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 Was it some kind of promotional material or just some unpublished art?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. 

Luke McDonell Suicide Squad commission fan art 2014

Found this on Comic Art Fans last night. It's seldom that I find some fan art from this era of The Suicide Squad it's too bad I didn't find this in time to feature it for the first day of 2016. In case anyone was wondering I still could care less about the DC relaunch and it goes with out saying I don't follow it whats so ever including whatever is going on with the so called Suicide Squad these days. As for the upcoming movie, not really following the hype I'm content to see how it turns out when it hits theaters. Probably gonna play it safe with a matinee.

Suicidal Tendencies with Shadowpact

Shadowpact 10

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So I was in LA this past weekend and found a really cool comic shop (Golden Apple Comics) where I picked up some Shadowpact back issues (1,2, 9 and 10) from their $1 discount back issue boxes. Between having some former Squad members (Nightshade and Enchantress of course) on the team and with my growing interest in Ragman I've been meaning to check out some Shadowpact stuff for a while now.
Those issues were a good read I'll be on the look out for more. Aside from just the all around good writing I liked the some what subtle Suicide Squad reference in issue 10. And on some what of a side note I went ahead and grabbed a copy of Checkmate 10 which guest starred Shadowpact. In that issue Checkmate enlists the aid of Shadowpact to counter act a magic based ritual process that Kobra uses to expose Checkmate and other government agencies infiltration attempts. . .
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Checkmate_Vol_2_10

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.

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/

Finally, some newly discovered fan art

Free Comic Book Day was a bust. I didn't see anything that was of any interest to me all the free comics were crap and they were using the back issue bin area for more space so I wasn't able to do my usual foraging there for cool old school shit. Oh well, at least I have some newly found fan art which this blog has been devoid of for a little while now. First up is some classic Nightshade by Brendon Fraim.

Did you know that Nightshade, Peacemaker, Sergeant Steele, Blue Beetle, Judo Master, Captain Atom and The Question were all originally characters from another publishing company that no longer exists called Charlton Comics? Most of you probably did know that already but for the few who don't I thought you might have found that interesting. DC at some point bought the rights to the characters and integrated them into the DC Universe.
Nightshade pretty much became synonymous with both Captain Atom (the DC title of course) and The Suicide Squad. Peacemaker and Sergeant Steele made multiple appearances in both the Suicide Squad and Checkmate (both volumes). So I'm diggin Peacemaker re-design concept but I'm also looking to get some feed back on it from you good people. If you need a quick reference to his costume design as it was in the old DCU: http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2012/06/impel-trading-cards-series-task-force-x_21.html

Peacmaker re-design concept by Joe Singleton

FUCK YOU cartoon network!

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Well I was saving this art work for a Feb.1st posting but I guess I might as well post it now along with the fucked up news I just got from Dale. Google search Young Justice cancelled to see what I mean. There's nothing more I can ad to that other then to say that cartoon network in the absence of YJ ( and also Green Lantern which had been pretty good lately) has nothing but dumbed down shit I wouldn't have even found watchable as a pre-teen kid. The only exception would be Star Wars which has some descent episodes now and then even though in general I hate almost all the shit that has to do with the prequels.

All right so now that I got that out of my system this is Deadshot from the Young Justice comic issue 24. Talk about an awesome costume redesign! I think I like it even better then any version in the old DCU. This is more along the lines of what the DC 52 version of Deadshot's costume should have looked like as opposed to that overly elaborate clunky looking get up he wears now.

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Now what we have here is some clip art from a Nightwing and Owen Mercer one shot. I actually saw this in a $1 bin a couple of weeks ago I don't know why I didn't pick it up I think I'll look for it again the next time I'm there. This is an interesting bit of dialogue it never occurred to me that Batman would be holding it against Owen that he's Digger's son and using the same name even though he was one of the Outsiders. Like with the Deadshot appearance in the Young Justice comic book this makes me so wanna see Owen at least make a guest appearance at least on the Young Justice but now that'll never happen. Things just ended so badly for Owen in the old DCU it would have been nice to have seen him again in most any DC continuity.

And speaking of good DC cartoons here's some character sketches that were done in the same illustration style as we saw in Justice League Unlimited. Rick Flag, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, Killer Frost, Plastique (although not in costume) all have been on that series but now we can get some idea of how Bronze Tiger and Nightshade would have looked like on that show. BT looks ok here but Nightshade is especially done illustrated well here
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Okay guys, try not to drool all over your keyboards

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Unfortunately I couldn't find any entries for Plastique or Vixen when it came to the Suicide Squad but I'm pretty happy with these finds http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2010/11/gentlemen-prefer-blonds-but-i-prefer-my.html . There was one for Lashina (Duchess) and Enchantress but they weren't that great. Heromorph is a website that primarily features gorgeous women who have had superhero costumes airbrushed on them.

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Here are some from the Villains United/Secret Six teams. Although technically Knock Out could have also been lumped in with the Squad (Superboy Task Force X "Watery Grave" mission : http://www.readdcentertainment.com/Superboy-1994-2002-13/digital-comic/ICO003495 ) but she's more synonymous with the before mentioned groups.

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I should have figured if I could find any Heromorph women from Checkmate it would be the Black King's knight, Beatrice De Costa codenamed Fire. This Brazilian bombshell was a former member of the Global Guardians and Justice League in the old DCU http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2011/01/checkmate-101-why-world-today-needs.html . Here she is lighting up the skies of  Rio De Janeiro.

Heromorph Galleries 

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No doubt many of you viewing this posting will take it upon yourselves to go to Heromorph your selves and have a look at their galleries. Just so you know it has hundreds of pages! You'll be at it for a week looking at it all. So I recommend you go to Google and type in Heromorph and the name of whatever character you want to look for and hit the "images" tab. Happy viewing, just make sure the kids aren't in the room.

Next up, I'm back to more serious matters as I share with you all why I should have read more of Ostrander's Firestorm in the late 80s