Our last graphic novel was intended to tie in with the new Suicide Squad movie, and from what I hear, audiences liked that movie just about as much as our readers liked the New Suicide Squad collection. By which I mean they're not liking it much at all. Interesting how that works out.
Anyway.
New Suicide Squad, Vol. 1: Pure Insanity
collecting New Suicide Squad issues 1-8
ISBN: 9781401252380
writing: Sean Ryan
breakdowns: Tom Derenick
artists: Rob Hunter, Jeremy Roberts, Norm Rapmund, Vicente Cifuentes, Scott Hanna, Trevor Scott, Mark Irwin, Batt
colorist: Blond
letterers: Taylor Esposito, Dave Sharpe
Read August 2016
So the OLD Suicide Squad was disbanded apparently, so Amanda Waller is working with a bull-headed, homicidal, over-achieving Vic Sage (what a name) with his hand-picked new Task Force X (why so many names, y'all?) purposefully picked to cause as much strife and mayhem as possible. Poor Amanda.
So returning from the old team we have Harley, Deadshot, and Black Manta, and Vic drags in Deathstroke and Joker's Daughter (who really isn't, but ok, let's have more crazy women with strange issues about the Joker being the formative male figure in their lives because THAT's totally not sexist and old news already). At some point the Australian dude and Totally Not Evil Flash get dragged into this ridiculousness, just to have more characters involved I guess?
I'm sure there is a plot, I just couldn't find it. The team gets sent to Russia to research something, and explodes it instead (quelle surprise), gets sent to tactically explode something in China, and DOESN'T explode it before a bunch of vat-grown mutant (does DC have mutants?) supers lurches zombie/Doom-like out to pummel them (they eventually explode things). Then there's Chinese Superman, who I think dies because they can't figure out what to do with him... and all the while Vic the dick and Amanda are jousting for position back at HQ.
Anyway - it's a hot mess. The women are simply crazy - no characters there to speak of. Harley's a far cry from the self-possessed crazy but somewhat self-aware character she is in her flagship series (review coming soon for that one), and Joker's Daughter is simply a mess and spends most of the time being useless or unconscious. Characters defect or are invalided out nearly every issue, making it difficult to care about the team. Honestly, the only one I felt anything for was Black Manta, who really just needs to get out of there and find a team of reasonable people to work with. (Good luck, man.) Waller is presented sympathetically, Vic is amazingly cardboard for being the major antagonist, and honestly Waller's assistant has the most "humanizing" moments in the whole thing.
Art was decent, but oddly stretched and warped in places, like the panel layout wasn't finalized before the scenes were drawn, and someone just used the stretch tool in MS Paint to make things fit in their new locations. Lots of red, lots of explosions as backgrounds (saves drawing buildings) lots of cement-bunker environments or nearly-empty cubical farms. The women (save a few moments for Waller and her assistant) are constantly sexualized, even when in the middle of mayhem, or when unconscious. The male characters are differentiated by costumes, and that's about it. Once in their prison/psych uniforms, I had trouble recognizing characters from earlier panels.
Not hugely recommended, but there's a possibility for interesting development for Manta and Waller, so if you're interested in them, it might be worth it. Otherwise, the characters are mostly there to provide a superficial reason for all the explosions.
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