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.

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!