Seeley Promises Dark Humor, Teases Death in "New Suicide Squad"

[Deniz Camp]

And let's not forget Rob Williams on Flash! That book looks to be getting a creative team change upcoming.

[Nite-Wing]

If you haven't read the Ostrander run and don't have a real connection to the squad's beginnings and why its so compelling its gonna be hard to grasp where he's gonna set himself apart from everyone else who has written the title.
I hope he at least introduces rick flag jr since he's been missed a lot without the squad having some genuine heroes on the title since the reboot

[Godlike13]

I like what I'm hearing. I've always liked the idea of SS but every time I've tried to jump on I haven't found it very good, and I can not stand SS's homicidal bloodthirsty Harley. Plus i like Seeley. So ya, this sounds good.

[King's_Gambit]

Strong creative team. Also, one thing i haven't seen anyone mention is Juan Ferrerya's art. His run on Gotham by Midnight has been amazing and I'm thrilled to see DC giving him more ongoing work. Dude deserves it.

And let's not forget Rob Williams on Flash! That book looks to be getting a creative team change upcoming.

I freaking hope so. That book has been.....not good. Now if only they'd take the Finches off of Wonder Woman while they were at it.

Great choice.

I would have also accepted Tom King, Steve Orlando or Genevieve Valentine, but this is a great choice.

Now, put King on Green Lantern. Put Orlando on Shazam and Teen Titans. Put Valentine on Batwoman and Earth 2.

Tom King is, in my opinion, the best new writer at either Marvel or DC. Not only is everything he writes gold, but it's always extremely different and very daring for a Big Two book. Grayson is awesome, Omega Men is awesome and doesn't feel like any DC book I've seen, and the Vision is awesome and doesn't feel like any Marvel book I've seen. Really looking forward to his Vertigo book.

[darkseidpwns]

Hopefully Seeley re-introduces Deadshot's unique relationship with Batman that Gage,Ostrander and Simone built.

[Deniz Camp]

Agreed on Tom King. His dedication to the form and formalism makes him the most unique and forward thinking guy in comics right now, definitely my most exciting new creator of the last 5 years.

[j9ac9k]

Can someone tell me what's the deal with the Vic Sage who's running around in "SS?" I read a few issues where he doesn't seem at all like the Question, but there's something going on with him. Has that been revealed yet? Thanks!

[GlennSimpson]

Can someone tell me what's the deal with the Vic Sage who's running around in "SS?" I read a few issues where he doesn't seem at all like the Question, but there's something going on with him. Has that been revealed yet? Thanks!

Nope, he's a big sneaky-pants but we don't really know his full agenda, that I can recall.

Other than maybe just wanting to be in charge of everything.

[James Hunter]

Ooh, I hope Seeley gives some nods to his Grayson run. I don't want a full on crossover so soon, but it would be nice to have it feel like part of the same "spy-verse" LOL. Now all I need is a new Checkmate ala Rucka's run. And a Katana & the Outsiders book. And a new BoP. Ok ok, I'll stop

I have to agree with you, a new Checkmate book is *needed* (no, not wanted, I really do need one), especially if you can bring Rucka back to write it and bring Fire and Jessica Midnight over with you!

I'm looking forward to seeing Seeley's take though, I have to admit.

Cheers.

James.

[Rakzo]

Creative-wise, this is easily one of the best improvements that I've seen recently, although it wouldn't have been difficult to be an improvement after Ryan insufferably mediocre work.

Suicide Squad has been a title with its ups an downs during the New 52. I believe that the most consistent part from the last volume was Adam Glass' work, it was fun, full of action and diversity of content. Then Ales Kot came along and, let's just say that he was waaaaay overhyped and ended-up delivering very little, his issues were lacking in content and ultimately meant nothing in the grand scheme of things (so you could say that both the marketing and final work were equally pretentious). Finally, Matt Kindt did a decent job by offering more content than Kot but it had its own share of flaws like overworked narration.

Seeley has a lot of potential though, his a great creative mind that could bring a lot of variety of settings, characters and ideas. I'm highly anticipating this.

[Nick Miller]

so he is on long term? or just an arc

[SiegePerilous02]

While I hate how DC is saturating the market with Harley, she and Seeley are totally a match made in heaven. Especially if he's channeling the B:TAS incarnation.

[Claude]

I admire the writer who can come on to a title with ideas of where they could take it, and interest in it's potential, whilst being totally honest about not having liked it up until now. Soule's "Red Lanterns" would have been much less fun if he'd felt the need to hide his playful disdain of the title up until that point, and Valentine's "Catwoman" wouldn't have benefitted one jot from acting as anything other than a from-scratch start for the character.

I'm just a bit surprised that - based off this interview - Seeley doesn't seem to have wanted to/been allowed to set up his own Squad line-up.

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

I'm just a bit surprised that - based off this interview - Seeley doesn't seem to have wanted to/been allowed to set up his own Squad line-up.

Actually, I can understand that. During the late '90s and the '00s, it seemed that whenever a writer took over or revived a team book, they seemed to be more interested in 'leaving their mark' on the team or title than in building on recent history. Usually this manifested in scuttling the line-up under the previous writer, keeping or bringing back any cherry-picked "classic" member or members (especially if they're members from when the new writer was a fan of the team/book), and jettisoning any newer members, particularly those created by the previous writers, in order to make room for...the incoming writer's own new characters. The jettisoned new characters created by previous writers, if lucky, were either just bounced off the team or disappeared into limbo, but sometimes were deliberately killed off/permanently disabled by the in-coming writer, as if to say, "Yeah, the last writer's stint sucked; what better way to launch my term as writer, with my new ideas and new characters, than by irrevocably destroying his line-up and new characters? *My* new ideas and characters will be so much better...", only for the cycle to start over with the next new writer.

And that's how you get teams with a glut of one-time members who are never used again except for crowd scenes or the next time you have a major even mini-series and some editor says, "Hmm, we need casualties/a body count to give this the illusion of mattering. Which team has the most fat in it's roster that we can convert into casualities?"

Of course, with a title (and name) like Suicide Squad, you can do that if you want in the pages of your own book. But the closest the Suicide Squad ever came to that that I can recall was the 80's Doom Patrol/Suicide Squad one-shot special, and that was just Rick Flag being the lone survivor of a mission staffed by a Doom Patrol villain (when DP was being taken over by Grant Morrison), a left-over villainess who'd originally fought the Pre-Crisis Supergirl, a left-over Justice Society villain (this was after the Last Days of the Justice Society special that was meant to be the last appearance of the JSA at the time) whom even the SS's editor admitted was killed off because he considered to be too old to be a viable character anymore, and a Firestorm villain at a time when Firestorm was being revamped and his rogues' gallery were being ruthlessly decimated as a result. Heck, it wasn't even written by Ostrander, but the DP's pre-Morrison writer, IIRC.

[Factor]

Actually, I can understand that. During the late '90s and the '00s, it seemed that whenever a writer took over or revived a team book, they seemed to be more interested in 'leaving their mark' on the team or title than in building on recent history. Usually this manifested in scuttling the line-up under the previous writer, keeping or bringing back any cherry-picked "classic" member or members (especially if they're members from when the new writer was a fan of the team/book), and jettisoning any newer members, particularly those created by the previous writers, in order to make room for...the incoming writer's own new characters. The jettisoned new characters created by previous writers, if lucky, were either just bounced off the team or disappeared into limbo, but sometimes were deliberately killed off/permanently disabled by the in-coming writer, as if to say, "Yeah, the last writer's stint sucked; what better way to launch my term as writer, with my new ideas and new characters, than by irrevocably destroying his line-up and new characters? *My* new ideas and characters will be so much better...", only for the cycle to start over with the next new writer.

And that's how you get teams with a glut of one-time members who are never used again except for crowd scenes or the next time you have a major even mini-series and some editor says, "Hmm, we need casualties/a body count to give this the illusion of mattering. Which team has the most fat in it's roster that we can convert into casualities?"

Of course, with a title (and name) like Suicide Squad, you can do that if you want in the pages of your own book. But the closest the Suicide Squad ever came to that that I can recall was the 80's Doom Patrol/Suicide Squad one-shot special, and that was just Rick Flag being the lone survivor of a mission staffed by a Doom Patrol villain (when DP was being taken over by Grant Morrison), a left-over villainess who'd originally fought the Pre-Crisis Supergirl, a left-over Justice Society villain (this was after the Last Days of the Justice Society special that was meant to be the last appearance of the JSA at the time) whom even the SS's editor admitted was killed off because he considered to be too old to be a viable character anymore, and a Firestorm villain at a time when Firestorm was being revamped and his rogues' gallery were being ruthlessly decimated as a result. Heck, it wasn't even written by Ostrander, but the DP's pre-Morrison writer, IIRC.

I'd say that's still true to many properties (look at the X-men, lol), but here changing the line-up would actually make a lot of sense. It's part of the book's premise to have a constant changes.