Batman Year One and Gotham Knight DVDs

So by now most of you about my recent trip to Oregon. What I hadn't mentioned up until now is that aside from all the other stuff I did up there was that I also met up with one of my old high school buddies who had moved to Portland in 2002. We did a DC Universe movies DVD swap (long term loans). I just got done watching the Batman: Year One DVD and I have to say it was pretty good. It was just an all around good cop story and Batman story with all the bells and whistles that make so many DC animated movies top notch. I'll update this posting as soon as I watch Batman: Gotham Knight this weekend. In the mean time I've been hearing about this Suicide Squad movie that's in production if you wanna know my thoughts on it check this comment thread http://taskforce-x.blogspot.com/2014/11/suicide-squad-movie-news.html

Dec. 6th Update: So I just got around to watching the Gotham Knight DVD and it's actually 6 short movies instead of one long one. Of the 6 their were a couple of mediocre ones but the other 4 were pretty good even though the one that starred Deadshot features DS in one of the lamest costumes I'd ever seen.

Meet the "New" Suicide Squad of the DC reboot, same as the old Suicide Squad of the DC reboot

The following videos are from what I think are the best comic book reviewers on Youtube. I like how they do everything from how they display the clip to the snarky sarcasm and how they always keep their reviews on point and with the right running time. As far as I'm concerned despite factors like Black Manta, Deathstroke and Deadshot actually looking like Floyd Lawton and not like Rick Flag for a change this 2nd volume of DC's rebooted Squad basically looks like more of the same to me.
I can only speculate why DC felt like they needed to rebrand this title but it ain't gonna get me to spend my money any more then the last one did after I dropped the book. And why is Captain Boomerang absent from the line up again? It was a case of too little too late when they finally had him come back to the team in the last series but at least it was one of those rare occasions in which the writers did something that did justice to the Squad.

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.

The fly in the ointment of Assault on Arkham

After having watched my Assault on Arkham DVD a couple more times since buying it on Thursday there's one glaring thing about the story that bothers me. During the mission briefing Waller tells The Squad to keep the "body count to a minimum". I'm sorry but even Waller at her worst would never authorize The Squad to use lethal force to any degree on the staff of Arkham Asylum.
Would Waller kill a disobedient member of The Squad to make an example of them in order to keep the rest of them in line? . . sure. Would she send The Squad to assassinate some manner of criminal? . . .sure. All that falls in line with a "greater good" kinda rationale she often operates on. But condoning the deaths of civilians is something I think is out of character for The Wall. All those people who work at Arkham are basically federal employees working at a facility serving a branch of law enforcement.
Now keep in mind I'm not trying to be "that guy" or otherwise trying to discourage you from seeing this. That over sight aside this was still a really well produced and entertaining movie that is clearly not aimed at a pre-teen crowd thank God. And unlike in Arrow or Smallville for that matter The Suicide Squad as a team and as individual characters really get a chance to shine. Now if we can get an animated DC feature sending Task Force X after some terrorists like ISIS then I could die a happy man.

Assault on Arkham is AWESOME!

This movie is one of the best DC animated features yet. The animation is perfect and so are the voice actors. The story is awesome, aside from some really snappy well written dialogue it's even got sex, cursing and plenty of gore. In short, it's everything that makes much of DC's animated stuff so great and exemplifies why marvel's animated stuff never does anything for me. As far as the high light moments there's really too many to get into here with out this posting being way too long. As far as any criticisms go there's a few things I could nit pick about but nothing major.
Ironically, this movie at it's core is fundamentally based on the New 52 Squad but in the case of this movie it works in ways that the writing on the now defunct comic book series never did. Anyways, seeing as I'm only writing this posting only after one viewing i'm sure i'll have more thoughts on this after I get to watch it again. Hopefully we'll be all talking about this movie and comparing notes in the comments section in the coming days.

P.S. thanks for leaving that comment in the previous posting Manfred but as it turned out I found the DVD at Target earlier this morning and it was only $13.

PODCASTS!
Other new happenings for all things Suicide Squad it looks like we've got another Squad centric blog spot (see bottom of blog role at left hand column) as well as far as I know the first Suicide Squad podcasts. The first episode consists largely of an over view introduction of the history of The Suicide Squad http://head.x10.mx/TaskForceX/Episode1.mp3 and episode #2 gives us a recap of the first 3 issues of the Legends 6 issue mini series  . . .
http://head.x10.mx/TaskForceX/Episode2.mp3

BATMAN: Assault on Arkham is here . . sort of

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First up, I found a little flash back cameo in a discount back issue bin last week from Millennium - Week 5 (1987). Suicide Squad # 8 was a cross over into the whole Millennium series in which The Squad was sent with an experimental explosive device to go destroy a Manhunter strong hold in the Louisiana Bayous. Along the way they're joined by Captain Atom who shortly there after takes on a brain washed Firestorm after he attacks The Squad even though the actual fight takes place in the pages of The Atom.

Apparently this video is still a couple weeks or so away from being released at retail stores but as I understand it you can see it digitally on iTunes. I'll update this posting accordingly as soon as I get a chance to watch it (sooner then later I'm hoping) so that the 3 or 4 of you who still read this blog I update about once a month can know what I thought of it.