Suicide Squad #1 Discussion/Spoilers

[Rakzo]

Suicide Squad had an erratic history in the last few years to say the least. We had to endure Sean Ryan's New Suicide Squad with its awful characterization and boring stories and Rob Williams's Suicide Squad with its forced movie-inspired cast and even worse plots. It seemed like there was no hope but apparently Tom Taylor is willing to change that.

Taylor is not a perfect writer, I think I will never let his run on Earth 2 but if there's something I can appreciate about him is his execution of big moments and creating action scenes that feel big in scope and that's pretty much what this book needed. From the beginning, you can feel energy in the characters and their dialogue, even the ones who don't belong to the team since Taylor is not the most profound writer for characterization but he does know how to create a strong first impression and that's ideal for the title considering that not a lot of them are going to survive for long,

Yes, there are a lot of deaths in this first issue and they're all brutal but again, it feels adequate for the series and makes every scene worth watching. There's also an interesting direction going on here, one that puts the team in more danger than ever and one that feels pretty unpredictable.

Bruno Redondo handles the art and is really solid with expressive characters and a clean style.

Promising beginning, I'm glad that after Williams' pointless run, there's still a bit of hope.

[chamber-music]

I thought Lok was a scarred Steve Trevor before his introduction.

[legion_quest]

I'm never down with The Wall being disrespected, but I usually like Taylor's work, so I may stick with it.

[Yohei72]

I have my usual question: how much do I need to know about the previous continuity to follow the new iteration? I've never read any Suicide Squad, nor seen the movie, but I really enjoyed Taylor's Injustice, particularly his characterization of Harley, a character I'd previously had no particular opinion about. Should I pick this up?

[Rakzo]

I have my usual question: how much do I need to know about the previous continuity to follow the new iteration? I've never read any Suicide Squad, nor seen the movie, but I really enjoyed Taylor's Injustice, particularly his characterization of Harley, a character I'd previously had no particular opinion about. Should I pick this up?

Yeah, this is pretty new reader friendly. Taylor is not really referencing a lot from previous storylines (and he usually doesn't since one of his problems is that he doesn't do his homework at times concerning characters' history).

[Yohei72]

Yeah, this is pretty new reader friendly. Taylor is not really referencing a lot from previous storylines (and he usually doesn't since one of his problems is that he doesn't do his homework at times concerning characters' history).

Thanks, sounds good to me. I'm personally not a continuity stickler, and I think paying close attention to it is as likely to get in the way of a good story as to help, but that's a larger discussion of philosophy and taste.

[mikelmcknight72]

I'll give it a try at some point, though I tend to find that the newer incarnations pale in comparison to the classic Ostrander run. To me, it isn't truly the squad if you don't include Waller, Flag, Deadshot, and Boomerang. While I'm not a huge fan of Harley, I don't dislike the character either. I simply don't think that the squad or Harley are best served by having her as a permanent part. If anything, I'd like to see Jason Todd as the resident or recurring anti-hero. It'd separate him from the Bat office a bit, and it wouldn't preclude him having his own book if he is there voluntarily.

That being said, the new roster looks pretty good. I'm glad Floyd Lawton got a new uniform. It is definitely an improvement of the New 52 uniform. That uniform, in my opinion, was just terrible in design.

[K. Jones]

You introduce a status quo like this and the only question on a long-term reader's mind is, "Yeah, so what's Waller's real endgame and how long is she willing to let her 'couple of hard-to-kill actual helpful guys' get strung along watching Z-listers die until she's ready to get back in the game, reveal her larger target, or course-correct?" Now of course we know that Waller has at this point implemented Task Force XI, so she might have bigger fish to fry and be willing to move on and let someone else deal with X, and yeah, it's not hard to see somebody not giving a **** that Floyd or Harley are still stuck in X with all the B.S., but it doesn't seem that likely in the context of a Suicide Squad run that will be the case, and who knows if XI, which only factored into Rebirth era Justice League v. Suicide Squad and then Snyder-Justice events ... will ever even factor in.

I liked this. Z-Listers dying is what Suicide Squad is all about. You're always going to ruffle feathers by doing so because every Z-Lister is somebody's favorite Z-Lister. In this case, Magpie. I love Magpie and want her to be revamped into something cool. I thought she went out ambiguously enough here. Overtly ambiguous, compared to the rest. It seemed to be Cavalier II, not Cavalier I, so like ... that might satisfy the Golden Age lovers who are like "NOT the Cavalier!!!" because how many people ever even remember there's a second one? So on, so forth, through the issue.

I liked seeing Zebra Man get taken relatively seriously while also being the butt of the joke. I like seeing ... well, The Shark. Yet another brutal big shark dude, but this time it's neither O.G. King Shark NOR Hammerhead King Shark NOR King Shark's Dad For Some Reason. But the Squad seems like it just always has to have a big shark-man on it now, which is kind of a funny trope.

[Raijin]

Taylor must not be fond of Captain Boomerang. It’s weird that he isn’t on here.

[Rakzo]

Taylor must not be fond of Captain Boomerang. It’s weird that he isn’t on here.

Considering his treatment of Green Arrow, he probably also finds him silly.

[Nite-Wing]

I've read this story setup a couple of times already
Tom Taylor is doing something new but in reality this is kinda more of the same but hey its a different way to kick off the suicide squad
Harley and Deadshot calling this the worst squad ever is ignoring the iteration that had Black Manta,Deathstroke, and Joker's daughter worst squad ever was that one

Taylor is probably the only person I trust writing Harley at DC at this point. He knows the character well and has shown from injustice he's got the chops to balance a big cast. Harley and Deadshot will probably kill Lok can't see them working for someone like him for long. They have a grudging respect for someone like Waller who is sort of like the mean principal to them

The deaths were pretty mean spirited too. Suicide Squad is a black comedy at its best not a gore fest

Hopefully Rick Flag makes it back onto the main squad again seeing as the body count and character deaths are back on the table or maybe he shouldn't lol
For the record if you are going to kill villains popular ones(that's an issue for some) Magpie and Cavalier are pretty firm D list Bat villains who usually show up in the background of his splash pages every now and then. I guess they won't be anymore

[Rac7d*]

I've read this story setup a couple of times already
Tom Taylor is doing something new but in reality this is kinda more of the same but hey its a different way to kick off the suicide squad
Harley and Deadshot calling this the worst squad ever is ignoring the iteration that had Black Manta,Deathstroke, and Joker's daughter worst squad ever was that one

That’s was bad because the team was stunt casted like a movie, and all of those character got leave bomb free like we knew they would. As a team they were pretty stacked as far as skill goes

Taylor is probably the only person I trust writing Harley at DC at this point. He knows the character well and has shown from injustice he's got the chops to balance a big cast. Harley and Deadshot will probably kill Lok can't see them working for someone like him for long. They have a grudging respect for someone like Waller who is sort of like the mean principal to them

The deaths were pretty mean spirited too. Suicide Squad is a black comedy at its best not a gore fest

Hopefully Rick Flag makes it back onto the main squad again seeing as the body count and character deaths are back on the table or maybe he shouldn't lol
For the record if you are going to kill villains popular ones(that's an issue for some) Magpie and Cavalier are pretty firm D list Bat villains who usually show up in the background of his splash pages every now and then. I guess they won't be anymore

At least thease no names are interesting

[Blue22]

Wow. For the first time in a long time, I'm genuinely interested in a Suicide Squad run. This was a great start. Liking the new roster. Liking the concept (though, let's be real, we all know Waller the chess master has some big plan up her sleevese). And I actually felt really bad for these "Revolutionaries" and the ones who died, despite barely knowing them.

Way to go Taylor. Once again, you got my full approval in a time when DC as a whole has been slowly losing me.

[BohemiaDrinker]

I'm never down with The Wall being disrespected,

Ow, c'mon. We know that is just set up for the most brutal comeback in the history of brutal comebacks.

[Rac7d*]

They made this team to likable