DC Direct Currents issue 14 and how it brought me back to The Suicide Squad and introduced me to Checkmate

https://www.comicbookdaily.com/collecting-community/bound-together/time-capsule-dc-direct-currents-14-february-1989/

I guess you could say DC Direct Currents was DC's version of Marvel Age Magazine except it was more in a brochure format and it was free. Anyways, I had started picking up what was at the time the new Suicide Squad series starting with issue 1. Even though I enjoyed the series I dropped it around issue 8 or 9 for reasons. I can't recall today why but I was at the tail end of my teens at the time after all.

Almost a year later I happened to see this issue of DC Direct Currents and ofcourse I took notice of the Suicide Squad clip art on the front page. I was really intrigued with those 3 panels, enough to want to check out this Janus Directive story line and that's what got me back into The Suicide Squad. It's also what got me interested in Checkmate. Eventually I managed to also pick up all the back issues I needed to complete the entire run along with most of the tie-ins which included several issues of Checkmate. That collection is one of my most prized posessions to this day.

https://www.zipcomic.com/kobra-issue-6

Needless to say putting together this posting together got me feeling pretty sentimental so that got me in the mood for some new fan art of the arch villian of The Janus Directive. One of DC's most underated villians I'vs always felt that KOBRA was basically a composite of Cobra Commander and Destro. Like Cobra Commander, he was a master manipulator and schemer who was prone to temper tantrums. But at the same time like Destro he was a savvy tactition who had no problem with throwing fists when he needed to. 

Sometimes, I also like to do art that doesn't just speak to despots and religious lunatics bent on global domination in the fictional world of the DC universe. By the way, have you ever read the one Suicide Squad issue that took place in Iran? If not it’s a good time to check it out or even re-read for that matter 

https://www.zipcomic.com/suicide-squad-1987-issue-32

Suicide Squad 10 cover tribute for Back Issue Magazine

 Looks like BACK ISSUE MAGAZINE will have a little something for fans of the real Suicide Squad but unfortunately it won't be published until August . . .of next friggin year! However, a digital sneak peak preview of the inside should be available a couple months or so before that, stay tuned. See you next year . . . . hopefully. 

https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_54&products_id=1886

December 15th Update: Looks like Christmas came early this year for those of us who love well done Ostrander era squad fan art by AKA Chime. Or in my case some nice fan art to kick off Hanukkah with. I really dig this concept of Amanda Waller in the Oval Office with members of Task Force X (Rick Flag, Bronze Tiger, Nemesis, Nightshade, Enchantress, Deadshot, Boomerang and Duchess a.k.a Lashina) at her side.

December 27th Update: This is from 2017, it's worth a look for fans of the real Suicide Squad . . .

https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Batman-and-Harley-Quinn/Issue-6?id=125817 

 https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Batman-and-Harley-Quinn/Issue-7?id=126225

February 18 Update: I did this sketch card yesterday as a thank you for a good friend of mine who did me a serious solid last year. Like me he's a Gen X comic book sci fi pop culture and classic rock fan. When it comes to DC vs Marvel he's always leaned more DC and it so happens that Nightwing is his favorite DC character. I enjoyed doing this although I was torn between doing a Nightwing version from the awesome Young Justice animation series or go with the classic George Perez Teen Titans era.

Geof Isherwood commission art for the nostalgic Suicide Squad fan

Before I get to the art work I wanted to talk a bit about something I stumble across yesterday. I was watching this Youtube channel doing recaps of DC animated films. One such film featured an alternate universe reality where Superman becomes this authoritarian figure that uses his power to imposes world peace. Ofcourse no world peace can be claimed to have been achieved in any multiverse reality without ending the conflict between ISRAEL and the palestinians. So here in this frame I posted we have authoritarian Superman "overseeing" a treaty being signed by these two nondescript Israeli and palestinian politicians. An interesting concept to be sure, but if I had the power of Superman at my disposal I would probably take care of that particular conflict in a less diplomatic way. A way that would include an immediate liberation of all the remaining hostages in gaza, a complete end to hamas and all other palestinian terror groups along with their sponsors. 

 

 

So, enough with the politics and onward to the Isherwood art. This commission featuring Amanda Waller, Count Vertigo, Poison Ivy and The Atom (Adam Cray) has been around for a few years now at least and by luck I happened to have discovered it today....

https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?Piece=1769805&GSub=0&GCat=16979&UCat=16979

 

Now this one is a much more recent commission done by Geof Isherwood for Benjamin L. Sussman. It's based on Suicide Squad 22 in which Deadshot, while sitting on the Lincoln Memorial puts a bullet in the head of US Senator Joe Cray in what turns out to be yet another Task Force X mission that didn't quite go according to plan.

 

New Ostrander era commission art by Luke McDonnell

 

Based on the date by the artist signature I guess this isn't really new. But I literally just discovered it on social media where it had been posted only early last month. Makes me wonder what other Ostrander era Squad fan art has been out there for years now that I don't know about? Anyways, always good to see something "new" from the true Suicide Squad. And yes, I still hate the New DC 52 version as well as those shit movies. If you're also a fan of the late 80s to early 90s Suicide Squad series be sure to at least check out the most recent blog postings I only ever post anything once or twice a year these days.

John Ostrander era Suicide Squad sketch card

After years now of just having done fan art sketch cards for only the Marvel and Star Wars franchises I finally decided to do something different and get at least one for DC into my body of work. So ofcourse it had to be The Suicide Squad. The the late 80s to early 90s John Ostrander Suicide Squad, accept no substitute. 

I was looking at some early issues recently and something occurred to me while going over this one. It's too bad there isn't a Task Force X in the real world. That could have been one way to bring putin's barbaric war on Ukraine to an end sooner then later.

August 16th Update: Just found this Luke McDonell art work of a Suicide Squad height chart. It was a random post on twitter and unfortunately there was no supporting information on where it came from. Was it some kind of promotional material or just some unpublished art? Well, whatever and wherever it's the Suicide Squad I love and miss so i'm delighted to have found it all the same.

Well said anonymous owner of this white Mercedes.

November 17th Update: I stand with Israel. No ceasefire with out the return of all the hostages. Period end of story! Fuck hamas and their idiotic "progressive" cheerleaders like the congressional Jihad Squad. 

Suicide Squad fan art from 2010

I dug this up last night and even though I supposedly stopped posting on this blog site back in September of 2018 I'm gonna post this anyway just because. The original art actually included Rick Flag, Amanda Waller, Captain Boomerang and Night Shade in what was group portrait. But I was never happy with the way the rest of the team came out so I cropped it to the portion that only has Deadshot, Count Vertigo and Bronze Tiger.

Just for the record I still hate DC's reboot of Task Force X as I do both live action films. For me The Suicide Squad will be forever be The John Ostrander series of the late 80s to early 90s. Speaking of which, I recently re-read the 1st Deadshot mini-series. If you never read it before or only read it back in the late 80s it's definitely worth another read. It's a very sophisticated deep dive into Floyd's background that I think you will appreciate even more in the later years of your life.

 

https://www.zipcomic.com/deadshot-1988-issue-1

Hayoth cameo in the DoomsDay Clock multiverse and some awesome new Ostrander era Suicide Squad fan art

I didn't think I was ever gonna do another posting on this blog again but something got my attention recently I really felt like talking about. By chance I came across a panel during a Google search of the Israeli super commando team The Hayoth which I did not recognize from the pages of The Suicide Squad, The Spector or Checkmate from the pre-reboot era of DC Comics. It turns out this panel was from a cameo appearance the team made in The Doomsday Clock series (2019-2020) which was some kind DC Multiverse Watchman cross over story line. In this version of The Hayoth we have all the original characters (Ramban, Judith, Golem and Dybukk) along with a couple additions. One of which is Seraph, who appears to be the team leader.

Seraph's real name is Chaim Levon and he was a Hebrew school teacher. His powers were derived mostly from a number of artifacts with super natural properties based on Jewish folklore. He first appeared in the pages of Super Friends back in 1977 which means he was not part of the pre-reboot mainstream DC Universe any more then supporting characters or story lines from the actual Super Friends cartoon were. https://superfriends.fandom.com/wiki/Seraph

The other addition was a character known as Pteradon. He was part of the pre-reboot mainstream DC Universe. He first appeared in The New Teen Titans 24 (1986) as Captain Israel Harel of the Israel Defense Force. He was part of a rescue operation that was reminiscent of the real life famous Raid on Entebbe operation. He was fatally shot by a not quite dead terrorist right after the mission objective was achieved. Tales Of The Teen Titans Issue 84 | Read Tales Of The Teen Titans Issue 84 comic online in high quality. Read Full Comic online for free - Read comics online in high quality . (view-comic.com)

His body was soon recovered and sent to a company known as Dayton which carried out some form of genetic engineering on Captain Harel which gave him the power of flight, superhuman strength and razor sharp talons. As Pteradon, he was reluctantly pressed into service for the criminal master mind known as Mento as part of a superhuman strike force called Hybrid which battled with The Teen Titans and Blue Beetle. Pteradon never encountered The Hayoth or The Suicide Squad.

 

Now when I started writing this posting yesterday I thought it would be devoid of anything specifically with The Suicide squad it's self. But as good fortune would have it I happened to discover this amazingly illustrated nostalgia bomb by Tom Grummett right after I published this posting. This was posted to comic art fans just 2 months ago so talk about good timing. Anything else you might want to know about this awesome Suicide Squad fan art can be found here https://www.comicartfans.com/galleryPiece.asp?Piece=1789111&GSub=150703&GCat=332&UCat=332&Status=Complete

The Final Mission

https://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=1495688

As you can see the last time I posted anything was way back in January. So clearly this blog site is pretty much done. If you think of each posting as a mission then this is the final one. But for the sake of ceremony I thought I'd just have one last posting/mission to bring this Suicide Squad blog to an official close. I thought I might also use this opportunity to share a few final thoughts and tie up some loose ends in the process. I did see Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay and thought it was over all not bad. It wasn't with out it's problems but I'm not in the least bit interested in getting into all that it is what it is. But I'll admit, between the humor, action and explicit nature it was certainly entertaining if nothing else. So that's as close as it gets to any sort of movie review from me. The live action movie still sucks to me every bit as much as the day I saw it in case any one was wondering. And I could still give a rat's ass about anything going on with The Squad as far as new comics goes that hasn't changed either. So long folks.

DC Legends . . . not quite the stuff of legend for me

Ya know folks I may get a little bit of heat about this but I after doing some reading of the DC Legends mini-series this weekend I'm not that big of a fan. Now ofcourse this isn't the first time I've read the series but even back then it honestly didn't grab me despite all it had going for it. You had The Squad's first mission along with a bunch of some of the best heroes and villains in the DC Universe's history and great talent on the series like John Ostrander and John Byrne. I feel the same way about the original Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series after having finally read it I felt like it was really over rated despite it's legendary status among the DC readership. Can't quite put my finger on it as far as the why but both of these series just didn't make for a great read for me unlike say for example Marvel's original Secret Wars which was like an adrenaline charged page turner which holds up pretty good even today.

Awesome classic Ragman fan art

Absolutely bad ass! This is some top notch fan art, the figure composition, the colors and even the detail in the costume. And ofcourse I love the extra added touch of Ragman tearing up a nazi flag while also sporting a Magen David (star of David) pendant. All very appropriate for our "clothe golem" Jewish avenger. And in case you were wondering, this is where I found it https://www.deviantart.com/art/Ragman-705702433

Too bad we never got to see this in the old DCU it would have been epic!

Len Wein...and now Harry Dean Stanton

Bill Sienkiewicz

Ya know it's ironic that this tragic news about Len Wein's passing should come just over a week after I fished this issue of Comics Interview 32 out of a quarter box. Which as you may have guessed I grabbed because of The Swamp Thing article inside. Cheesy as the early 80s Wes Craven film was it seemed really cool to me at the time and it was actually my introduction to The Swamp Thing character. And then one day I saw an issue at a drug store some where and that would be the beginning of what was a pretty big Swamp Thing collection. I even had this Swamp Thing action figure at one point it was actually kinda cool it had this detachable hand with a line attached to it that pulls the hand like a fisherman's reel.
As for Wolverine, I was a fan long before it was hip to be a Wolverine fan in the 80s I collected every appearance I could find. Back then a Wolverine appearance in a non-X-Men title was always guaranteed to bump up it's value but I didn't care much about that I just wanted to read more Wolverine and seeing him interact with other Marvel super heroes from Captain America to Spider-Man and even ROM was beyond awesome. Ofcourse Wein's body of work went far beyond just co-creating Swamp Thing and Wolverine and I think it's nice to know all that will still be around for future generations to enjoy.

Len Wein and Hugh Jackman at the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con

Over the years I've done a few unique Swamp Thing centric blog postings over here if you never saw them or don't remember them you suck, but here are the links anyways...
http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2010/11/why-didnt-squad-ever-run-into-swamp.html
http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2016/11/swamp-thing-and-golem.html
http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2013/12/poison-ivy-vs-swamp-thing.html

September 15th Update: So now we have it happen again this week. Another big name from our child hood as comic book and sci-fi fans has passed away. This time it was Harry Dean Stanton who died at 91. Stanton has had a long career on both the big screen and small spanning for decades. I knew him best as Brett from ALIEN and as Brain from Escape from New York. And don't forget about Stanton's brief appearance in the first Avengers film where he plays a security guard who finds Bruce Banner amid a mass of debris caused by him falling through the roof of an abandoned building while he was The Hulk.

Black Power

Fan art by Peter Temple left click to enlarge

Obviously I like this fan art other wise I wouldn't have posted it here but at the same time part of me wants to see even more black heroes from Marvel and DC in here kinda like those Marvel Universe Handbook or DC Who's Who montage covers. Off the top of my head specifically I'm thinking Luke Cage, Misty Knight, Blade, the John Stewart Green Lantern and Mr. Fantastic. Don't know if Amanda Waller quite fits the profile of what defines a "super hero" but I'd include her just on general principle.

Ok and now for another kind of black power. Just by chance today I passed through The 4th Annual Vintage Car Show in Downtown Hayward (California) while running some errands and look what they had there. Not at all a fan of the tim burton Batman films (or much of anything from burton for that matter) but I have to admit the batmobile in those movies was one of the few things they had going for them. The tumbler is my favorite though.

The Suicide Squad goes nuclear

Ya know with all this shit going on with north korea and their nuclear program not to mention renewed tensions with russia and the threat of islamic terrorists trying to get their filthy hands on that shit for years now it got me thinking about Firestorm 64 written by John Ostrander. The issue came out in 1987 in which the Cold War was still going on here in the real world even though it would be only a few years later that the soviet union would collapse. For about the next two decades or so we really didn't think about nuclear war as something that we had to worry about any more.
So this issue was part of a story arc in which Ronald and professor Stein (who was dying of a brain tumor at the time) as Firestorm attempted to coerce the nuclear armed nations of the world into dismantling their nuclear arsenals under the threat of doing it for them if they didn't comply. A some what similar premise to the awful Superman 4 film which ironically also came out in 1987. Yeah that didn't go over to well and as a result Firestorm was declared an outlaw and become subject to arrest. As a result Captain Atom (prior to this issue), Task Force X, The Justice League mixed it up with Firestorm in an attempt to end his crusade.
The story line continues and comes to a head in Firestorm annual 2 in which The Squad and The League start to fight each other. Adding to the mayhem The Parasite who at the time was in The Squad goes rogue. Firestorm manages to deal with The Parasite and make his escape only to be confronted in the Nevada desert by a russian super powered agent named Pozhar. The show down happens shortly before professor Stein's tumor finally kills him and disrupts the Firestorm bond in the process which happens only seconds before both the U.S. and Soviet governments try to nuke both combatants. Good stuff, makes me miss the 80s all that much more.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/marvelmasterworksfansite/suicide-squad-the-complete-ostrander-run-1st-time--t24588.html

Adam West passes away at 88

Adam West as The Gray Ghost

Just heard the sad news (leukemia) a couple hours ago and I wanted to get a posting up this weekend with a little bit of my thoughts on West's career. As a kid I kinda used to like the original Batman TV show because like Spiderman on The Electric company it was one of the very few live action outlets available for some of my favorite comic book characters. As I got older I won't lie I did develop a certain degree of disdain for the show because of it's campyness although I certainly never felt that way for West himself who by all accounts has always been a stand up guy in his personal life.
I'm really glad that over the years he managed to in part rejuvenate his show biz career despite his type casting handicap with voice acting work on The Simpsons and The Family Guy. As some of you may remember he was also the voice actor in The Grey Ghost episode of the Batman animated series. That series brought a lot of critical acclaim and respect to the super hero genre and that episode in particular was certainly one of the best if not the best episode of the series. Ironically, West plays an out of work actor who can't couldn't find new acting gigs due to a type casting handicap but would go on to help Batman solve a series of crimes carried out by some psychotic fan boy using sophisticated remote controlled toys.

Ya know I have to admit even though I came to grow weary of the original Batman TV show I always maintained my fondness for the classic Batmobile from that series (I dug the Batboat to). I used to have the original die cast ones from Corgi but at least I still have a couple packaged ones from a Hotwheels release some 8 or 9 years ago which I saw in a Dollar store of all places. Looking back I should have picked up more of them. As a crime fighter you probably don't want to drive around seated in an open canopy (not much protection from gun fire) but that's ok it was such a cool design I still love it till this day.

Farewell 007

Roger Suave

So I'm just doing this spur of the moment posting on what is now mostly an in active blog site. Only heard the sad news about an hour ago about Roger Moore passing away at 89 from cancer. Right on the heels of Sound Garden's front man Chris Cornell no less but in his case his death was in some ways even more tragic given that he was only in his 50s. I figured I better throw something on the internet especially with all this russia/trump investigation and terror attack in Manchester drowning out all other news stories including this one. Again, what seemed to be one of those timeless celebrity icons from my child hood has left us. There's really not much of anything I can say that you don't know or haven't heard already if you know anything about Roger Moore's career so let me pivot a bit to some of the 007 toys I used to have when I was a kid.

Ya know I still see the 007 submarine car (Corgi) from time to time at comic and toy conventions, usually going for a pretty hefty price tag. Especially for the ones that are in better condition part of that being if the 007 logo sticker is still present and not too tattered and faded.

I also used to have both the large scale and smaller Moon Raker shuttle craft toys (also from Corgi). Both featured retractable landing gears and cargo bay doors that open. But the bigger shuttle also had a removable satellite which had extending solar panels where as the smaller shuttle just had a fixed molded piece in it but I loved both em just the same. I see the smaller shuttle once in a while at a con but have yet to come across the bigger one. I wonder if all these 007 toys will bump up in value now?

Left click to enlarge

Might as well throw this up here as well while I'm at it it's seldom I ever come across any fan art related to the Ostrander era and it's pretty original and other wise well done. If you want to get a better look at it go here... http://elena-casagrande.deviantart.com/art/Suicide-Squad-banner-for-Blastoff-Comics-625873780

Bill Paxton passes away at 61 so to the grim reaper I say "Fuck you asshole!"

Left click to enlarge

Unfucken believable! I literally only 30 moments ago just read the sad news about Bill Paxton having passed away during some sort of surgical procedure. Here we go again with yet another iconic actor from the sci-fi genre of the 80s passing away and we're not even done with February yet. Many people wouldn't know that his list of credits both in front and behind the camera is very extensive but I'm not going to get into a long winded posting about his fantastic career. But suffice it to say I loved Bill Paxton he's been in some great films both big and small that I've enjoyed since the mid 80s.
The land mark role that put him on the map no doubt was private Hudson from ALIENS but we actually saw Bill before that in a small part in the original classic Terminator film. Since then he's played in a number of great films like Tombstone, Apollo 13 and One False Move. He's also done some work on the small screen I remember him in particular most recently from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D when that show was actually watchable. Bill was also in another great yet little known film that's one of my favorites from his acting resume. The movie is a modern day vampire film from the late 80s called Near Dark in which Paxton plays a psychotic vampire with an entertaining and twisted sense of humor when it comes to hunting his prey and taking on his enemies.

As if 2016 wasn't bad enough it looks like 2017 is already becoming a shit year for celebrity deaths from my child hood in the science fiction genre. We also lost Richard Hatch to cancer earlier this month whom you remember from Battlestar Galactica, The Streets of San Francisco and most recently from Star Trek Axanar. I actually met him only about a year and a half ago at a convention in San Jose California.

Gordon Henley from the original Star Wars (A New Hope) film and also most recently in Rogue 1 thanks to inserted footage never used from A New Hope died from a bizarre and tragic choking incident during a meal last month.

Let me just throw this in here real quick let's see if you can figure out the Star Wars reference here in this Battlestar Galactica comic book clip art from Dynamite Entertainment.

Anyways, also last month we lost Miguel Ferrer whom Robocop fans certainly remember and perhaps even some Star Trek fans as well. Miguel died of throat cancer.