#squadapalooza

SUICIDE SQUAD: GET JOKER! #2 story by BRIAN AZZARELLO art by ALEX MALEEV & MATT HOLLINGSWORTH cover by ALEX MALEEV ON SALE 9/7/21 $6.99 US | 48 PAGES | FC | DC card stock variant cover by JORGE FORNES Black Label | Prestige Plus | 8 1/2" x 10 7/8" 17+ After turning the tables on the Suicide Squad, The Joker gained control of the device that could detonate the bomb implanted in each of the team members’ heads. Now forced to do The Joker’s bidding, Red Hood, Harley, and the rest of Task Force X find themselves hunted by a newly formed Squad with a single mission: kill the previous Squad and take over hunting The Joker.

SUICIDE SQUAD CASE FILES 1 written by GERRY CONWAY art by JOHN BYRNE On sale 7/20/21 $19.99 US | 216 pages | 6 5/8" x 10 3/16"| Softcover ISBN: 978-1-77951-075-4 Discover the legacy of the film's eclectic villains in this collection of key stories from DC history! James Gunn's The Suicide Squad film gathers the weirdest and wildest cast of characters in superhero movie history—from Squad veterans like Harley Quinn and Captain Boomerang to the downright bizarre King Shark and Polka-Dot Man. But every character starts somewhere! Find out exactly where in The Suicide Squad Case Files 1, a new collection featuring debut and key appearances of Bloodsport, Mongal, Polka-Dot Man, King Shark, Weasel, the Thinker, and Amanda Waller herself, the government agent behind Task Force X.

SUICIDE SQUAD CASE FILES 2 written by JOHN OSTRANDER art by LUKE MCDONNELL On sale 7/27/21 $19.99 US | 224 pages | 6 5/8" x 10 3/16"| Softcover | ISBN: 978-1-77951-156-0 More legacy and origins of the Suicide Squad's eclectic characters in this collection of key stories in anticipation of James Gunn's film, The Suicide Squad! The Suicide Squad Case Files 2 collection includes debut and key appearances of Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Rick Flag, the Ratcatcher, Savant, the Javelin, Blackguard, and more.

HARLEY QUINN'S GREATEST HITS written by VARIOUS art by VARIOUS Available now! $9.99 US | 168 pages | 6 5/8" x 10 3/16"| Softcover | ISBN: 978-1-4012-7008-7 Get ready for this summer's most anticipated movie, The Suicide Squad, with the comics that feature fan-favorite character Harley Quinn! Harley Quinn's Greatest Hits collects eight of her best stories from writers and artists including Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, Jim Lee, Jeph Loeb, Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti, Scott Snyder, and more.

SUICIDE SQUAD: TRIAL BY FIRE written by JOHN OSTRANDER art by LUKE MCDONNELL AND OTHERS On sale 7/27/2021 $19.99 US | 232 pages| FC|DC ISBN: 978-1-77951-444-8 The classic story that inspired the feature film! Offered again with a new cover! Faced with a rising tide of meta-human crime and terror, Amanda Waller, the hard-headed director of a secret government program designed to neutralize super-powered threats called Task Force X sold the President on her vision: a covert action team composed of incarcerated super-villains who earned time off their sentences for every mission they completed. Deniable, disposable, and deployable to any spot on Earth, this Suicide Squad would be the perfect weapon of last resort—as long as they could be kept under control. Crafted by acclaimed creators John Ostrander and Luke McDonnell, this volume collects the first eight issues of the team's legendary 1980s title as well as their updated history from Secret Origins #14.

SUICIDE SQUAD: THEIR GREATEST SHOTS written by VARIOUS art by VARIOUS On sale 7/13/21 $12.99 US | 200 pages | 6 5/8" x 10 3/16"| Softcover | ISBN: 978-1-77951-073-0 The ultimate graphic novel companion to the high-octane, highly anticipated Suicide Squad movie coming in 2021! Featuring everyone's favorite DC antiheroes—from Harley Quinn to Captain Boomerang—this collection is sure to thrill any fan seeking more high-stakes black ops missions where no one is safe! Ranging from classic adventures by John Ostrander to contemporary takes with art by Jim Lee, all the comics heavy hitters who've shaped the Squad are featured in this collection!

SUICIDE SQUAD VOL. 1: THE BLACK VAULT written by ROB WILLIAMS art by JIM LEE AND PHILIP TAN Available now! $16.99 US | 160 pages | 6 5/8" x 10 3/16"| Softcover | ISBN: 978-1-4012-6981-4 The acclaimed story that helped launch DC Universe Rebirth! Harley Quinn. Deadshot. Killer Croc. Enchantress. Captain Boomerang. Katana. They're dangerous. They're deadly. They're deeply unstable. Their latest mission should be easy enough: recover a powerful cosmic weapon called the Black Vault from enemy hands. The Suicide Squad always gets the job done (mostly). But this time, when the weapon's dark influence spreads and the team is driven to madness and mayhem (more than usual), there's only one person sane enough to save the Squad from destruction…the Clown Princess of Crime herself, Harley Quinn! 

I know, right? 😰  And I really wish he'd had a more heroic death, or at least one that wasn't so ignoble...the guy finally had something going right in his life and maybe new reasons to live, and bam.  Death with comedic overtones.  At least Flag had a badass ending.

 I've seen a bunch of people online come up with ideas how he and Digger could maybe come back in future movies, and at least the ideas for PDM were fairly plausible (the virus re-creates him or sends him to some alien dimension he can return from). I guess it depends on what James Gunn or other filmmakers might want, and wonder if they knew how popular he'd be.

So, as the spoilers have been saying for months, Digger dies at the beginning of the movie.  I accidentally heard that months ago and was hoping it wasn't true, but it is.  He does get some good moments though, and we see how dangerous he and his boomerangs are when he slices the top of a guy's head off; it is a very graphic and gory movie.  He dies with a grin on his face, but it's tough to tell whether it's an amused or distressed one.  

The Thinker isn't really like either of the pre-Flashpoint Thinkers we've known, and he's even got a different name, Gaius Grieves.  He's based on the New 52 Thinker, who I'd always assumed was Clifford DeVoe with a different look (the things stuck in his head), but maybe it wasn't.  At any rate, this Thinker is smart and completely amoral, but not really genius-level smart and doesn't have any psi powers from his tech.  He's just an asshole who's studied/tortured Starro for thirty years and killed tons of innocent people in the process.  

And weirdly, Double Down has a flashback cameo with Calendar Man, as they bully poor Polka Dot Man in prison.  So that means Double Down has made it to the big screen before Len and most of the major Rogues!

The only survivors of the serving Squad members are Bloodsport, Ratcatcher II, Harley, King Shark, Weasel, and Peacemaker.  The latter two are thought dead but manage to pull through.  I was hoping Polka Dot Man would live, but he doesn't.  However, Bloodsport and Ratcatcher are great and I'm glad they made it, as did the pet rat Sebastian.  This movie does not shy away from the brutality of the Suicide Squad concept and it's honestly tough to watch, but as much as I personally dislike gore I do think it's important to not sanitize what happens when a bunch of villains are set loose on dirty missions and treated as expendable.  That said, sensitive viewers (which I'm amongst, to tell the truth) may not want to watch this, especially because some of the deaths are done for humour.  Some are not, for example Starro's victims, which is portrayed as horrifying as it should be.

So I enjoyed the movie, but would rather have had less gore and I wish Digger and Polka Dot Man had survived.  It would have been nice to see more of the first group who died at the beginning to see them in action and how they interacted with each other, but perhaps that might have detracted from the coldness of the premise: that the powers that be don't give a shit about them and it doesn't matter who they are.

Here's Double Down and Calendar Man, by the way.