Despite their near constant presence in DC publishing line since the New 52 era in 2011, I would guess you wouldn’t find many readers who liked the adventures of Task Force X between then and the subject of today’s column, “Suicide Squad: Bad Blood,” all that much. The New 52 era introduced a retro futurist 90s aesthetic, often blamed on Jim Lee, and originally featured artists like Fernando Dagnino and Patrick Zircher during that initial run of “Suicide Squad”(2011). That era would also feature writers like Ales Kot and Matt Kindt. Eventually the book would be renamed and retitled “New Suicide Squad” which would eventually feature creators like Tim Seeley, Phil Briones, Juan E. Ferreyra. With the Squad being in a state of constant flux no creative team ever seemed to stick around long enough to do anything of importance, with the book also often being stuck in crossover hell. To the various creative teams credit the quartet of issues written by Ales Kot ‘Discipline and Punish’ #20-23 are solid. There is ideas that initial “New Suicide Squad” writer Sean Ryan seemed to be going for that could be read as a meta commentary that also didn’t seem to fully be realized. Even in the Rebirth era and putting solid names like Rob Williams and getting Jim Lee to do half an issue couldn’t bring a sense of cohesion to the chaotic and popular Suicide Squad. As someone who first heard about the Suicide Squad from the fannish Ryan Scott on The Comics Conspiracy and eventually caught up on the original Ostrander-Yale-McDonnel-Isherwood run, it is hard to look at the past decade’s worth of publication and see why it never compared as well to the original.
In 11 issues writer Tom Taylor and artists Bruno Redondo and Daniel Sampere, with colors by Adriano Lucas, do something rare in the pages of “Suicide Squad”: they tell a complete story that feels meaningful. It sounds basic, and it is, but compared to the checkered quality of the past their sheer consistency makes it stand out as one of the better “Squad” stories since the original 90s run. Unlike the previously mentioned creative teams, a hodgepodge of solid people, Taylor, Redondo, and Sampere, all had a devloped a strong working relationship together on the “Injustice” series. The quality of “Injustice,” a tie-in to a fighting game, is one of the real surprises of that era was due into no small part Taylor’s willingness to run with the constraints of the video game and twist what readers assume to be core constants of the DCU as well as the art team’s ability to mix sentimentality with moments of gruesome violence and shock. The first issue ends with the Joker nuking Meteropolis, after Superman murders Lois Lane and their unborn child; and it works! Over the span of hundreds of pages, they were able to expand on characters and moments that had been obliquely referenced during the 10 second intro dialogue and make them into character defining moments that felt earned. Taylor, Redondo, and Sampere didn’t have years and 50 issues on “Suicide Squad” like Ostrander-Yale, but 11 issues is more than Kot and Kindt received.
The ‘Bad Blood’ creative team would synthesize the basic strategy of the contemporary Squad with what made 90s era work. While the earlier iteration of “Squad” was often centered around missions that lasted 2-3 issues, contemporary publishing that emphasized the inevitable collections for the trade paperback has refocused writing in groups of generally 6 issues. One of the few complaints I had with the Ostrander-Yale collections was how issues were grouped together. ‘Bad Blood’ has thus far only been collected in a single volume collecting all 11 issues. Unlike contemporary Squad narratives that emphasized an exploitative aesthetic with little commentary or thrill, ‘Bad Blood’ is thoroughly character driven and politically aware of the destruction wrought by fascistically controlling another body in ways other stories just play as straight and without forethought. The attitudes have been updated for the times but the emphasis on character harkens back to what makes the. Ostrander-Yale run so effective.
In rereading some of the New 52 era “Squad” to decide if I wanted to talk about any of it, one of the things that stuck out to me was how unfunny it was. Now I will be the first to admit by taste of humor is strange, but there is a technical ability to comedy and humor that can be appreciated even if it doesn’t make you laugh. So much of the New 52 era was excessive without comedy, an aesthetic that you might call “shock humor” because you lack a better term. When there is nothing shocking or humorous about it. Bruno Redondo and Daniel Sampere more than earn the moments of visual comedy. Redondo’s expression work on Deadshot as he battles Batman walks a line that the storage battle in Assault on Arkham could only look up at and wonder. Taylor can write zigners, and achieves a fair bit, but most of the humor in this book is visual. While none of it is like the recurring pie to the face gags of yester year there is a graphic understanding of how absurd this motley crew can look at times.
Continued belowAnother aspect borrowed from the progenitor creative team was a heavy dose of new characters. Promotional material in the back of issues would highlight characters like Osita, Chaos Kitten, The Aerie, and Wink as well as lesser-known characters like Magpie and Zebra Man. The series would also feature the two staple characters of Deadshot and Harley Quinn. Despite being called “Suicide Squad” the team makeup was very stable. Taylor plays into that assumption with a first issue twist that the Suicide Squad is just bait to capture Osita and her group calling themselves The Revolutionaries. The Revolutionaries would be impressed into service on Task Force X. With the deck cleared save for Harley Quinn and Deadshot, Taylor and the creative team afforded themselves the room to do whatever they wanted.
Over the course of 11 issues the creative team would document the history of the Revolutionaries, all individuals who were collateral damage to the Suicide Squad. But even before that you have moments like The Aerie and Wink playing catch on the ocean. Four panels that do everything to sell their relationship, so that when it’s explored in more detail in issue #8 it becomes even sweeter. The same goes for Osita, who is a vengeful character whose humanity is never denied even as she dreams of doing inhumane things to the people who made her this way.
In emphasizing the Revolutionaries as the main actors in this story, the creative team also pull another trick on the reader. This is and isn’t a “Suicide Squad” story. It is in the title, but they all effectively leave it behind by the sixth issue. By shedding the shackles of the Squad, a fuller view of what ‘Bad Blood’ is really doing comes into view as takes stock of the effects the Suicide Squad have on its victims and members. As if the creative team looked at the past decade of chaotic publishing and filled in the gutter space that elided the victims from the first pass of history. Deadshot is given more character work in two issue than anything he’s been in since the “Secret Six” days. By looking back at what the Suicide Squad wrought, Tom Taylor plays one of the quintessential notes of the property: historical retconning. Ostrander did that in “Secret Origins” #14. They do that with The Revolutionaries.
If there is one “wrong” step the series takes, is they push Ostrander-Yale’s understanding of the inherent evil and failure of Task Force X to their logical end. By the end of ‘Bad Blood’ the Suicide Squad is declared dead. The creative team at first juxtapose Waller’s monstrosity with their new commander, Lok, but by the end the loving declaration that Amanda Waller was “our monster” reads as hollow. She is just as bad as Lok was, she was just better at executing it. As the years go by it’s interesting to see other creative teams not feel the need to humanize Waller the way Ostrander did. Ostrander’s characterization make sense, she was for all intents and purpose a series regular in ways the modern Squad render her a distant and harsh school mistress. But after the statement the creative team make, how can there be a Suicide Squad? There is only room for a Revolution. Taylor has said the Revolutionaries will return at some point, outside of some appearances a new book based on them has yet to be announced.
And that’s the end of Some Kind of Suicide Squad and my summer comic binge … for now.
