Holy shit! Straight out of the pages of Play Boy magazine here comes Nightshade!

I wish I could say I came up with this but I didn't, nor was I able to find out who the artist was. Yet again this is something I found while doing a random image search. Just in case your wondering I added the black bar because the original left NOTHING to the imagination : ) Even I have some standards as to what I will and will not post. However, should any of you out there care to have an original I will be happy to email it to you upon request. Just a quick reminder here that Nightshade has been hot for Rick Flag for years now only to have her hints which range from the subtle to the not so subtle rebuffed by him due to his emotional detachment from all things not duty related. It seems that Rick prefers the company of Bronze Tiger more often then not. But I'll give Rick a pass for now on any Brokeback suspicions since he didn't want to pursue any sort of familial relationship with his newly discovered biological son. I guess all the hard years of being a dedicated soldier has made Col. Flag comfortably numb. But I think maybe it would be a good idea for someone to slip this soldier this clip art and get him at full attention. Who ever the mystery artist is out there who produced this fine work of art all I can say is God bless you. And that's something coming from athiest like me.

Who wants to be a bad-ass secrect agent for Checkmate?

I recently finished reading issue#2 of Checkmate Vol. II and again it just blew me away how art imitates life sometimes. For those of you who read this blog but don't really know anything about what Checkmate is it's time you did. Basically Checkmate is DC's version of S.H.I.E.L.D. in which the operation and command structure is based on the pieces of a chess board. There is a White King and White Queen (Amanda Waller) as well as a Black King and Black Queen. Each King and Queen has a Bishop and Knight. The Bishop acts as lieutenant/advisor to his or her King or Queen. The Knight acts more like a bodyguard and lead field operative on behalf of that King or Queen. Then you have the pawns, who are basically secret agents through out the world who do mostly recon., intel. gathering and sometimes sabotage or just blow shit up when needed like you see here.
The White royals deal mostly with internal Checkmate matters and Checkmate's place on the global political stage. The Black royals deal mostly with field operations. And oh boy we could sure use them to deal with iran's nuclear program about now like they dealt with this N.Korean missile base. Just as an interesting side note I'd like to mention that last month in S.F. there was a solidarity with N.Korea rally in which American "imperialism" and the "paranoid anti-communist" govt. of S.Korea where the real threats to stability of the Korean peninsula and most of Indo-China. Naturally the brutal dictatorship of Kim Jong Ill's regime with it's forced labor camps, starved population, 100% suppression of free speech/press was as usual conveniently over looked by this radical left fringe party. But that's just typical around where I live in which tyrants and terrorists are saints and saviors while everything that represents Western Civilization is inherently evil. But I digress, as the director of Task Force X and The White Queen, Amanda Waller is the lynch pin between Checkmate and The Suicide Squad. This resulted in a duality of roles for some personal such as Count Vertigo who is The White Queen's Knight and also is a regular on Squad missions. But in other cases such as with Fire, that duality didn't come so easily.
Although being the White Queen largely kept her out of the ops game officially she was still savvy enough politically to find round about ways to have Checkmate perform field operations beneficial to her agenda. And what she couldn't get Checkmate to do for her she usually had the The Suicide Squad to take care of covertly. Other times she went about getting things done is some rather unorthodox ways such as the method she utilized to getting Rick Flag out of jail in Asia. She "leaked" the intel. anonymously on his captivity under the radar to Bronze Tiger who she knew would take it upon himself to rescue Flag out of a sense of personal loyalty.

The Hayoth, adding some chutzpah to The Suicide Squad

Marvel has it's Israeli super heroes ( Sabra & Seraph) and so does DC in case you all didn't know. The Hayoth is a division of Mossad (Israeli intelligence agency) that consists of a group of four unique individuals. Ramban is a mystic with powers not unlike that of Dr. Fate or Dr.Strange. Golem possesses elemental like abilities that makes him the clay version of the T-1000 from Terminator II. Judith is a martial arts expert who uses a variety of ninja like weapons. Although she doesn't appear to have any super human powers she has been known to hold her own while fighting Batman and Bronze Tiger (but not at the same time) which says a lot for her skills as a hand to hand combatant. Dybbuk is the last member who is actually and artificial intelligence developed by Israeli science (who also gave us the pill camera, most early cell phone tech. and aol IM software among other non-sceince fiction innovations). He is represented as a little green hologram of a bald man with no clothes. Try to imagine the Silver Surfer as green and about the size of a doll and there you go. We first see the Hayoth in issue #45 when Egypt's government hires the Suicide Squad to go after Kobra who is up to no good in Jerusalem. They later reappear in the "Mystery of The Atom" story line in which the Hayoth get embroiled in a big international conspiracy cluster fuck of a situation that has the Justice League, Suicide Squad and the Jihad all in one big battle royale. We last see them in an interesting sub story line toward the end of the series in which Dybbuk "marries" Mindboggler who has long since existed only as a computer program. Mazel Tov to both of them! Apparently The Hayoth never appeared in Checkmate which I think is unfortunate because they would have been perfect for that title. While doing some research for this posting I discovered some interesting stuff from John Ostrander about the inspiration for the Hayoth:

Ostrander and Yale created Ramban five years ago for DC's Suicide Squad series. Ramban, along with a warrior named Judith, an artificial intelligence named Dybbuk and a hero named the Golem formed the Hayoth, an Israeli superteam the squad battled in Israel. Ostrander said Yale asked people about the Kaballah, which is part of Ramban's Conservative Jewish background. The writers "pieced together types of [magic] spells" based on that research. Neither Ostrander nor Yale is Jewish. But Ostrander grew up in Chicago's East Rogers Park section, which has a large Jewish population. So, he said, he "always had" an appreciation for Judaism. Ostrander said Ramban is a "nice counterpart" to Father Craemer, another character in the series. He said the two men are "in many ways very much alike. They're strong representatives of their faith. "He's one of the more pleasant characters," Ostrander said of Ramban. "He's got a great deal of honesty."

However, where as the Hayoth have dealt with threats toward their country against the likes of Kobra and the Jihad, they may not be up to dealing with the worst threat of all to the Promise Land: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN75px-0KIo

JLA 18 - Vixen vs. The Suicide Squad & androids who like getting it on, then fall asleep and dream of electric sheep

I had a posting up not to long ago about stuff I had missed over the last few years. Well I found recently in a back issue box JLA 18. This was an issue I had actually looked at when it was on the stands but opted not to get it at the time. Now that I actually have bought it and read it I can kinda see why at the time I didn't get it. In general my interest in comics was at a bit of a low around that time and if you look at the cover it pretty much eludes to some big time battle royalel between the Squad and the JLA. When in reality almost all the fighting is between just Vixen and the Squad. Which in and of it's self is pretty cool, but at the time I was hoping for something more along the lines of a "rumble" like at the end of The Outsiders (the movie) between the socias and greasers.

Interestingly enough this happened at a time when Vixen's powers were a bit out of whack in which she was using the powers of those around her (both friend and foe) instead of abilities derived from the animal kingdom. Vixen is pretty bad ass on any given day but unless your Superman or Wonder Woman you gotta have some kind of edge if your going to take on the Suicide Squad solo.

The other thing at the time was that this was a double feature issue which meant the JLA/Suicide Squad cross over was shorter then the standard 22 page comic book format. And the second story involved the red Tornado who I was never a big fan off. Mostly because of that garish look of his. He gives the original Capt. Boomerang a run for his money. In that way the Red Tornado is kinda like the Wonder Man of the DC Universe in which the creative teams were never able to put together a decent look for him over the years. But I'm glad I read that Red Tornado story anyways because it was good and gave some excellent insight into the character. Being an android, RT reminds me a lot of The Vision from Marvel. Especially the part where talks about living is among other things "making love to my wife and then smelling her scent on me after wards". So yes I'd say here's one android who can appreciate some of the upsides of being human. I think RT could stand to give Data from Star Trek a good talking too about the birds and the bees. Also, the RT story opens up with a line about droids dreaming about electric sheep. All you Blade Runner fans should have picked up on that. I want to make sure I don't conclude this posting with out mentioning that the art through out the entire issue was kick ass. If only DC would give this guy a visual make over we'd be all set.

Sociopaths, secret agents and stealthly burglers, welcome to the Suicide Squad

One of the cool things that helped make things interesting in the Suicide Squad is that it was not just made up of criminals trying to buy off prison time. The team was a "trail mix" of all sorts of people with special powers and talents. Tom Tresser a.k.a. Nemesis was something of a secret agent type that was a master of disguise, espionage and in general quick on his feet in dodgy situations. He would have been perfect for the Squad if not for that inconvenient and unwavering sense of morality of his. Which should come as no surprise put him at odds with Waller from time to time. He always felt like he owed people something rather it was Uncle Sam, Rick Flag or Even Eden ( Nightshade, who he had a thing for) that had him coming and going through out much of the Suicide Squad's 65 issues.

Adam Cray was a cat burglar who Waller recruited to steal the original Atom's (Ray Palmer, who was presumed dead at the time) size changing belt from his ex-wife. He used it as the "New" Atom and worked for Waller for a while. He was something of a novice super type, but an effective team member that also happened to have a good sense of humor and was an all around likable guy. Unfortunately some of Palmer's enemies who thought the New Atom was Palmer in disguise eventually caught up to him and nailed him, literally.

If there is any member of the Suicide Squad that could make characters like Capt. Boomerang and Werner Vertigo look like socially well adjusted people it would no doubt be Cliff Carmichael a.k.a The Thinker. Thanks to some sophisticated micro circuitry installed in his brain this certifiable sadistic psychopath had the ability to make people do his biding by telling them verbally ( just like Maxwell Lord before Wonder Woman broke his neck). This power however only worked on someone who could understand what he was saying. In one instance Carmichael attempted to get someone under his control who was within ear shot but unknown to Carmichael his would be victim didn't speak English for which there was no effect. In the Suicide Squad story arc we learn that Carmichael was involved in some sort of cyberspace cat n mouse game with Oracle who we now know to be the paraplegic Barbara Gordan living at the time under the false identity Amy Beddoes. Carmichael eventually tracks down Gordon (in the real world) and nearly kills her had it not been for the timely intervention of Amanda Waller. Waller finds a way to black mail Carmichael into working for the Squad but eventually finds Carmichael to be too dangerous and unstable. Carmichael sells out the Squad to Amanda's enemies on two occasions but manages to escape Waller's wrath the first time.
The second incident involved Gen. Eiling's coup during a Squad mission that Carmichael was instrumental in helping orchestrate. Carmichael's treachery was put to an abrupt end by King Faraday who shot Carmichael several times in the head and chest. This was after Faraday himself had been shot by Carmichael and presumed dead but unknown to Carmichael Faraday had worn a bullet proof vest. "Cliffy" provided some great moments in the pages of the Suicide Squad but it was time for somebody to put him down. Little did I know Carmichael was a character in Firestorm before appearing in the pages of the Suicide Squad
http://firestormfan.com/2010/12/07/mayfairstivus7/

Suicide Squad & Checkmate "mini - mes"

Through out all the numerous searches I've done for the Suicide Squad and Checkmate I've come across these little icons scattered all over the web for weeks now. I like how they have these over sized heads they kinda remind me of little bobble head dolls. So I decided to see how many I could find that were characters who have been with the Squad. To my surprise I found characters like Major Victory and Nightshade but had no luck finding Count Vertigo or Poison Ivy first. Later I did ending up finding Poison Ivy but still no Count Vertigo. Plus how can this set of characters be complete with out Duchess in the line up too? So I went ahead and made a Duchess figure and Count vertigo figure using certain paint tools photoshop and the "body parts" of other mini characters in the DC Universe. Go ahead and be sure to take a closer look at em. I found a mini of ROM too which I posted on my other blog for anyone out there that's interested.

Suicide Squad fan made costumes!

So one day I inadvertently stumbled across a photo of this guy in a Captain Boomerang costume and that made me wonder how many other Suicide Squad characters I could find costumes on the internet. I was only able to locate this Deadshot costume as far as members who were there from the beginning to the "end". But as you can see here I was also able to find costume photos of the others like Vixen and Poison Ivy who have done a "tour of duty" with the Squad.
Now I know what you all are thinking about one of the photos. Yes that is indeed the beautiful Pam Grier. As you all know she already plays Amanda Waller on Smallville. And she does a good job if you can envision the character being more attractive and having some sex appeal. Ok, lots of sex appeal because this is Pam Grier ( Foxy Brown) we're talking about after all. But when I saw this photo of her I thought this is really cool because it reminds me of Waller during those times in the Suicide Squad where she actually found her self in the field. That's another thing that makes her so cool is that she can handle herself on the political stage as well as being able to fire a gun or throw a punch when she has to. Probably her best moment was when the team found themselves on Apocalypse and Waller went toe to toe with Granny Goodness.
http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/1015312.html Not to mention her attempt to blow Lashina a.k.a Duchess into smithereens with what was described as a "mega-gun". This photo collage is a pretty large file so you should be able to magnify it for a better look. Wouldn't that have been smokin hot if I could have found a really nice looking athletically built woman in a well made Lashina costume during my photo search. Yes Aliera, this blog is authored by a male neanderthal just like most of the viewers.