! Except I think Bolt has just recently kidnapped Ronnie's Mom in Firestorm, so maybe not that either. Maybe Ambush Bug is a member of Suicide Squad?

Everybody is being choked to death by Red Orchid, so instead of choking Red Orchid back with his super elastic neck, Yo Yo sacrifices his life for the Squad.

Shooting her in the head wouldn't have done the trick?

Suicide Squad #18 Rating: -1 Ranking. I'm pretty sure if Yo Yo can survive a month inside the stomach of King Shark, he's pretty much invulnerable. The way he can stretch and absorb energy, he'll be all right. Or he should be all right! If this somehow manages to kill him, it'll be the worst death in the pages of this comic book! Or will it be the first death in the pages of this comic book? Maybe the second although I'm not sure if Lime Light having her head blown off counts. She was pretty much a nameless thug created by J.T. Krul in the worst three issue run of Green Arrow in the history of Green Arrow's worst three issue runs. The story beats and characterization in this issue were just awful. And I still really hate to see an Amanda Waller that's ready to throw her ass into life threatening situations to get the job done herself. Ridiculous! And where was Floyd Lawton's mustache?! Are we sure he didn't lose it to a Harley Quinn prank?

Suicide Squad #17

Yo Yo is seriously trying to be my favorite male DC character. He survived months inside King Shark's intestines! Now if he could just meet up with Batgirl's roommate, Alysia Yeoh, that would be the superesterestly cutest couple ever!

The Suicide Squad was on their way to kill Yo Yo's sister Red Orchid. And by kill, I mean turn her into a corpse until one of the various means of resurrection within the DC Universe is used to bring her back to life. Now that Voltaic came back last issue, I believe the only people to die after 17 issues of Suicide Squad are Lime Light, Mad Dog, Grey Lora, and Regulus. But seeing as how Grey Lora was alive and well in the pages of Teen Titans, I'm pretty certain Regulus is as well. And Mad Dog could easily have been slightly wounded when he was supposedly killed since he wasn't a member of the team and his body was just left for hyenas or rednecks. That leaves Light who had her head completely blown off so I don't want to see her snobby ass anywhere near this comic book ever again! Although she has been seen multiple times as a hallucination by her sister. So I'm not sure that death even counts!

Here's to hoping somebody fucking dies this issue.

Random no-named gang members don't count!

Once upon a time in Metropolis, Yo Yo and Red Orchid had normal names. Red Orchid was a famous scientist that probably wasn't that famous because who knows anything about current scientists except nerds and other nerds? So perhaps she was simply a reputable scientist with a flare for geothermic reactors. Her brother Yo Yo was a two-bit hood with a pile of gambling debts and a future in Amanda Waller's Suicide Squad. But other than Red Orchid's disapproval for Yo Yo's way of life, they seemed to get along. Until Yo Yo wanted to borrow more money. And then his sister was all, "I hate you!" And Yo Yo was all, "No you don't! You're just a cheap prick!" And then Superman got into a fight with Brainiac and the geothermal reactor exploded and Yo Yo and Red Orchid got super powers! The end!

After killing a bunch of random gang members, the Suicide Squad take an elevator to the penthouse to meet Red Orchid. But somebody cuts the cables on the elevator and they begin a rapid descent to future participants of the Samsara Project. Except that Yo Yo's super power is basically imitating elevator cables, so he does that and saves their lives.

No, the proper term would be who. Unless Deadshot was going to ask, "By whom were we just saved?" But more likely, his question would be "Who just saved us?"

Everyone is amazed at Yo Yo's ability to hold the elevator with his stretchy body. I don't know why they're so amazed. What good is a stretchy body if it didn't have some sort of invulnerability or super tensile strength attached to it? He'd just extend his arm and it would get thinner and weaker until it was paper thin and fluttery and easily torn. I'd be more surprised if his power were that dumb! Haven't these guys seen The Elongated Man or Plastic Man or Reed Richards in action? Or do those guys not exist in this universe? I bet Plastic Man doesn't exist in this universe because DC is taking itself a little bit too seriously and Plastic Man is a fucking goofball.

Once in the penthouse, they meet their next opposition.

Now that's a death squad I'd happily be killed by!

The Kill Bill squad don't last long. Harley beats one to a pulp. King Shark eats one. And the other one stabs Voltaic through the heart with her katana and is electrocuted. But Voltaic is still alive and not saying anything. Great! Not only does the Samsara Project bring people back to life; it makes them immortal! I guess it's about time to take the Suicide out of the title. Just rebrand it back to Task Force X.

One thing I hope sticks though. Harley traded in her sledgehammer for the lead girl's flail. I hope she keeps that weapon for a bit! In fact, it would be nice to see her upgrade and change weapons on a whim. I think her aesthetic sense and her hyperactivity would really lend to her switching up her weapons whenever she grew bored of her old one. Or would that piss people off? "Where is Harley's big hammer?! Fucking DC! That isn't the Harley you promised to give us forever!"

Harley also scooches over from wacky insane to completely schizophrenic when she begins to hear voices inside her head. The current voice is Dr. Harleen Quinzel so she might be suffering from multiple personality syndrome if that wasn't a big bunch of complete bullshit. So schizophrenia it is (which, anyway, can easily manifest like what is commonly thought of as multiple personality disorder, depending on how the afflicted categorizes or differentiates the voices in her head, I guess).

And then they meet Red Orchid and the package they came for.

The package has a hood on so I don't know who it is. But I bet it's somebody from a recently cancelled title! Maybe it's even Mitch Shelley!

Red Orchid takes out Harley with some poison thorns. Then she takes out Deadshot with some poison pollen. And then everybody but the readers is surprised by the next part!

What's the word that you yell that's the opposite of "Surprise!"? Oh yeah! "Suckers!"

Suicide Squad #17 Rating: -1 Ranking. I'm sorry. I have to punish this comic book because it isn't called the Resurrection Squad. Yo Yo's return from supposed death was well done because it was surprising and hilarious. Everybody else (besides Grey Lora) has simply been shot to death and then suddenly appeared alive again. I know death in comic books is never taken very seriously but Adam Glass is just making a complete mockery of it at this point. It's possible more people have returned from death in the pages of Suicide Squad than have actually died. Hey Glass! You owe me at least eight deaths! Get to it!