Suicide Squad 22
Ales Kot, Patrick Zircher
Spoiler alert! You have been warned!
The upsetting news of Ales Kot’s impeding departure from this book (announced earlier in the week) could not have come at a worse time. I mean, come on. This book is close to perfect. The dialogue, the storyline, and even the characterization are unparalleled. And Patrick Zircher is proving to the world that he’s a big leaguer who knows how to simultaneously be a great storyteller and a true visual artist. I’m glad to hear that he’s staying on the book, but the fact that this fantastic partnership is being ended prematurely doesn’t really affect this issue. In fact, a lesser writer would show signs of fatigue or lack of caring at this point in his or her assignment. But Kot shows that he’s a professional and he’s still giving us a gem of an issue.
The story is simple: The Squad is sent to Vegas to prevent a cult from raising their giant monster made out of all of the bodies of various people who have committed suicide in Sin City’s past. Obviously, things don’t go perfectly. Harley Quinn and Deadshot work together while trying to have a good time, the Unknown Soldier kills some cultists, Cheetah tries to do as little as possible all while trying to get Deadshot and other humans on the team killed, King Shark eats people, and all of this happens with Amanda Waller and James Gordon Jr. manipulating, plotting, and running point on the mission from behind the scenes. A simple enough story that ends with a revelation that the serum that is keeping the recently-returned-to-life members of the team alive is apparently temporary. This means that fan-favorite Deadshot might not be quite as permanent of a cast member as we’ve all come to expect. And things could get really interesting now that Gordon knows that the Director herself might be getting extremely desperate, possibly crazy desperate, to save her own life.
So why is this such a great issue? Well, the artwork is amazing. The fight scenes are perfect. The scope is epic yet realistic. There’s a sense of actual urgency when shit hits the fan. Even the leader of the cult is creepy and unique. And each character looks, well, like a real person. But the script is also impeccable, what with little lines here and there that actually make the reader chuckle in what should be a serious scene (King Shark’s “My name is Trixie and I like to party” line and Deadshot’s “Dying hurts!” proclamation come to mind). And all of this without actually detracting from the fact that not only is this a team full of people who are, in every sense of the word, evil, but also that literally anything could happen. So, my question is the one that’s on everyone’s mind, especially with a new writer on the way: Who will die? Will it be Deadshot, the fan-favorite? Or Harley Quinn, who is essentially the “main character” of the book? Will one of the other members bite the big one? Or does James Gordon Jr. plan to take over the team and do the unthinkable? They wouldn’t really kill Amanda Waller, would they? That’d be… crazy.
My Rating: 5/5
Zircher's art really did make this issue for me!
He rocks!