I’m not sure if this specifically counts as news, per se, but it is certainly a curiousity.
Yesterday, I received an e-mail from Amazon.com telling me that my order of Suicide Squad Vol. 2: The Nightshade Odyssey had been cancelled — not because I no longer wanted it, but rather because Amazon is not able to obtain the item (and I’m not the only one) The e-mail struck me as curious; why wouldn’t Amazon of all places, especially after signing a big and lucrative deal with DC in order to sell digital trades, not be able to obtain this item? Sure, it had been delayed (originally slated for an October release), but those things happen. Why wouldn’t DC recollect one of their most celebrated runs?
After some internet sleuthing, though, Midtown confirms it: the second trade of Suicide Squad is marked as DO NOT USE (Item Cancelled). So what the hey? Is DC just no longer collecting this series? Were they banking on people enjoying Adam Glass’ Suicide Squad enough to warrant some classic reprints? Because if that’s the case, I could’ve told them that was a fools gambit right from the start.
If you’re like me and purchased the first reprinted trade of the series (named Trial by Fire), you want to see what happens next, and its rather disappointing to think that we might not be able to (which, if anything, is the blatant reason why people pirate instead of spending hours/days/weeks longbox diving). After all, this isn’t the first time DC randomly decided to not finish collecting their runs; Justice League International made it through four hardcovers and two trades before ceasing to be collected, capturing 35 issues of a 94 issue run, Animal Man was never collected beyond Morrison’s run, and Shade the Changing Man on Vertigo only ever got three trades, collecting 19 of the 70 issue cult-classic series. Perhaps it is the naive child in me who likes to pretend that people want to read more than just Batman comics from DC, but I refuse to believe that the first book wasn’t selling well enough to warrant a second collection. That’s just maddeningly sad.
Back in June, we ran an article series called Multiversity vs the DCnU, in which we went all out in discussing the theoretical pros and cons of the impending reboot. We ended the article series with a Friday Recommendation of every writer’s favorite DC book to exist within the former continuity. At the time, writer Patrick Tobin (the same writer who picked apart the DCnU version of Suicide Squad) picked Ostrander’s Suicide Squad, and had this to say:
This is, for my money, the best thing DC ever made. The original 66 issues (plus various add-ons) are an unparalleled run of sly subversion. Unlike, say, Doom Patrol, every costume fits — sometimes it’s an espionage comic, sometimes it’s a straight superhero one. But underneath the spandex layers is such a complex web of morality, pride, duty and justice that you just can’t get from, say, Superman fighting Conduit or whatever the hell. Secret Six can try all it likes but it’ll never even come close to touching the issue where Deadshot is charged to stop an assassin from killing a senator at any cost — so he shoots the senator himself, thereby keeping the assassin from being able to do it. In fact, in his own weird way, Deadshot is the core of this book just like Tony Soprano held together his TV series, or Walter White in Breaking Bad, or Michael Corleone in The Godfather movies, or any other thing you hear about that routinely gets more respect than comic books. Look in the right places and you’ll find surprising depth, and in Deadshot, we find the nihilism that lies at the core of superheroes’ idea that problems can be solved through violence.
Now why wouldn’t DC want to reprint that anymore? Come on, guys. It’s Christmas!
