For those of you who hate the skinny Waller reboot here ya go from artist JJ Kirby. I also love what this guy does with vertigo's cape that's very creative. Be sure to check out more of his stuff at this link he's also got a bad ass Roy Harper as Arsenal piece! http://jollyboysessions.blogspot.com/2013/07/kirbys-whos-who-art.html
As long as nature has endowed you with the right qualities doing some Amanda Waller cosplay is a piece of cake. It's funny now how whenever I see a curvy black woman in a business suite I automatically think of the character as sure as a Pavlovian dog starts to salivate when it hears a bell.
By Michael Fiffe
I found this fan art on tumbler at the tail end of December with the following information with it: "Commission: unmasked Count Vertigo with hovering logo plus Deadshot in the background. Suicide Squad die hards will recognize the scene." This is a good example of how typography can be used to enhance an art piece.
Figures a concept as cool as this wouldn't be found in the actual Suicide Squad comic these days. Hat tip to Dan for bringing this to my attention. As most of you know I'm not a gamer but I'll be keeping an eye out (pun intended) for any more developments on this. I'm really happy to see CCH Pounder doing the voice of Amanda Waller again. Most recently Pounder has been seen in the Sons of Anarchy ironically playing a very Waller like character.
I neglected to mention that in addition to that giant DC Universe Year by Year Encyclopedia I received as a gift I also was given 3 random DC issues. I read the Superman issue around the time I posted about the Encyclopedia. It was ok, nothing to rave about. It was some what entertaining but nothing I would bother to pay $4 for. The two Batman issues were boring as fuck I started but didn't even bother to finish reading either of em. And here's the punch line Batman Zero Year #24 was $6 and Batman Black & White was $5.
Ya know how it is when you're at a party full of strangers and you're having a hard time mingling with people right? And that might be cuz they're all talking about shit they have in common or because no one is talking about stuff you're interested in but it all sucks just the same having to be there. In general that's what reading these issues was like for me.
One of my earliest postings on this blog was a Swamp Thing Suicide Squad cross over posting (Dec. 8, 2010) given that both Bell Reve (Task Force X HQ) and the the origins of the Swamp Thing are in the swamp lands of Louisiana. So in a way this posting is something of a part two to that. I dunno why I didn't include Poison Ivy in that posting back then given her fairly extensive history with Task Force X. What an interesting show down that would have been. It never happened as far as I know but check out all the cool fan art of these two champions of the green. What you see to your left is just a small preview image of what's waiting for you at the link http://www.deviantart.com/?qh=§ion=&global=1&q=poison+ivy+swamp+thing&offset=0
The DC Comics Year by Year A Visual Chronicle is an over sized hardbound (352 pg) book that's pretty much what you would expect based on the title. I recently got this thing as a gift. Each year is it's own chapter that consists of several pages highlighting the notable issues and mini-series of each year. Also pretty cool is that each page along the bottom has a foot note of the big world wide and or national news story of that particular month for each year/chapter.
As you can see Suicide Squad #1 gets a shout out for the months March - December for the1987 chapter. But you can see some other milestone issues on these two pages which I actually used to have except for that Batman issue. The other Squad issue that shows up in the book is Suicide Squad #23 (1989 chapter) because it was the first time Oracle (Barbara Gordon) initiated contact with Belle
Reve effectively making that issue Oracle's first appearance in the DC
Universe. A Google search (images tab) with key words DC Comics Year by Year A Visual Chronicle will show you more of the bookand you can also find reviews on Youtube for it as well.
I noticed a bunch of new fan art for Black Orchid turn up on comicartfans.com recently. Most of it was pretty good but this commission piece by Mark Kuettner really got my attention. Get a load of that six pack she's sporting in her mid section :)
Also, at comicartfans.com was this Enchantress convention sketch art by Brian Atkins. I love this one too for obvious reasons maybe some day I'll see what it looks like with some color added to it.
And speaking of beautiful illustrations of female Suicide Squad members check out this Plastique clip art by Ed Benes. It almost gives Power Girl a run for her money. http://www.atomicthinktank.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=42446&start=180#p908719
If this fan art from Mexican artist Tuli19mxhttp://tulio19mx.deviantart.com/gallery/ looks familiar to you it's because it's been around for a while as line art but just recently the artist got around to coloring it. What I like about it is that it kinda gives me a sense of what Bronze Tiger might have looked like had he ever made an appearance on Justice League Unlimited. Instead we only ever got to see him on that shitty cartoon Batman: Brave and The Bold or whatever it was called. By the way welcome back from the dead Tiger OA1.
I just want to make this quick update here. I came across an exceptionally good artist from India on deviant art who did a fan art piece of the DC52 Squad. From a strictly illustration stand point this guy hits it out of the park. I couldn't help but mention how much I hated the whole reboot and that I'd love to see this guy's skill applied to doing some fan art of the 80s Squad. He turned out to be really cool and he also likes the John Ostrander Squad. He says he'll let me know as soon as he gets to doing another piece that has the real Suicide Squad but in the mean time check this out be sure to magnify it the details are great http://devmalya.deviantart.com/art/Suicide-Squad-415821635
I just love finding some new Suicide Squad fan art that reminds me of the good ol days. Especially when it includes Rick Flag which we don't see to much of out there. Now I know Cheetah wasn't in the Ostrander Squad at any point but that's ok it all still makes for a cool "What If" sort of setting.
Well it's about time! Never thought I'd ever come across any Suicide Squad specific fan art from the John Ostrander era. Not to mention it's good too, I rather like the . . .details. This one comes to us from a U.K. artist that goes by the deviant art handle adamantis.
Left click to enlarge
Here's something else I found on deviant art by an artist who goes by the handle SketchMcDrawpants. First off it's an excellent drawing. But I would imagine most of you don't know or remember much the Karen Grace character who died early on in the series during the whole Millennium Manhunter DC story line in the late 80s. We meet her in the first issue and right away we learn she and Rick Flag have some past history as both team mates and lovers that left her bitter and resentful with him. Just what the Squad needs right? Later in the series we learn she had a child that Rick only later finds out he fathered. We later see in the 2008 Suicide Squad mini-series Rick struggling with the question of his responsibilities for a son he didn't even know about. He however opted to leave "his son" in the care of others who could care for him better.
I've been wondering for a while if I'd ever find anything again having to to do with the original Suicide Squad. Well just by chance I happened to stumble across this rather unique fan art. I didn't know what to think of it at first but as I started going through this artist's gallery on deviant art the work definitely started to grow on me. Among my favorites are Aquaman, The Riddler, Captain Atom, Cheetah, Guy Gardner, Solomon Grundy and Martian Manhunter: http://colouronly85.deviantart.com/gallery/
I was at a Target store last night (it's like Walmart) and I saw Superman Batman Apocalypse for only $10. I was tempted to grab it but I decided not to. Although I think Justice League Doom is a bit better then most give it credit for I have no doubt this animated DC movie is way better. The battle between Wonder Woman/Barda and The Female Furies was arguably the best fight scene in any DC animated movie and the animation through out was nothing short of perfect. But like Doom there's so much of this movie on Youtube already I'm not sure I'd be getting a whole lot of bang for my 10 bucks at this point.
So this is the latest DC animated video which I recently picked up. I found it for $10 at music/video store out here that's full of discounted used DVDs and CDs among other things. I thought this was pretty good but a bit short of being great and as of yet I'm not sure where I would rank it in comparison to other stuff I've seen and bought recently like Batman: Under The Red Hood or Justice League: Flash Point Paradox. Truth be told I wish I hadn't watched so much of it on Youtube before, I probably would have enjoyed it a bit more had I not. So for those of you who don't have the DVD most of the best stuff in it can be seen on Youtube. Hands down my favor part of the movie were the battles between Cheetah and Wonder Woman. The animation was superb as were the sound effects and I absolutely loved Claudia Black (from Farscape) as the voice actor for Cheetah. And of course I'm up for watching just about anything in which Nathan Fillion is doing the voice of Green Lantern plus Cyborg as a character really shined in the story line as well. Nothing worth mentioning as far as the DVD's "special features" unfortunately.
Speaking of Wonder Woman, I love Linda Carter more then ever after having read this quote from her recently "You look at any society that suppresses women, and it’s violent."
I tell ya, when it comes to some of the assholes on face book this sums it up for me.
Finally I had me some quality down time for the first time in over 2 weeks now so I was chillin a bit with Youtube. I just want to start off by saying that there are a lot of these videos for Young Justice as well as other animated shows featuring the voice actors and I'm working on trying to watch them all when I have time. But this one makes for a nice introduction for those of you who haven't scene any of them so far. It just blows me away which actors turned out to be the voice of some of the characters on YJ.
In some cases I knew it right away such as with Bruce Greenwood (Batman) or Marina Sirtis (Queen Bee) and in other cases I would have never guessed it in a million years such as Lex Luther who's voice is done by Mark Rolston who played Drake in ALIENS and you probably also know him from The Shawshank Redemption. In regards to this video what totally caught me off guard was which actors did the voices of Bane, Kobra, Sportsmaster and King Farady. Still miss this show so much fuck you CN!
I've been getting around to watching more of these voice actor videos and I'm luvin em so far. I especially love those "I thought that's who that was" moments as i watch them. So I think I'll keep posting the youtube vids for the DC animated movies I've seen that I thought were good.
These DC animated movies are really the only thing from DC worth spending money on these days. With both Young Justice and Green Lantern off the air now these movies are as good as it gets when you want something to watch.
Almost forgot this one. That rounds out all the DC animated movies I've seen in full that I thought were good I was able to find these voice actor vids for.
Hat tip to Dale Bagwell for finding this. I haven't been able to find any new fan art for the Squad from the old DCU for months now. Nothing but bullshit from the New 52 and even the WW II Squad both of which I could give a rat's ass about. You can find more stuff from the guy who did this here: http://johntrumbull.deviantart.com/art/LIID-106-Reboots-of-Future-Past-327006067
This Youtube channel Cimicbookcast2 do these really good and comprehensive reviews in under 3 minute long videos. As you'll see this book still very much sucks and has nothing going for it for fans of the original series from the old DCU. Issue 23 concludes ales kot's 3 issue run on the series but I'm confident that the writing for this shitty book will continue to offer zero satisfaction for fans of the real Suicide Squad.
I dunno know how I managed not to those two lovely heroines to the original version of this. It's not like there's any shortage of Vixen cosplay out there and I've known about DJ Spider's Black Orchid cosplay for quite a while now go figure. By the way, do you find this cosplay photo as disturbing as I do? http://www.flickr.com/photos/nathaninsandiego/6849217176/in/photostream/
I wanted to get a posting out for the first of August but I just couldn't get enough good stuff together in time so better a bit late then never. This custom Atom (Adam Cray) was found at Figure Realm. First appearing in Suicide Squad 44 he unfortunately was killed in issue 62. But while he was in the pages of The Squad he left us with some great moments such as the clip art below from issue 57. I still love the dialogue in the last panel between The Atom and Ben Turner as Turner takes on The Yakuza's meta human martial artist Cats Eye.
Oh how I miss the old Suicide Squad, I so fucken hate the New DC52.
I'm pretty sure you all can figure out where I found this art. Nemesis was with the Squad from the very beginning on an on again and off again in the original series till almost the very end. A really cool character he and Nick Fury are a good match up seeing as their both ace agents with an insane amount of skill, experience and resourcefulness to the point where they can hold their own or even take down super powered opponents. A Rick Flag and Nick Fury team up would have been great too.
Clip art from History of the DC Universe Book II by Marv Wolfman & George Perez 1986
look what I just found on deviant art! I don't need to ramble about this your eyes pretty much tell you the whole story. But I want to mention how it does remind me of back in the original Suicide Squad #46 during their mission in Israel against Kobra (issues 45,46 and 47) when Poison Ivy had Count Vertigo for a while as her private pool side cabana boy toy.
Before you do anything else magnify the image so you can get a better look at it. Aside from that the posting title says it all. I think one of the most powerfully moving moments in the pages of the original Suicide Squad was when Waller had to inform Oracle that Flo Crawley was dead. The clip art to that scene along with just about every other with Oracle in the pages of the one and only Suicide Squad series can all be found on this one long page on Scan Daily enjoy! http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/3365277.html
The minute I laid eyes on this fan art I thought of fantasy artist Frank Frazetta. And for those of you who know Frazetta's work (which should be all of you) that is some high praise for artist Tony de Zanuga who did this Black Orchid rendering. I've blogged about Black Orchid a couple of times here before with her having been one of the non convict members of the Squad who appeared in about a dozen issues in the original series. Certainly one of the more mysterious members of The Squad Black Orchid had some kind of arrangement with Waller for which in exchange for her services from time to time she was given a certain amount of access to Belle Reve's information resources: http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2011/03/task-force-x-retirement-files-020-023.html
But as of recently I remember where else we've seen her working with the Suicide Squad. She appeared in issue #1 of the original Deadshot mini-series along with Rick Flag, Waller and Flo Crowley. In that issue she's sent to save Deadshot who is in a free fall plunging to his death after having ruptured the fuselage of a plane filled with high level drug dealers he provoked a fire fight with. You see a little bit of that clip art in the Deadshot DC super villains Youtube video I featured a few postings back. And we've also seen her fighting along side other Squad members against the alien alliance in the INVASION mini series: http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2008/05/ambush-bug-cameos-invasion.html
It happens to be the day after I originally published this posting that I stumbled upon this Enchantress fan art. As many of you know Enchantress was with the Squad from the very beginning up until the mid teens but would manifest herself here and there in various ways through out the series. I felt adding this fine piece of art would be a nice way to "augment" this posting. I'm definitely getting an Elvira kinda vibe from this. Along with quite bit of blood flow to my lower abdominal area, go figure.
One last thing, our favorite DC 52 Mystery Science Theater 3000 style reviewer covered Suicide Squad #23. I won't get a chance to thoroughly read it till later today but among other things there may be a possible Nightshade appearance: http://tessatechaitea.tumblr.com/post/55788387389/suicide-squad-22
Lately I've been really enjoying watching Owlman video clips from Crisis On Two Earths movie. As far as I can tell he's nothing like the rather offish and generally uninteresting Owlman (lame costume too) from what I remember of DC in the 80s. I like his sense of cynicism, his fatalistic attitude while always maintaining a calm demeanor.
Then you've got Roy Harper from Young Justice and you all know how much I like him. Prior to Young Justice I knew very little about the Roy Harper character. I had only read a couple of early Suicide Squad issues he guest starred along with a Teen Titans one shot anti-drug issue that was given out as freebees at my elementary school back in the day when we still had dinosaurs. My knowledge of Cheshire was even more scant for that matter.
As for the Red Hood I had heard that name here and there with the travesty known as the New DC 52 never payed it any mind. That is until I happened upon some clips of Batman: Under The Red Hood on Youtube. Instantly I felt like I stumbled across a character I really felt like I could relate to. And that's not to say that there have not been other characters from animated films and TV shows that didn't strike a cord with me or that I otherwise really enjoy but the ones I mentioned here I just identify with on a more personable level.
Hey Dale sorry I didn't really get back to you when you first posted this clip art on my face book page.
But yes you were correct there is something very very Duchess like about
her. Although I think the likeness is almost certainly coincidental,
where is this from again? Some kind of Suicide Squad from the new 52 tie-in?
In the mean time let's take a trip down memory
lane of one of those moments in awesome as Duchess a.k.a Lashina
deliver some impromptu disciplinary measures in the field to Count Vertigo and Captain Boomerang
who were attempting to carry out a little mutiny during a mission. Although we find out later she had ulterior motives.
I came across this almost at random on some auction web site to raise money for John Ostrander in regards to glaucoma which is something he suffers from. Unfortunately I have no idea what the status of his condition is now but if someone else out there does please feel free to enlighten the rest of us. So art was done by no stranger to the Suicide Squad, Karl Kesel. In this case it was some sort of cover art for what is described as the Belle Reve source bookhttp://paizo.com/products/btpy8mky?DC-Heroes-RPG-The-Belle-Reve-Sourcebook. I like it a lot it's a really well drawn piece especially with the dramatic perspective it gives the viewer. Notice how every one in it is in some state of distress except for ol Digger who's in his usual give a damn about the mission or anybody but himself kinda attitude? Even though I've never been into role playing games looking at this really miss the Squad of the old DCU.
Thanks for the heads up Dale about Ales Kot getting bumped from the Suicide Squad that was kinda interesting. Just think think folks, with every choice we make we literally create a new world in which history branches off into new realities. That means on another Earth in another universe there was no DC Reboot and in yet another the rebooted Suicide Squad looked very much like the Ostrander series. But on this Earth, I think my feelings about Kot and the Suicide Squad title can best be summed up but Owl Man's last line in this clip from Crisis On Two Earths: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-rl0tfQO9E
Oh I'm just feeling a little sentimental today. What a damn good show all around YJ between between the animation style, good writing and solid character development. Come to think of it I believe Young Justice is the first time since I was a kid did I find myself waking up to a Saturday morning cartoon. As far as Saturday mornings went hands down my absolute favorites were Spiderman & His Amazing Friends, The Incredible HULK, Super Powers (DC) and Thundar The Barbarian. And although the theme music for all of them was cool you just can't beat the one from Spiderman & His Amazing Friends.
This posting started off with this really nice custom Rick Flag figure. Then I stumbled across this equally nice Count Vertigo one too. And then I coincidentally found this staged scene photo of what I assume are factory made figures that I thought were also pretty cool. Deadshot, Deathstroke and Deadpool. Reminds me of the time I worked at a place that had one guy named Randy Graves and another named Randy Slaughter.
Just a little something I whipped up in photoshop as an after thought.
Have you had enough of all this new DC 52 crap? Of course you have, so allow me to share with you this super villain origin Youtube video of Deadshot. Kick back . . relax . . click on the link and forget about the new 52 bullshit for a few minutes with this much needed mental break. God knows we all earned it.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bijJy_Czzbs
I just saw Superman yesterday. I thought it was cast really well especially in the case of Superman, Gen. Zod, Jor-El and the Kents. And I gotta say I loved all the flash back scenes to Clark's child hood in some ways that was my favorite aspect of the movie. I'm still "digesting" everything else from the movie but over all I liked it for the most part.
Left click to enlarge
Anyways, seeing the movie yesterday got me thinking about Superman's appearances in the Suicide Squad. As far as I know it was in issues 59-62 that featured a storyline involving Batman, Aquaman, The Squad, The Hayoth, several metahuman mercenaries, a high value arab terrorist and some rogue elements in the U.S. military. Plus on top of that it was all connected to the faked death of the original Atom Ray Palmer.
I guess this might be a good time to throw this clip art into the mix too. I'm not really familiar with the Seraph character actually. But I like how his powers are derived from ancient Jewish lore. Ok I don't think I need to explain to you about Moses (pronounced Moishe in Hebrew) and his divine rod right? : ) King Solomon "The Wise" was actually the son of King David (as in David and Goliath) and you may find it interesting to know that Captain Marvel (Shazam) derives his wisdom from Solomon just as he gets his strength from Hercules. And by Samson he is referring to the story of Samson & Delilah which you all know something about yes? Well just so you know Samson was Jewish and Delilah was a Philistine.
Although I pride this blog on featuring a multitude of new stuff instead of reused clip art I once in a while like to feature something from the original that I'm sure most out there don't remember or never knew about in the first place. I've used stuff for postings before from Suicide Squad 32. This was really a great issue for so many reasons. First off it's the Ostrander series and second of all the issue was so true to life in terms of contemporary politics and cultural trends in the Middle East which I consider myself something of an expert in. You can almost tell what's going on by just looking at the faces of the characters from one panel to another. GREAT STUFF!
Left click to enlarge
I'm posting this as an after thought to the Suicide Squad clip art I started this posting with. This powerful scene comes from Checkmate #1 (Volume#1). I seem to remember a certain commentator here saying "Checkmate was nuthin". I think maybe that certain someone just didn't read enough Checkmate.
