Batman Year One and Gotham Knight DVDs

So by now most of you about my recent trip to Oregon. What I hadn't mentioned up until now is that aside from all the other stuff I did up there was that I also met up with one of my old high school buddies who had moved to Portland in 2002. We did a DC Universe movies DVD swap (long term loans). I just got done watching the Batman: Year One DVD and I have to say it was pretty good. It was just an all around good cop story and Batman story with all the bells and whistles that make so many DC animated movies top notch. I'll update this posting as soon as I watch Batman: Gotham Knight this weekend. In the mean time I've been hearing about this Suicide Squad movie that's in production if you wanna know my thoughts on it check this comment thread http://taskforce-x.blogspot.com/2014/11/suicide-squad-movie-news.html

Dec. 6th Update: So I just got around to watching the Gotham Knight DVD and it's actually 6 short movies instead of one long one. Of the 6 their were a couple of mediocre ones but the other 4 were pretty good even though the one that starred Deadshot features DS in one of the lamest costumes I'd ever seen.

Meet the "New" Suicide Squad of the DC reboot, same as the old Suicide Squad of the DC reboot

The following videos are from what I think are the best comic book reviewers on Youtube. I like how they do everything from how they display the clip to the snarky sarcasm and how they always keep their reviews on point and with the right running time. As far as I'm concerned despite factors like Black Manta, Deathstroke and Deadshot actually looking like Floyd Lawton and not like Rick Flag for a change this 2nd volume of DC's rebooted Squad basically looks like more of the same to me.
I can only speculate why DC felt like they needed to rebrand this title but it ain't gonna get me to spend my money any more then the last one did after I dropped the book. And why is Captain Boomerang absent from the line up again? It was a case of too little too late when they finally had him come back to the team in the last series but at least it was one of those rare occasions in which the writers did something that did justice to the Squad.

Secret Origins 28 (1988) Nightshade and Task Force X

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This weekend I found this issue in a $1 box and even though it wasn't something I was hunting for it turned out to be a good grab. The issue opens up at Belle Reve with Nightshade talking to father Craemer and basically giving him her life's story starting with her childhood leading all the way up through the events of Suicide Squad 1 - 13. As some of you may know Nightshade is the daughter of a fugitive princess from "The Land of Nightshades" who ended up marrying some up and coming politician who is Nightshade's father. And as we see here Nightshade joined the Squad as an eventual means to an end for some personal matters.

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As far as I know Nightshade never hooked up with either Flag or Nemesis. Like she said here Flag took the Squad way too seriously and Nemisis, . . . well even though she did feel something for him too he was just that "nice guy" and we all know how that goes.

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On the other hand I'm pretty sure she did hook up with Captain Atom given their long history together even though some where along the lines he was also tapping Plastique's ass. But can you blame him I bet that French Canadian action must have been . . .explosive. Captain Atom may be "Nobody's favorite super hero" but at least he gets plenty of tail.

As you can see from the footnote here this story concludes with a lead in to Suicide Squad issues 14-16 which was the Nightshade Odyssey story line in which Nightshade would finally get to use The Squad on the before mentioned personal mission. Interesting enough upon reviewing those issues I now see that there is a footnote for Secret Origins 28 in Suicide Squad 15.

The fly in the ointment of Assault on Arkham Part 2

Suicide Squad 64

After having read and processed the comments in my last posting I'm going to stick to my guns on this one. In Suicide Squad #1 of the 2007-08 9 issue mini-series we see Amanda Waller blow of the head of a prisoner at Belle Reve who tried to lead a prison break and had taken some guards as hostages. In Checkmate #3 (Vol. 2) Waller shot dead when she could have taken prisoner a would be Kobra assassin sent after her. And of course we all saw what happened with KGBeast in Assault on Arkham as well as the fact that Waller put out a hit on The Riddler.
The bottom line here is that Waller can be ruthless with her enemies and even with convict members of The Squad when she needs to keep them in line. But authorizing lethal force to any degree against American civilians and or against law enforcement agents was just stretching things too much. I mean sending The Squad on a mission where it's anticipated that they're gonna have too knock around some cops who probably have families is one thing but to say it's ok to kill some of em if they need to? Uh-huh no way I'm not buying it that's not the Amanda Waller I know that was a definite over site in what was other wise a well done and very entertaining movie.

Nightshade digital painting by Julianna Pardue

Ok now that I got all that Amanda Waller stuff off my chest let me move on here a bit. I haven't bothered looking for any Suicide squad related fan art for months now so I decided to see what's out there for the Hell of it last night. Hot damn did I ever find some awesome stuff out there so I just had to add it to this posting . .

Deadshot fan art by Phil-Cho

 .I love this subtle costume re-design not to mention the animation cell style look to this fan art. What DC's ultimate marks man might have looked on Young Justice? . . . .

Sashs Bordeaux cosplay by White Lemon

Dios Mios! Spanish cosplay vixen White Lemon hits it our of the park again with a little something for Checkmate fans. Suddenly I'm really thirsty for some lemonade.

The fly in the ointment of Assault on Arkham

After having watched my Assault on Arkham DVD a couple more times since buying it on Thursday there's one glaring thing about the story that bothers me. During the mission briefing Waller tells The Squad to keep the "body count to a minimum". I'm sorry but even Waller at her worst would never authorize The Squad to use lethal force to any degree on the staff of Arkham Asylum.
Would Waller kill a disobedient member of The Squad to make an example of them in order to keep the rest of them in line? . . sure. Would she send The Squad to assassinate some manner of criminal? . . .sure. All that falls in line with a "greater good" kinda rationale she often operates on. But condoning the deaths of civilians is something I think is out of character for The Wall. All those people who work at Arkham are basically federal employees working at a facility serving a branch of law enforcement.
Now keep in mind I'm not trying to be "that guy" or otherwise trying to discourage you from seeing this. That over sight aside this was still a really well produced and entertaining movie that is clearly not aimed at a pre-teen crowd thank God. And unlike in Arrow or Smallville for that matter The Suicide Squad as a team and as individual characters really get a chance to shine. Now if we can get an animated DC feature sending Task Force X after some terrorists like ISIS then I could die a happy man.

Assault on Arkham is AWESOME!

This movie is one of the best DC animated features yet. The animation is perfect and so are the voice actors. The story is awesome, aside from some really snappy well written dialogue it's even got sex, cursing and plenty of gore. In short, it's everything that makes much of DC's animated stuff so great and exemplifies why marvel's animated stuff never does anything for me. As far as the high light moments there's really too many to get into here with out this posting being way too long. As far as any criticisms go there's a few things I could nit pick about but nothing major.
Ironically, this movie at it's core is fundamentally based on the New 52 Squad but in the case of this movie it works in ways that the writing on the now defunct comic book series never did. Anyways, seeing as I'm only writing this posting only after one viewing i'm sure i'll have more thoughts on this after I get to watch it again. Hopefully we'll be all talking about this movie and comparing notes in the comments section in the coming days.

P.S. thanks for leaving that comment in the previous posting Manfred but as it turned out I found the DVD at Target earlier this morning and it was only $13.

PODCASTS!
Other new happenings for all things Suicide Squad it looks like we've got another Squad centric blog spot (see bottom of blog role at left hand column) as well as far as I know the first Suicide Squad podcasts. The first episode consists largely of an over view introduction of the history of The Suicide Squad http://head.x10.mx/TaskForceX/Episode1.mp3 and episode #2 gives us a recap of the first 3 issues of the Legends 6 issue mini series  . . .
http://head.x10.mx/TaskForceX/Episode2.mp3

BATMAN: Assault on Arkham is here . . sort of

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First up, I found a little flash back cameo in a discount back issue bin last week from Millennium - Week 5 (1987). Suicide Squad # 8 was a cross over into the whole Millennium series in which The Squad was sent with an experimental explosive device to go destroy a Manhunter strong hold in the Louisiana Bayous. Along the way they're joined by Captain Atom who shortly there after takes on a brain washed Firestorm after he attacks The Squad even though the actual fight takes place in the pages of The Atom.

Apparently this video is still a couple weeks or so away from being released at retail stores but as I understand it you can see it digitally on iTunes. I'll update this posting accordingly as soon as I get a chance to watch it (sooner then later I'm hoping) so that the 3 or 4 of you who still read this blog I update about once a month can know what I thought of it.

Deathstroke vs Deadshot & Bronze Tiger

I went to a comic shop today for the first time I had never been to that I heard had a really big discount back issue collection. I found this for only 50 cents. Without knowing what issue it came from some years ago I featured some of the clip art from this action packed issue
http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/search?q=deathstroke
With any luck I'll get a chance to read it by the of the weekend and get back to you all with what i thought of it. Same goes for the copy of Checkmate #1 (Vol. 1) which I also found for just 50 cents. I've talked a little bit about that issue in the past as well but I've never read it
http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2013/06/suicide-squad-32-1989-and-contemporary.html
I also found Suicide Squad Annual #1 which I used to have many many years ago but I ended up ditching it cuz quite frankly it kinda sucked. I'm hoping if I give it another read this time around I'll get something more out of it. Can't say the same for War of The Gods #3 which I found on the cheap at the Big WOW con last month. I used to have that one too and despite it's direct Suicide Squad tie-in it was as boring of a read now as it was back then. I actually talked about that here not that long ago
http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2014/02/conjugal-visits.html

Got a quick update here. I also picked up some more issues on the cheap from the JSA vs Kobra mini-series. Truth be told I've never been much of a JSA fan but in spite of that this series is pretty damn good and the art work is superb. It just acts as another reminder of how the DC relaunch sucks with crap like their Kobra knock off concept, Basilisk. Just writing that word acts like an irritant.

BIG WOW Comic Festival San Jose CA. Greg Rucka

On the DC end of this weekend's con in San Jose I'm hoping to get a chance to have a few words with Greg Rucka. In a way Rucka is almost as synonymous with The Suicide Squad as John Ostrander thanks to his work on Checkmate (volume 2) and on the OMAC Project story line. But in general I've always loved how his writing interweaves history and contemporary geo-politics into his stories which always gave his writing a very "real" feel for me. Needless to say I'll be sure to mention if I get a chance to talk to him is that the New52 Squad title would be way better if he were writing it. As it turns out Rucka was born in San Francisco and grew in the Monterey area which is about a two hour drive south. Ironically San Jose is pretty much at the half way point between the two regions.

By the way at the end of this review for #29 the reviewer mentions that the series is getting cancelled. I found out that #30 is the final issue and a long over due mercy killing for this series but I also found out that it will be relaunched YET AGAIN (volume 2) as "The New Suicide Squad". Ever heard that term "meet the new boss, same as the old boss"?

Wild Things

Let me go off the beating Suicide Squad track for a bit with a 1988 Action Comics Weekly (#615) I recently grabbed from a 3 for $1 box. It had a Wild Dog on the cover and I hadn't read anything with him since his debut late 80s mini-series. The Action Comics Weekly issue was a short story and it was just the first part of an ongoing story line to be continued in the next issue but I dug it. It's a shame this character never really caught on better I do think the full page promo for him back in the day did generate a fair amount of initial interest in the character. I know speaking for myself I didn't like the art work in that debut mini-series it wasn't bad per se but it just didn't suite the feel and theme of the character and story line. It's kinda like try to imagine steve ditko drawing the Punisher instead of Mike Zeck and I think you'll see what I mean.

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There was another short story in the issue for the Teen Titans that focused on Cheshire. Talk about somebody who's able to compartmentalize their emotions she goes from being a sadistic assassin to the eternal loving mother later in the story when she goes home to her daughter Lian. I barely knew of the character before Young Justice but since that series I've picked up quite a bit of back issues from discount boxes with titles that have her in it. I'll end this posting with my customary fuck you to Cartoon Network and DC Comics for letting Young Justice get cancelled after just two awesome kick ass seasons.

"DC finally doing justice with The Suicide Squad"

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The last comment left on the previous posting seemed like a good title for today's posting although really I won't know for sure until I see this movie in full. But A big thanks to everyone who gave me a heads up on this. I've really enjoyed many of DC's animated movies even though I don't like what DC has in print these days let's hope this is the latest good one. We've had snippets of Suicide Squad related stuff in previous DC movies but this is the first full on appearance as far as I know and although I'm not a big Arrow fan all this new Squad stuff we've been seeing is a clear indication that Task Force X is making some bigger inroads in not just DC but to the general public as well.
Needless to say there's a number of other Squad favorites that I would like to see here but if the writing is good this could still work out well. As soon as I can find a copy I'll no doubt post a review. Rather at a Big Box store or like a used record/DVD/CD store I've always been able to get these movies for between $10 - $15 but I'm willing to pay a little more for this one just to find out if it's any good. Again thanks for the heads up on this let me return the favor by sharing something Suicide Squad related that's kinda cool too http://braveandboldlost.blogspot.com/2014/03/bronze-tiger-vixen-and-black-panther.html



New fan art of the Amanda Waller that we used to know

Just found this awesome piece by chance from an artist who also hates the skinny Waller and has stated that she refuses to ever draw her that way  . . .
http://the-unbrilliant.deviantart.com/gallery/
Also, you can see more fan art that's popped up this year for The Wall by doing an Amanda Waller key word search on deviant art. It's kinda funny you can always get an idea about how old someone is by finding out what turned em on to this character I've been coming across more and more people who discovered Waller from the Justice League Unlimited cartoon or from some kind of DC online gaming media. Suffice it to say those fans are usually much younger then the old school Waller fans who discovered her back during the Legends mini-series and the Ostrander Squad era.

Finally, John Ostrander speaks up about the rebooted Waller

This is Amanda Waller, accept no substitute!

"I don’t control what happens with Waller or where she goes or how she looks; she is owned by DC Entertainment and Warners. I knew that going in. She is their property. That said, I think the changes made in her appearance are misguided. There were and are reasons why she looked the way she did. I wanted her to seem formidable and visually unlike anyone else out there. Making her young and svelte and sexy loses that. She becomes more like everyone else. She lost part of what made her unique."

John Ostrander (March 16, 2014)

Special thanks to K.oT. for bringing this to my attention. For the the entire article
http://www.comicmix.com/columns/2014/03/16/john-ostrander-waller/#comment-180650

Conjugal visits

I have to admit that was a pretty good line. Alright let's give it a second look what the Hell day and time does this show come on?

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As something of a follow up to K.o.T's War of the Genders posting which includes the clip art above here's a nice panel from Suicide Squad 58 in which after a brief skirmish Amanda Waller agrees to help Black Adam assault Circe's island strong hold which has an army of amazonian like woman warriors and some kind of werewolf beasts.

The attack commences later in the issue and concludes as the island under goes some sort of earthquake which cuts short the battle. War of the Gods 3 doesn't have a whole lot of Suicide Squad action in it despite them being pretty prominently represented on the cover art but it does include more Squad casualties. Here's the total body count from a posting a while back compliments of Siskoids Blog of Geekery
http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2011/04/suicide-squad-retirement-files-036-039.html

Straight outta New Zealand some new Squad fan art

Thanks Dan I know you worked a long time to finally get this done I'm really glad to be finally show casing it here. I think you got all the character's personalities down pretty good here I especially like how Waller looks so ominous. Also nice going on having Diablo on the Ostrander era Squad he was one of the few things I liked about the New 52 Squad. And also thanks for quite literally leaving Harley Quinn out of the picture I've long since O.D.d on Harley with the Suicide Squad.

FINALY! some new group shot art of the REAL Suicide Squad

What a breath of fresh air this is! Some brand new Suicide Squad fan art that has nothing to do with the WW II version, or Harley Quinn or any other aspect of the New DCU. I just found this only a few hours ago on comicartfans.com apparently it's a commission piece done by Steve Erwin. This guy is good I've featured his stuff here at least once before.
On a separate matter here I found this over at the Firestorm blog yesterday. I think it's much to do about nothing but still worth having a look at if your a Suicide Squad fan http://firestormfan.com/2014/01/16/suicide-squad-film/

Don't &%$@ with The Wall

A new year with probably the same ol shit

I was at my local comic shop a few days before new year when I noticed a #1 issue for Harley Quinn. That's odd, I thought she already had her own book perhaps you've heard of  it's called "The Suicide Squad". Like I said, that's what it's being called at any rate.
Now over to The Suicide Squad that I know, this clip art of the antagonistic exchange between Rick Flag and Captain Boomerang comes from the only annual surprisingly the original series ever had. The cynical nature of it accurately reflects my feelings about what we probably have to look forward to in 2014 when it comes to all things DC. 
I was watching a Youtube clip of "Bronze Tiger" and "Roy Harper" and I've at least seen some images of  "Amanda Waller" on Arrow. Some body get me an air sickness bag please! Well DC I've got "you're ace up the hole" right here and the same goes to cartoon network. But what I don't have is any money, time or patience when it comes to your TV shows or your new books. Oh, I almost forgot to throw in the obligatory Happy New Year slogan into this posting.

This is The Suicide Squad, accept no substitute