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.

 

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. 

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

Ragman and The Hayoth team up fan art

I've always been a fan of the Israeli meta human team know as The Hayoth who first appeared in the pages of The Suicide Squad and would later be seen in The Specter and Checkmate in the old DCU. But more recently I've been getting into the Ragman character since having read some stuff with him (Ragman Suite of Souls one shot and Day of Vengeance #1)  I've found in back issue discount boxes. DC has other Jewish superheros like Atom Smasher and Batgirl but what I liked about these particular characters is that their powers and identity as heroes centers around Jewish lore and mysticism.

Oct. 3rd Update: 
I decided to add this clip art of Ragman in action from Day of Vengeance #1 (2006). Something interesting I learned about Ragman's suit in this issue is that the new souls that are collected often try to resist helping Ragman when called upon. Kinda think of it as a new prison inmate who hasn't learned the rules yet and think they can act like they're still on the outside. Well we know how that eventually plays out.