Suicide Squad #2

Back to the reviews and back to the New 52. I still have a few stray #2's to deal with here.

Title: Suicide Squad
Issue: 2
Date: December 2011
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Adam Glass
Artist: Frederico Dallocchio, Andrei Bressan
Colorist: Val Staples
Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher
Editor: Sean Mackiewicz, Pat McCallum

We open the show with the squad dropped into a darkened domed stadium that is apparently under military quarantine. They've got a woman to find. She's got "the package" and it's up to the Squad to secure it by "any means necessary". It's all very macho, with hints of mayhem in the background. Weirdly, the front page "introduce the team" sequence (from Deadshot's POV: "Amateur, hero, wild card, and cookoo for cocoa puffs"; that last one would be Harley) actually skips over one team member. I realize that the idea here is that no one is safe, but that seems a little bit too obvious. Sure enough, mister-no-introduction gets redshirted before we're done.

As for the scenario? Well, if you were told that a mysterious virus had been let loose in a stadium, what would be the least interesting and most overdone story you could think of? If you said zombies, then there might be room for you on the DC Comics writing staff!

So the action turns quickly into something that had the feel of a zombie apocalypse video game complete with a pregnant woman transformed into a tentacled "boss". There was a fair amount of gross-out and alleged "shocks" including the surprise twist that was essentially given away on the first page.

The story also continued the DCU's escalation of mass violence. An entire stadium full of people are massacred here, and the government will just cover it up. Yup, just another day in the DC Universe. I would say that this runs the risk of desensitizing the audience to violence, but the stupidity of the plot already had me not caring.

Remarkably, the ending scenario actually does provide the possibility that the next issue could be better than this one, due entirely to Deadshot being forced into a very unusual role. I actually bought the third issue of this mess (by accident; I had planned to stop after my first look at the "new" Amanda Waller), so I'll actually be reviewing that one to see if it's any better than this. Which actually shouldn't be too difficult, you would think.

Rating: 3/10