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

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!

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

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

Lashina cosplay

Julie Wilhelm

Left click to enlarge

I remember when I first saw this Starfire bonus pin-up page back when I was a kid in the mid 80s. It was in the back pages of some issue of Ambush Bug (#2) which I was browsing at for reasons that I can't remember since I never had any interest in that character. I remember being so sprung at the time to see something like this in a comic book by a main stream publisher like DC.
But ofcourse by today's standards this is quite tame. Especially when you consider how the character has been re-imagined in the DCU reboot. At the time I was tempted to buy the issue just for that bonus pin-up page alone but just couldn't bring myself to paying the cover price for an issue of Ambush Bug. I've seen that same issue in $1 boxes a couple times recently but it's just as well to have found this Starfire bonus pin up online.

Janus Directive splash page

It seems after all there may yet be a little bit of Suicide Squad stuff to blog about as we kick off 2017. I was at the library today when I noticed a Janus Directive trade paper back on the shelf. I never knew there was a TPB of that multi-titled DC story line in which a conspiracy devised by Kobra turns all the U.S. meta human special ops organizations against each other. The top part of this splash page ( jeez, did they really have to draw Bronze Tiger with that excessive bulge in his costume?) from Checkmate 15 can be found at the DC Wikia page but I mostly like the bottom half with the character chess pieces.

Also today, I was reading Justice League vs Suicide Squad # 3 on Youtube. I have to admit it was actually pretty good. Top notch art with some well done character development and a story line that looks very promising.

Unknown Suicide Squad Millennium art recently discovered

I recently found this art work on DC's wikia page. Although I don't know where this art work originated from I'm always never the less delighted to uncover some Suicide Squad related art from the late 80s and 90s. We see there Rick Flag and Bronze Tiger along with Karen Grace (mission casualty) who's got some some "history" with Flag back from their pre Ostrander Squad days together. There's also The Privateer (a.k.a Mark Shaw), a former manhunter recruited to help Task Force X for the Manhunter Louisiana fortress assault mission (see Millennium week 4, Suicide Squad 8 and 9).

Ok I just wanted to open up this next segment of the posting by saying I was a graphic designer for 10 years so I thought these panels were funny as Hell. Last night I came across this these panels (issue 4) while watching some youtube videos that basically let you read the Suicide Squad Rebirth series in slide show format they have issues 1- 7 so far. Considering how easy it is to read a comic book series these days online I think you must really really want to buy something for the sake of having a hard cover in your collection.
Anyways, this latest Squad series is much of an improvement from what DC came up with when the DCU relaunch first happened not to mention The Squad title reboots prior to Rebirth. This rebirth series is certainly worth taking the time to read on youtube but not worth buying and taking up space at home. It does have it's moments, like Captain Boomerang getting killed in issue 2. Just go to Youtube and paste the following in the search bar...suicide squad rebirth #1. Or start with a later issue but either way after the video finishes it'll go right to what ever the following issue is until you finally reach # 7.

Well it had it's moments at least

Did you know that out of the entire Ostrander run for The Suicide Squad there was only one annual? And admittedly despite having been written by John Ostrander it wasn't a very good read in what was other wise an awesome series. But it did have it's moments like the exchange between Rick Flag and Boomerang as well as between Shade and Manhunter. In case you didn't know during his time with Task Force X Shade was known for having something of a condescending attitude toward Earth technology which other Squad members found to be annoying at times. So it was kinda funny seeing someone talk down to him for a change when it comes to the comprehension.

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.

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.