Oh, Harley, I think I love you.
What They Say:
80,000 ordinary people vs. the Squad! Well, they’re not really “people.” Not anymore. With an entire sports stadium on lockdown following the outbreak of an unknown virus, Deadshot, Harley Quinn and the rest of the Squad must sneak past a military perimeter and fight their way through the infected to retrieve… “it.” What is “it”…? Brace yourself for a stomach-churning reveal as the most brutal version of the Suicide Squad soldiers on! Plus: Bring a body bag – it’s the team’s first Squad fatality!
The Review:
Sometimes I hate the phrase “guilty pleasure” because I don’t really feel guilty about it, but it’s the closest expression that really works. Suicide Squad is a book that has a lot of fun to it because it does the things you want to see them doing but at the same time you might cringe. At least a little. What a book like this needs are some definite strong characters to anchor it and a number of quirky supporting characters that are expendable. I mean, I don’t doubt they’d off Harley at some point if it suited them, but they’re more likely to kill lower tier characters in surprising ways. And that’s where the fun of the book is for me, seeing how well or badly villains can work together with ticking bombs in them while trying to accomplish near impossible missions. There’s a certain gallows humor that’s required to it as well, which while certainly not perfect here, is at least evident with some of the cast.
With the team off on their first mission, I love that they did make it a complete disaster from the get go, which is pretty mush SOP when it comes to the squad. Being parachuted into the stadium to retrieve the target, a supposed cure to the virus that’s been let loose in it, it takes a dark and grisly tone from the start as the whole place is being assaulted by a techno-virus that turns everyone into flesh eating zombies. To which Harley simply squee’s about. Oh Harley. It’s typical zombie fare to a degree here as they hunt up the woman they’re looking for while dealing with the hordes that are there as the stadium audience has gone cannibalistic. The mixture of glee and abject horror from the team over the situation is priceless. Especially when you have King Shark involved who just sees it all as a feeding frenzy moment waiting to happen. In fact, he has one of the best action moments in the issue.
The characters themselves all cope in different ways as to be expected and the team “dynamic” is the highlight. Some work better than others in trying to achieve everything while some are just going for whatever they can get, like Shark who just chomps everything he can get his jaw around. Even Harley is having fun and not worried because she’s got a big hammer. Deadshot still handles the leader role rather well, something that always amuses me since he’s such a consummate loner, but he has plenty of incentive to see the mission through which is the whole point. But he’s also the most pragmatic of the group which is why Waller knows he’ll finish a mission even if he isn’t the leader, and that’s a big plus in his column.
Release Notes:
This comiXology edition of Suicide Squad comes with the main cover as released with the print edition and no other extras.
In Summary:
I love this book even though I don’t find it to be the best of the best. What it is, however, is just a lot of fun with good action and an assortment of characters that I want to follow. To their deaths. While I don’t expect any major deaths here, I wouldn’t be surprised by it happening either. Right now it’s all establishing what the lower tier will suffer through in the book and that’s fun in itself because while you can lose some in a fight, you can also lose some just because of what the mission parameters call for. And with Deadshot involved, you never know what will happen, especially since he can go so many different ways. There’s a lot to like here, but it’s not a book for everybody.
Grade: B
Readers Rating: [ratings]
