Saturday, August 20, 2016

Amanda Waller vs Barack Obama



So just this past Wednesday DC Comics relaunched for what I believe is the 3rd reboot of the Suicide Squad title since the inception of the New DCU. There was the original series that was part of the New 52 line up that eventually gave way to another title called "The New Suicide Squad". I dropped the original title after issue 11 and didn't keep up much with what went on with the series after that but I think that first series ended some where in the 20s and then became the "New" Suicide Squad and who knows what after that.
Although not getting a lot of great word of mouth the Suicide Squad movie is something of a commercial success so I guess DC Comics is looking to capitalize on that with a relaunch of the title that mirrors the movie in many respects.

Left click to enlarge
Coincidentally we now have a Suicide Squad that looks a little more like the Ostrander series from the old DCU. Waller is a plus size woman again along with Rick Flag and Enchantress being added to the line up of Squad members. Also, Deadshot a.ka. Floyd Lawton is back to having his signature mustache/goatee but that might have been the case again after I dropped the first series for all I know. All that aside this ideological debate between Waller and Obama was pretty well written I have to say I really enjoyed it. Not saying I'm gonna go out and buy this book but for now it's at least worth keeping an eye on. If you want to read a real review of the Suicide Squad Rebirth there's close to a half o dozen videos on youtube already among other places on the internet.


Now, why am I posting this photo of Voila Davis? Is it because she played Amanda Waller in the movie? No, I did for no other reason other then that she looks fucken gorgeous here.


August 23rd update
A little something interesting here I wanted to share with any Ragman fans out there. I'm sure most of you recognize this Batwoman cover art and have probably figured out the writing at the bottom left is Hebrew. But I doubt most any of you knew what it meant. Pronounced "emet", that's Hebrew for the word truth. Which is interesting because in according to Jewish golem folklore part of the spell that animates the clay creature known as the golem is to inscribe the word truth on it's head. As some of you know the Ragman suite was created from a variant of the golem spell so I imagine that has something to do with the Hebrew inscription of that Ragman dominated Batwoman 35 cover art. Almost bought that issue at one point but it wasn't quite what I was hoping for on the inside.

Sunday, August 7, 2016

My obligatory Suicide Squad movie review

Ya know the day before I saw the movie I had caught this cool scene on youtube of Waller having the Enchantress magically teleporting some military secrets out of iran during a meeting with some top brass to help make the case for the Task Force X program and I was like fucken eh. Finally I'm at the theater and the movie starts and it opens up with this introduction of the main characters that reminded me of DC's Assault on Arkham and I started thinking that this might not be bad after all. I even liked a lot of the music in the movie especially the use of these classic songs that really were spot on for the moment. Probably the best example was the Rolling Stone's Sympathy for The Devil with the introduction scene for Waller. Unfortunately that along with some funny one liners is about all the movie really has going for it.
I think my biggest problem with the movie was the plot. The disaster Task Force X gets called up for is over some shit (shit that I never really fully quite understood) The Enchantress stirs up so basically she's not even a member of The Squad she's actually in effect the primary villain of the movie. That didn't really work for me, and aside from that the movie felt a bit disjointed as far as how the story flowed. Also, there were a few cool scenes from the trailers that were absent in the film I didn't like that much either.
Some of the characters hardly made any impression at all on me. Ok we had Slipknot. who's purpose in the movie literally was to be a mission fatality I mean they gave that character nothing to do but die. They don't even introduce him in the movie he just shows up and dies 15 minute later after 2 or 3 lines. Katana seemed to also show up out of no where and in spite of her swinging around this soul stealing sword she still some how manages to be absent from the story line. Boomerang didn't have much to do either other then some extra comedy relief. Killer Croc was more present in the film but they didn't do much to develop his character into something a little less predictable and two dimensional. They probably did a little bit better with the Rick Flagg character then the before mentioned cast members. Then there's El Diablo, who they did alright with his character up until the end when he transforms into some kind of demonic "Aztecy" fire kinda thing for what was supposed to be this epic battle scene you probably won't care much about at that point in the movie even though Diablo sacrifices his life for the mission. That was one of those huh? moments. Are all my spoilers bothering you? It's ok trust me you really won't care much once you start watching the movie.
As expected the stand out characters were Amanda Waller, Deadshot and Harley Quinn what you saw in the movie trailers as far as how those characters are portrayed is pretty much what you get in the movie. Jared Leto as The Joker wasn't bad but certainly fell short of Heath Ledger's legendary performance. Another issue that bugged me was how through out the movie many of the character's seemed to be out of character. Toward the end of the movie Rick Flagg tries to give Deadshot a hug and I'm like no way that would ever happen. In any universe cinematic or published you couldn't even get a hand shake out of those two they can't stand each other. I think you'd best save your money for now and wait for this movie to show up at a nearby Redbox.