Friday, February 1, 2013

What happened to the Squad that I used to know?

I was just feeling kinda sentimental about the Ostrander Suicide Squad era of  late. Ditto for Greg Rucka's work on Suicide Squad related narratives in his story lines most notably in Checkmate. That awesome Deadshot panel is from Checkmate #18 which was the beginning of the "Fall of the Wall" story line. I've been meaning to post that for a while now. That was a really good story line among others things Amanda Waller was confronted about running Task Force X covertly even though as the White Queen directing field operations was not in her mandate.
Below is a page that I randomly found on the net from what I believe is an issue of  DC's Countdown that chronicled the super villain round up efforts for Operation Salvation Run. In the last year or so I've found a few of these Countdown tie-in back issues (mostly in $1 boxes I'm happy to say) so hopefully I'll find this one too some day soon. I really miss this stuff from the old DCU. Now I won't even have new episodes of Young Justice to look forward to before long with the recent bad news. There's always back issue boxes but when it came to new stuff Young Justice was all I had to look forward to with DC comics.



 Just wanted to update you folks on that Nightwing Captain Boomerang Jr. issue I mentioned in the last posting. I ended up going back to my local comic shop to see if I could find it again that $1 box and indeed I did so I got it using my trade in credit. This ended up being a really good issue and among other things this is where Owen quits The Outsiders: http://www.comixology.com/Outsiders-Five-of-a-Kind-1-of-5-Nightwing-Boomerang/digital-comic/JUN070159
http://majorspoilers.com/2007/07/27/dc-comics-sneak-peek-of-the-week-7/#more-1975
http://thebatfamily.wordpress.com/ http://www.comicvine.com/forums/battles/7/marvel-vs-dc-war-the-avengersdecoy-elite-vs-the-bat-familydane/578017/  After having read this issue I see now that it wasn't just Owen's Captain Boomerang legacy that had Batman a bit leery of Owen's membership in The Outsiders. It was also because of him having worked for Amanda Waller which he was actually still doing. As I mentioned earlier in this posting running Task Force X (official name for the Suicide Squad) was something Waller and King Faraday (her bishop) tried to keep quiet but that secret eventually ended up being discovered as scene in this clip art from the Outsiders Checkmate crossover storyline. Waller, Faraday and Count Vertigo were all eventually ousted from Checkmate at around the same time Owen left the Outsiders after which they were all working together again at Belle Reve as seen in the 2007 From the Ashes 9 issue Suicide Squad mini-series written by John Ostrander.


Rather it was in the pages of Checkmate, DC Countdown, Salvation Run or in Suicide Squad titles (but not the Giffen series) this was the era where buying and reading the Suicide Squad was a real joy. But with the relaunch, it's barely worth my time to follow it online.

4 comments:

  1. Poor Shlomo:(

    That question sounds like the same thing you've been asking for awhile now, and yet DC still doesn't care, particularly for their readers both new and old apparently.

    I don't know how much of the cancellation of both GL and YJ is DC's fault, but I'm pretty sure they deserve a good bit. I know the failure of the toy line was a major factor attributed to this, but as bleedingcool.com mentioned, or someone did, if they hadn't jacked the price up so high on the 6 and 3 inch figures, they might've sold better. Something to think about I guess.

    As I mentioned on the new DC/TV front, the only shows I have to look forward to are Arrow and re-runs of JLU. Arrow's decent enough, but the lack of action and typical tween-ish/twilight/CW dialogue slowly wearing on me.
    Thank God for alcohol and drugs am I right?;)

    Oh, and before I forget, I'll try and look for those back issue for you @ my store. They have a few old Suicide Squad issues I need to grab out of the 75 cent box, so I'll keep an eye out on them.

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  2. Damn guys, I've been without a CPU for about 2 weeks. The Agent got attacked by some kind of super virus. Anyway I'll be back when my computer comes back. Until then I'm phone posting.

    Shlomo, I feel your pain. and this was a nice flash from better days.

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  3. Liked your post, Ben. But I much rather preferred the earlier Ostrander run than what happened after it was cancelled.

    To me it was as though John is the only guy who can write this team properly, and I'm sure that DC will recognize that sooner or later.

    Trust me. I predicted that Geoff and the rest of the GL crew would get a shake up two weeks ago -- way before this weeks announcement. It's all a matter of marketing.

    Let the reader wait for ages for what they want - then BANG -- stiff them for all they're worth.

    Know what I mean, Ben?

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    1. ironic you should say that Jay i was just given a heads up recently about adam glass leaving the SS reboot as the writer. no telling what will happen next but it's a step in the right direction.

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