The read through continues with ‘The Final Mission” which contained “Suicide Squad” issues # #59-66. These are available to read with a DC Universe Infinite Subscription.
The final collection of the Ostrander-Yale “Suicide Squad” is split into two chunks. There is the first three issues (#59-61) ‘Legerdmain’ arc that involves DC’s heavy hitters and a faux Atom Adam Cray. In something of a cruel twist, the logo design, by I believe Todd Klein, is in this pseudo-Illustrated manuscript style that made me think it spelled “legendarium” in reference to Tolkein and the “Sword of the Atom”. At the end I was undone by the logo and credit page designs I’ve been so fond of in this run. This three-part opener is a seedy conspiracy worm that feels right at home in the pages of “Suicide Squad” and uses the presence of major names like Batman, Superman, and Aquaman well to undercut the assumed hyper effectiveness of the Superhero. It all leads to the final page of #62 as Waller and Sarge Steel leave President Clinton’s office (he isn’t shown) where Waller shares her “secret” to Steel about how she deals with the death that follows her. Like the Hulk is “always angry” she remembers everything that ever happened on a mission and who didn’t make it back “I remember the names and faces of those who’ve died since I started the Squad. Every day I number the dead.” After 60 plus issues, Amanda Waller becomes the center of attention for a “Squad” story.
The conspiracy of the Cabal doesn’t end with ‘Legerdmain’ story, their schemes continue into the titular final mission. The writing team close the loop for this final mission. “Suicide Squad” began with an at best authoritarian State organ co-opting the bodies of its undesired citizenry to fight for home and country against Jihad, another State sponsored metahuman group. All in the backdrop of late Cold War era geopolitics. In a fitting twist the final villain of their mission is themselves, the Cabal/the CIA has co-opted the name Task Force X and the Suicide Squad to stage a coup and support a new dictator in the vaguely specific island country of Diabloverde located between Cuba and the Bahamas.
A few quick notes on Diabloverde. Letter Todd Klein dose not delineate if Diabloverde is one word or two, I’m fairly certain should be two, and seems to be a pun on the fictional nation of Val Verde from Commando. Geographically this fake island is in the Global South/South America region, but more specifically it would be considered West Indian.
This news is relayed to Waller by Sarge Steel in a juxtaposed two panel sequence filled with irony. Steel is framed as softly lit from above in a stoic pose with an American flag in the background, calling out Waller’s hubris and naivety that other people wouldn’t see what she was doing and either run with it or escalate it. Geof Issherwood and inker Robert Campanella contrast that image with Waller in lots of hard shadow as the weight of her failures come bearing down on her.
Throughout this run of issues the creative team ask the reader to do something hard: to see the complicated humanity within Amanda Waller. To not see her as her nom de guerre The Wall, as a piece of brutalist architecture or through the functionally minded lens as the harsh taskmaster running the eternally ethically dubious, Squad. But instead as someone who is deeply flawed and nevertheless, human. That recognition doesn’t absolve Waller of her actions and the creative complicate the idea of her ability to remember as she walks through the Diabloverde jungle.
There are a couple of ways you could read her sequence. Her commitment to move on could be seen as an inability or refusal to remember, which runs contrary to her secret at the end of #63. She does not appear to recognize the dead that surround her. It becomes a visual representation of hollowness of the Squad’s moto of “carry on” seen in “Secret Origins.” At the same time the fact that the jungle is showing her these dead means at least subconsciously she tallies them but is unable to consciously deal with the trauma of being responsible for their deaths. Yale and Ostrander do give her several moments of grace that have her verbally recognize the ethical shortcomings of the Suicide Squad at all stages of its existence. The treatment of Amanda Waller in this issue is messy. In a world of dominated by White Men in bright capes proclaiming-representing a binary morality she’ll never fit in. While the idea of Presidente Waller is a bit too cute and sentimental, it does reiterate one last time her desire for justice even if her methods are incredibly flawed and ultimately destructive to those ends. It is too easy to see Amanda Waller as simply a villain or a progressive seeming spin on the regressive stereotype of an angry Black woman, her actions put her somewhere in-between.
Continued belowWhile the Squad nominally fights a final doppelgänger squad in their final mission, the creative team take the notion of the doppelgänger one step further by having the devil green jungle show each member their inner fears … mostly in #65-66. The most extended of these sequences is Ben Turners turn inward wherein he comes face to face with the Bronze Tiger once again. The art team don’t try to hide the surrealist nature of these visits, outside of using it to setup an effective page turns on 18 the art team immediately lean into the dream logic of it all. Panels become jagged as if they’ve been torn apart, there’s a Pangea quality to how all the panels roughly mold together as the page and their fight progresses. Ultimately Ben is able to discover what he had been looking for within, himself, and make peace with his past. Other interactions are not as long, but Boomerang’s hateful id can be easily explained in a single image of people laughing at him. It gives the creative teams one final chance to dig into everyone’s reason to be in this mess in the first place.
As the issue progresses more and more squadmates go into the cave, except for Deadshot. Who due to his lack of fear and insane understanding of himself is unaffected by the jungles magic. He is relegated to the bottom panel of pages 2-6 just walking along his marry way. Isherwood does an excellent job of making a minicomic within the comic with Deadshot’s journey as he progressively moves the figure across the panel and always alternating limb position is forward.
There is something profound about ending the “Suicide Squad” with Count Vertigo choosing to tell Deadshot not to kill him. It is by no means the healthiest moment, but it’s a powerful symbolic moment showing the potential for new growth in all of them. The Suicide Squad wasn’t working, but they still choose life in the end. It’s a similar statement Tom King was getting at in his “Batman” run overall but more pointedly in the ‘I Am Suicide’ arc and issue #12 specifically.
And so, ends John Ostrander, Kim Yale, and Geoff Isherwood’s run on “Suicide Squad.” Until Ostrander returned for a miniseries in 2007 ‘From the Ashes,’ and that “Secret Six” ‘Blackest Night’ crossover. But next week things get animated with a look at Justice League S2E17 “Task Force X” and Batman: Assault on Arkham
