The great cartoon debate continued & the messed up personal life of Red Arrow

So to those of you who read my comments in the previous posting you know full well my opinions about Young Justice & The Justice League Unlimited vs. The Teen Titans and Batman The Brave and The Bold. Today I decided to have a second look on Youtube the Titans and BnB and oh man it was just painful. Just the animation alone makes want to turn away from the screen. It's just not right that the only appearance of Bronze Tiger in a DC cartoon had to be in the BnB series. It's just not right. I mean really folks just look at the difference in the clip art I provided above. It's kinda like back in the 80's the difference between the animation in the Gobots cartoon verses the Transformers.
On a side note you'll notice that Speedy a.k.a Roy Harper is in most of the DC cartoons. I know he was in at least one JLU episode called Patriot Act (on Youtube) even though I didn't provide any clip art samples here for it. Although never an official member, Speedy was also in on an early mission of the Suicide Squad in which they were sent to South America to bust up a big time drug cartel. You can read up on the details in the latest Task Force X retirement files posting: http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2011/02/task-force-x-retirement-files-016-019.html
Bronze Tiger wasn't on that mission but he and Speedy (now Red Arrow) would have a brief encounter years later in JLA #18 (2008) when the League and the Squad had a skirmish over the Salvation Run operation under Waller and Rick Flag. Even though Red Arrow bitches a lot in Young Justice he seems to at least know his shit when it comes down to business. Plus, I find his over all pessimistic out look on life reassuring largely because in that way he kinda reminds me of . . . me. But this guy has had a rough life. He's lost a daughter, an arm and struggled with drug addiction and impotency of all things.
I see that Young Justice is on Sunday nights just in time for me to start following the series on TV tomorrow. Youtube only has the first 6 or so episodes I hope I didn't miss too much of the series already.

Task Force X retirement files now available to the public by Canadian hacker Siskoid

Do you feel sometimes that even this blog doesn't give you quite enough of that Suicide Squad fan boy or fan girl fix that you crave every week? Well then I may have just the thing for you. I present you with Siskoid's Task Force X retirement files. It's pretty much what it sound like although the the term "retirement" is kinda open ended if you know what I mean. But basically this series catalogues all the former Task Force X members who have concluded their tour of duty with The Squad. So far it's been pretty fun much in part to Siskoids sarcastic sense of humor and meticulous attention to detail. The sample entry you see here to the left can be magnified for easier reading by left clicking, or just go directly to the 3 postings so far in the series. Look tomorrow for the 4th installment of the retirement file series. You can find Siskoids Blog of Geekery here in the blog role in the right hand column.
http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2011/01/task-force-x-retirement-files-001-003.html
http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2011/02/task-force-x-retirement-files-008-011.html
http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2011/02/task-force-x-retirement-files-012-015.html



Just found out some sad news today. Dwayne McDuffie who was one of the main writers, editors and producers of the the Justice League Unlimited cartoon just died in some manner of surgical complications. My deepest condolences to his friends, family and all his fans. The Justice League Unlimited cartoon was probably the best ever TV animated series based on a comic book title. I love it that the writers didn't leave Task Force X out of the series. There was at least one episode based on a Task Force X mission and numerous others that guest starred Amanda Waller, Captain Boomerang and Deadshot. And I'd like to say that they were all portrayed quite well and faithfully to the comic. Not too mention I've used Youtube episode links and clip art from the series for several postings to help enhance this blog site. Dwayne McDuffie has made his mark on this blog as well as in the comic book industry and in the hearts of millions of people around the world I suspect. In a rather bizarre twist of fate McDuffie passed the day after his birthday (February 20, 1962 – February 21, 2011) and was born in Detroit Michigan just like me.

Maxwell Lord, I love ta hate this mother fu$%&#!

This posting isn't the Maxwell Lord Wikipedia page so I'm not going to get into a whole lot of detail about the origins of the infamous Maxwell lord. Besides, most any body who reads this blog knows pretty much all about this son of a bitch. Max went from being the slick used car salesmen like PR specialist for the JLA to one of the most profound villains of the DC Universe in about the span of 20 years (since 1987). To be honest, I'm not sure about the specifics that lead up to him usurping Checkmate and becoming it's absolute ruler as Black King. But there he was, up until he fucked with Wonder Woman one too many times. How about that Wonder Woman folks!? That gorgeous Amazonian is a real head turner ain't she! Thank goodness she put him down even though she caught a lot of unnecessary shit from the JLA for it. Just try to imagine Nick Fury becoming some sort of Charles Mansion like sociopath taking over S.H.I.E.L.D. I think what sets Max Apart from other DC villains is his unwavering smart ass style of arrogance. But he was crafty, shrewd and quite capable of manipulating people easily even with out his "Jedi mind trick" like powers.

By the way, notice the Task Force X logo among others on the monitor at Checkmate HQ? Ok, so who out there has seen the movie Firestarter (1984) with Drew Barrymore? Well I'm gonna tell you all something that is gonna blow you away. David Keith, who played Drew's father had powers too if you remember. He was able to control peoples minds as long as he could make eye contact with them. Well anytime he used his power it caused what was described as "pin point hemorrhages" that resulted in nose bleeds! Sound familiar? Ironic here how Waller calls him a "liberal weasel" back during the Alien Alliance Invasion in which Waller and Lord were forced to make nice and work together. As Black King he ran Checkmate with such brutal efficiency that even dictators in the Middle East would have been envious.
Now as you all know Max is back thanks to this whole Blackest Night/Brightest Day stuff and unfortunately my knowledge about that is vague as of yet. So for those of you who do know any details please do share with the rest of us. One of my favorite shows is 1000 Ways To Die which showcases all the various ways people have managed to get themselves killed from everything like swallowing a tape worm larvae in order to lose weight to using dynamite to go fishing. So I can think of a lot of ways I would like to see Maxwell Lord die many times over. It was too fast the way Wonder Woman killed him he deserved worse, much worse. The list of heinous acts committed by Maxwell Lord is longer then my . . . arm. And chief among them was Ted Kord's (Blue Beetle 1) murder. But at least Blue Beetle went out in style with "Rot in Hell Max!" as a response to Lord's final ultimatum. For some helpful insight on Maxwell Lords resurrection you might want to check out: http://idol-head.blogspot.com/2011/02/2009-black-lantern-maxwell-lord-design.html

I think Oracle may have been commentating on this blog

I'm sure most of you have seen and read the numerous comments left here on this blog as well as my ROM blog by the person known as Randomnerd. Around Halloween last year she sent me this cute head shot of herself. If you all remember I not too long ago made a posting about the history of Barbara Gordon a.k.a Oracle with the Suicide Squad. That's when I came across this clip art you see here even though I didn't use it in that posting at the time. As you can see here there's an uncanny resemblance between Randomnerd and this hot Barbara Gordon drawing. I want to say the art is by Adam Hueys but I'm not positive off hand. Naturally, I had some trouble getting consent from Randomnerd to use the photo in a posting for a while there. But I can be pretty persuasive when I need to be in a Sith Lord kinda way. Well who am I kidding here, I would never harm one of my favorite commentators of the fairer sex on this blog. And just on a general note here people, I freaking love good looking woman who read comics and like sci-fi!
correction 2/19: Just found out that the Barbara Gordon clip art was done by an obviously talented artist by the name of Lorena Carvalho

The real cupid has Boomerangs, not arrows ya bleedn dingos

A received just yesterday from the world's number one Captain Boomerang fan a photo of a new figure set to hit the shelves in the near future. So I wanted to see how the action figure of the resurrected Aussie looks when compared to a recent comic book rendering. As you can see it's pretty much a dead ringer mates. A special thanks from my regular European commentator who rumor has it may have something else very cool to share with us soon. And by the looks of things the love might be a two way street here. There must have been something left over in the air from Valentine's Day I think.
In light of the last Boomerang posting which was so very tragic I thought I'd share this panel of happier times between father and son.

10 reasons to buy Suicide Squad in 1989 house ad

Just making in time to catch the tail end of my beloved 80's was this half page house ad. The only half page one ever produced for the Squad I believe. As you can see here the team was made up of some of the same folks of today and some different ones. I believe Punch is dead, Ravan is also dead, Duchess went back to her former alias as Lashina, Vixen (currently with the JLA) had a different hair style back then, Shade The Changing Man was sent back to his own dimension by Darkside, I think that rapist piece of shit Dr. Light is dead now? And of course the original Boomerang is back thanks to the whole Blackest Night series. If I'm not up to date on anything here please feel free to enlighten me my good people. Boomerang looks coolest in this group shot. He's got the whole hip hop thug look going on. You can almost hear him saying "Watcha lookn at ya bleeder, ya want a razor rang up yer arse eh!?" I really think the redesign DC logo is pretty slick but there are times where I miss the classic one. A full page color house ad from DC of The Suicide Squad can be seen at: http://itsadansworld.blogspot.com/2011/02/dcs-80s-house-dr-fate-suicide-squad.html

Captain Boomerang II a.k.a. Owen Mercer: A kid with some serious daddy issues who got more then he bargained for

This is pretty embarrassing to admit for a guy who's running the world's first and only Suicide Squad blog but up until earlier today I had no idea that Owen was dead. If you were as clueless about this as I was you can refer to the comment in yesterday's posting (Manhunter#34) made by my buddy Dan from the world famous blog site It's a Dave's . . I mean Dan's World (see blog role) in which he breaks the whole Blackest Night Boomerang story arc down. I was able to find some corresponding clip art on the matter fortunately. Some sites on the matter you should find interesting are http://www.comics66.com/?p=1608 in which we basically get a synopsis of FLASH #3 Blackest Night of his actual death. It's filled with lots of clip art. Then there's also a site that includes the pages of the original Boomernag's Blackest Night Resurrection which took place while Owen was visiting his father's grave site: http://comicrelated.com/graphics/pages/dc/120209/bnflash1/bnflash1-9.jpg Then there's a post Owen death wrap up in which a fully resurrected Digger and Flash ponder on Owen's death and Digger's literal new lease on life: http://www.comics66.com/?p=1918 If your familiar with all this you must know this speaks to a bigger issue of the offspring seeking that eternal fatherly approval. Owen was never really a bad guy and he was never especially fond of his old man. But when it came down to having a second chance with his father he did some pretty gruesome stuff to seize it. It's actually pretty sad to see a guy like Owen compromise his morals that badly in which you kinda feel like he had this horrible fate coming to him. Wow look at this last panel, now that's what I call tough love! Darth Vader's got nothing on Blackest Night Boomerang when it comes to being a shitty father. I mean Luke just got his hand cut off.

Found Manhunter #34 guest starring the Suicide Squad. But I'm kinda under whelmed however.

I wandered into a comic shop in Oakland today after I got off work and look what I found. I published a posting about this issue on this blog not too long ago wanting to know more about it since all I had about it was snippets of clip art I found on the internet. Basically in a nut shell, Manhunter and the Squad incidentally cross paths in a story line that includes some rogue corporation "growing" super villains and killing women in Mexico.
Well, you know how it goes, one thing leads to another and before you know it there's a misunderstanding and a scrap breaks out. Except really it's only Manhunter and Multiplex that get into it with the rest of the Squad basically acting as spectators. Manhunter is eventually subdued by Count Vertigo but makes good her escape after dishing out some pretty cold hearted trash talk to Owen (Capt. Boomerang II) who kinda almost seems to be leading The Squad for some reason. Later after Huntress and Lady Blackhawk show up it's explained that the Squad is on some kind of deep cover assignment there on the Mexican border. Over all the story didn't really grab me but the Manhunter character was pretty cool. She's just like the women who follow this blog, tough, independent and full of sarcastic humor as you can see here. Plus, she can take a hit like a champ. Despite the cover, Plastique is virtually non-existent and Bronze Tiger's presence is hardly noticeable. The Squad is overall somewhat underused here and as far as I can tell this doesn't tie into any other Suicide Squad story line any where else so it's not what I would call a must have for SS fans. But it's still worth picking up if you happen to see it, especially if you can find it in a dollar bin or something.

Killer actress look alike for the JLA cartoon Killer Frost

I was flipping through channels today when I came across one of the several Law & Order spin off tv series. I could help but notice this actress who plays one of the detectives. Not just because she's cute (in a tom boyish kind of way) but because the image of the Justice League Unlimited cartoon Killer Frost just popped into my head the second I saw her. It's almost eerily funny how much of a natural likeness the actress (Anne Nicholson) has to the JLA cartoon version of Killer Frost which is kinda like a goth/punk rock version of the character. Just try to imagine Nicholson with paler skin, some black lip stick and presto! I seem to remember back when Frost hit the comic book scene she pretty much was always in some high school winter ball dress. In the last decade or so she's switched to more of form fitting skimpy mid drift jogging out fit that features lots of cleavage which is just fine with me of course. That being said I think Fairuza Balk ( The Craft, America History X & Things To Do In Denver When Your Dead) would have made a good Killer Frost. If you know who I'm talking about you know then that the actress has played some kind of emotionally unbalance goth chick more times then I can count on all my toes and fingers.

The Secret Six , just another brick in The Wall

I picked up after work last Monday this trade paper back of the collected works of Secret Six #15 (Deadshot Origin issue), Secret Six #16, Suicide Squad #67 (Blackest Night), Secret Six #17 and Secret Six #18. I had already Secret Six #15 and Suicide Squad #67. But at the time I didn't know shit about the Secret Six and I was even more confused what Blackest Night was about then I am know so after having read that Squad issue I was like WTF? Oh well whatever.
But now that I've got the whole package I feel like sharing the story for all you kiddies out there. So basically at this time the Secret Six is a mercenary team that has a mysterious handler who only is known as Mockingbird. The Six's latest job is to bust out some high value drug lord from Belle Reeve prison. When they get there they're ambushed by The Suicide Squad who's primary objective is to capture Deadshot. Needless to say the two teams have a rumble and to make things more interesting a bunch of Black Lantern rings reanimate all these corpses in Belle Reeve's morgue consisting of fallen Squad members and enemies alike who start going after everybody with a pulse. At this point it is important to let you know that there is a back story with Waller somewhere in the recent past having sent Deadshot to the prison planet (Operation Salvation Run) and then having brought on another assassin /sharp shooter that just wasn't cutting it on the Squad. Using Green Lantern energy by exploding a salvaged Manhunter android along with some "light grenades" Waller manages to destroy the Black Lantern zombies. The two teams who had just had a temporary alliance due to the zombies threat now where poised to square off against each other again. They manage to avoid resuming hostilities but when Waller attempts to coerce Deadshot into rejoining the Squad he "declines" in favor of staying with The Six.
Shocking as this conclusion is we later find out that Waller is not dead but now has a bullet near her heart that can't be removed thanks to Deadshot's deadly precision. However, the surprises don't stop there as we find out that Mockingbird unknown to The Six is actually Waller herself. The "prison break" job was of course just a ruse to lure Deadshot to Belle Reeve and it would seem that Deadshot (as well as the rest of The Secret Six) in effect are already working for Waller again with out knowing it. Presumably Waller never the less would have preferred Deadshot to be working for her directly as a member of Task Force X again. Even with a bullet next to heart Amanda Waller shows us why she always has the upper hand on any situation or person she has ever dealt with. She's just too damn clever and shrewd for most anyone to out fox. I bet even Dick Chaney wouldn't fuck with her! All and all a pretty tight and entertaining story put together by Gail Simone and John Ostrander.

Casting call for the Suicide Squad cinematic release finalized

Left click on the photos to see them enlarged. So this is pretty much it. C.C. H Pounder as Amanda Waller, nuff said. Ditto for Roger Cross as Bronze Tiger and Paul Bettany as Count Virtigo. All of which I have posted about before. Among the new additions to my casting call are Kate Beckinsale as Night Shade. That's a no brainer after her role as the pale faced sexy leather clad vamp in Underworld. But come to think of it she would make one hot ass Killer Frost to. Thomas Jane as having played the Punisher would be a pretty good fit as Deadshot.
Now there seems to be some contention over Howie Long as Rick Flag. I'm just picking him cause he looks the part so damn well and fuck it we can always include some acting 101 classes for Howie to the production of the film. Interesting thing here is that pretty much all the other actors I was thinking about for Deadshot (Aaron Eckhart, Ray Stevenson,Thomas Jane and yes Adam Baldwin too) could also have worked as a Rick Flag too.
Onward to Captain Boomerang, I want Vinnie Jones to play him. Jones has been in a lot of stuff but you may remember him best as the Juggernaut from X-Men. I don't know if there is anybody out there who actually looks like the comic book character per se, but Jones never the less just has a look that to me fits the Boomerang personality. Plus he's English, so doing an Australian accent won't be all that much of a stretch and he's always playing some sort of hot head in the movies. Plus, I'd pay full price for that movie just to hear Vinnie Jones say at some point, "don't you know who I am? I'm Captain Boomerang bitch!". If that line is lost on you then you need to go youtube for a quick refresher course: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8Z5iL3358Q&feature=related

On a side note here folks, The Green Lantern movie will feature the first Squad member (The Wall) on the big screen. I'm looking forward to what I hope will be a lively discussion right here on the world's first Suicide Squad Task Force X blog site!