DC's 52: Week Thirty -Three Task Force X vs. The Black Marvel Famliy. How to say the "F" word with out saying it in comic books.

What a great day I've had as far as comic book back issues goes. When I woke up today I set my mind this week to finding severl back issues I felt like I needed. From DC they were 52 Week Thirty -Three and Checkmate #5 (Vol. 2). And from Marvel they were New Warriors (Vol. 1) #28, 73, 74 and 75. I can't friggin believe it I found Checkmate #5 on my lunch break and all the rest at another comic book shop on my way home from work. I love the dialogue in these panels that are to the left and on the bottom they really crack me up! Look how they keep using all those punctuation characters in place of the "F" bomb. Apparently all the fighting you see going on has to do with The Squad being sent to help Atom Smasher apprehend Black Adam and his family since they've become a problem to pretty much the whole world. It's really a shame what happened here to The Pursuader I was just starting to like this guy. It would have been nice to seem him in some further missions on The Squad especially if they were ever to take place in San Francisco but as you can see here he had to split.

Now that's what I call a splash page!

Suicide Squad fan art in all it's awe inspiring forms

I found this gem to the left by Geof Isherwood on Comic Fans.com. This is absolute bad ass! It's so obvious what makes this such a great illustration I won't even go into my usual art speile. But at least make sure you magnify it to see the details.

Ya know when you think about it the concept of fan art doesn't always have to be about a drawing, painting or even some sort of digital illustration. Your body in a manner of speaking can be the "canvas" for your expression of fondness for the characters who have served with the Suicide Squad over the years. This awesome Deadshot costume and especially this Poison Ivy make up job just below are good examples of that. But I'd still like to see someone out there make the trench coat version of Deadshot's costume some day.

Ironically enough this week's Task Force X Retirement Files 044-047 includes Poison Ivy along with Oracle (Barbara Gordon), The Thinker (Cliff Carmichael) and The Outlaw John Henry: http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2011/05/suicide-squad-retirement-files-044-047.html

Fall of The Wall: Operation Salvation Run & Project Omac

I'm guessing most of you out there probably know more about Operation Salvation Run then you do about the Checkmate (Vol. 2) three issue (18-20) story line known as the Fall of The Wall. But if you don't know about Salvation Run it was basically an unauthorized covert operation run by Amanda Waller and Rick Flag with the purpose of abducting meta human criminals and sending them to a prison planet. The clip art above is of a batch of criminals at Belle Reve being herded at gun point into a boom tube. This prison planet is basically the Gitmo of the DC Universe and just about as controversial which has caused Waller and Flag to bump heads with the JLA (#18) as well as certain elements in Checkmate. Not only that but Salvation Run was also what put Deadshot at odds with Waller and ultimately lead him to shooting her to even the score later on in the pages of Secret Six. If you want more detailed information about Salvation Run this is a nice little condensed synopsis: http://deadlygarden.blogspot.com/2009/08/salvation-run.html
Personally I think it's a great idea and why I want Amanda Waller for president in 2012. But unfortunately despite holding the title of White Queen in Checkmate Waller had many political enemies (Mr.Terrific - White King, Taleb Khalid - Black King, Sasha Bordeaux - Black Queen) within the organization that were ready to throw anything at her they thought might stick. Aside from Salvation Run it was also discovered that Waller secretly carried Omac nano technology in her blood stream which technically made her a meta and that violated the "rule of two" policy at Checkmate. Basically it's a policy that puts a quota of meta-human agents within Checkmates dual command structure. So with all that she was forced to resign (along with her knight - Count Virtigo & bishop - King Faraday) as the White Queen of Checkmate. But that's ok. The Wall is never 100% out of "the game" in the world of politics and clandestine ops. She was still director of Task Force X and now had her former knight and bishop working for her there as seen in the 2008 Suicide Squad From the Ashes mini-series. But There's been no shortage of Amanda Waller in the DC Universe since then. She's been in numerous DC titles, the Justice League Unlimited (project Cadmus), Superman Batman: Public Enemies, Smallville and later this summer Amanda Waller makes her big screen debut in Green Lantern. But regardless of where ever she appears running whatever government agency she'll always be my queen.

Coming up next we feature some Suicide Squad Fan art for the first time in awhile!

Multiplex, the Star Trek security guards in red shirts of Task Force X

I can't believe I've gotten this far on this blog site with out really having much of anything to do with Multiplex. I've known about the character since his early Firestorm villain days but he was never really of any interest to me. One of the things is that for a guy who's power is to make multiple copies of himself running around in an elaborate caped costume seemed kinda silly to me. He just had a look that was more suited for being the head honcho of some super criminal organization or evil cult like Brother Blood or Kobra. But since he started working for Waller sometime after the regular Suicide Squad 1 -75 series he's been sporting this "Tron" look which I think looks much much better.
My favorite thing about the character is how his "duploids" keep getting killed. And the way they get killed sometimes cracks me up even if it is a bit gruesome now and then. In the clip art here you see Scandal Savage from the Secret Six trying to take one of them hostage at Belle Reve. As you can see here it's a great scene for a number of reasons one of them being the dialogue. Magnify the image to read it easier. More information of the Multiplex character can be found here: http://www.ask.com/wiki/Multiplex_%28comics%29

This will probably do it for this month unless Brightest Day #24 has something good but kicking off May we'll have some stuff from DC's 52 series, Operation Salvation Run and show how Waller was successfully blackmailed into resigning as Checkmate's White Queen! Who could possibly be smart and shrewd enough to do that you ask? You'll find out here next week.

Also today, Task Force X Retirement files 040-043
Sports Master, Major Victory, Adam Cray (Atom II) and Ray Palmer
http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2011/04/suicide-squad-retirement-files-040-043.html

The Janus Directive: Checkmate vs Task Force X

So I decided to open up this posting with a Janus Directive house ad for those of your who aren't as familiar with that cross title DC saga. It's a pretty large file so you can magnify it for a better read. You might find it interesting to know that in mythological terms Janus was the "two faced" god of beginnings and transitions. So Checkmate and Task Force X found themselves among the various U.S. agencies and organizations duped by Kobra into fighting amongst themselves.
Certain members of Checkmate's strategy was to capture Amanda Waller in order to get leverage on Task Force X (Checkmate #16 Vol.1 1989). A hand full of agents break into Belle Reve and quietly attempt to subdue Belle Reve's security personnel as well as members of The Suicide Squad. One of their first targets is Captain Boomerang and as usual they make the mistake of underestimating him.
Once you've read enough books that feature Capt. Boomerang you get to a point where you can almost see what's going on in a live action way in your head. It's like you can actually hear him talking with that Aussie accent. It's one of the things that makes him such a fun character to follow.

By this point in the issue I was laughing out loud.

I'm sure at this point you have some idea happens what the next "rang" does that Digger is about to throw. Also seen in this issue is Bronze Tiger in some hand to hand combat against the other invading Checkmate agents. In the middle of this Waller makes good her escape from Belle Reve and the Checkmate agents are forced to abort their mission and flee. Eventually of course all the players involved figure out they've been had by Kobra and combine forces in the final showdown to stop Kobra from his latest doomsday scheme.

The Force of July, now just gone with the wind.

For all of you who checked out the previous posting no doubt discovered the somewhat contentious comments over the debate about the writers of DC making Dr. Light into a sex offender. Well I think all that needed to be said about that was pretty much covered already. But that got me thinking about some of Light's more "memorable" moments in the pages of the Suicide Squad. One of those was this one from the Janus Directive. If you recall, the Janus Directive was this vast scheme devised by Kobra to turn just about every U.S. government agency against each other as a distraction while he prepares his latest dooms day weapon in order to usher in the age of the "Age of Chaos" which is his version of Armageddon. Take note that Iran's president espouses to a similar ideology. Just a little something to help you all sleep soundly at night for when the next time you hear about their latest bit of progress in their nuclear program and long range ballistic missile upgrades.
During the Janus Directive we see a showdown between the Suicide Squad and the hyper patriotic government team The Force of July ( Role call: Major Victory - super strength, Sparkler - Jubilee of the X-Men like powers, Mayflower - can animate vegetation to carry out her will, Lady Liberty - energy discharge through "torch", Silent Minority - Multiple Man like powers). Sparkler as seen above is killed by Dr. Light in a fit of rage, while Mayflower is strangled to death by Ravan. Later as the Janus Directive reaches it's conclusion both Lady Liberty and Silent Minority are killed in the final battle with Kobra's forces leaving Major Victory as the group's sole survivor.
As a result of the Kobra's manipulations and the break down in communications between agencies the U.S. government orders the over haul of many of those agencies and their protocols. One of which was to assign Major Victory to Task Force X. Major Victory (a.ka. Bill Vickers) was only with the Squad for a short time and for the most part we saw a fairly one dimensional character. So much so that Vixen once referred to him as "Major Cliche". However shortly there after Major Victory would find himself among the kidnapped members of the Squad in the ill fated Apocalypse mission compliments of every body's favorite Female Fury Lashina. Fortunately he was one of the survivors although that ended up being a turning point for him. It was on that mission that we started to see some character development for Major Victory. Having felt like he had always been used by some other interest rather it was the U.S. government, Kobra or Lashina Major Victory decided to leave all that behind and get on with his life as just Bill Vickers. What's interesting here is that the narrative of this character at the time (1990) was somewhat prophetic. Given the the political quagmire and ongoing recession of America today Major Victory is basically a metaphor for the frustrations of everyday Americans during these hard times.
Vickers as it turned out didn't turn in his uniform and would take on the role of Major Victory again. We briefly see him in the pages of the Suicide Squad toward the end of the series (#58) as the leader of the newly formed Captains of Industry super hero team. You can find out who didn't make it back from that mission at the latest Task Force X retirement files:
http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2011/04/suicide-squad-retirement-files-036-039.html

Coming soon: We feature some rare clip art of Captain Boomerang from the pages of Checkmate (Vol.1) during the Janus Directive. See Digger at his best with plenty of action and incomprehensible "Aussie" speak during Checkmate's daring break in at Belle Reve as they try to capture the director of Task Force X Amanda Waller.

Checkmate#4 awesome splash page & why I'm writing in Amanda Waller on my 2012 presidential ballot

I just recently found Checkmate #3 and #4. I wish I could have found them in a dollar bin but I had to brake down and buy them at the full cover price + back issues. I already had # 1 (which I had found a little while ago for only .50) and #2 and I was really digging it so it was worth it to me to dole out the extra cash to see how the story line continued to unfold. It was a really great read! The plot line for those first few Checkmate issues (Vol.) basically had to do with Kobra having infiltrated China's meta human program and Checkmate being sent to their in order to expose the security breach. But Checkmate didn't really do it so much for China's benefit as opposed to it's own. Ya see in the first issue China tried to push through a U.N. resolution to have Checkmate dissolved. The Kobra mission was more about getting leverage on China in order to make them . . "reexamine" their U.N. vote. And of course their was the side benefit of foiling Kobra's latest scheme. That's what I loved about the writing in this book was the politics. It really did reflect how things work in the real world minus the super powered agents. I really think some kind of Checkmate vs. S.H.I.E.L.D would be so sweet!

I think Barak Obama means well. But I also think it's pretty clear to every one by now regardless of what end of the political spectrum you are on or what skin color you are that he just doesn't have what it takes to get things done rather it comes to our foreign or domestic policies. He could learn a thing or two from the White Queen. Now that's change I can believe in, plus Amanda Waller is a black woman which means she's got both Obama and Hillary beat on the PC angle.