The Final Mission

https://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=1495688

As you can see the last time I posted anything was way back in January. So clearly this blog site is pretty much done. If you think of each posting as a mission then this is the final one. But for the sake of ceremony I thought I'd just have one last posting/mission to bring this Suicide Squad blog to an official close. I thought I might also use this opportunity to share a few final thoughts and tie up some loose ends in the process. I did see Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay and thought it was over all not bad. It wasn't with out it's problems but I'm not in the least bit interested in getting into all that it is what it is. But I'll admit, between the humor, action and explicit nature it was certainly entertaining if nothing else. So that's as close as it gets to any sort of movie review from me. The live action movie still sucks to me every bit as much as the day I saw it in case any one was wondering. And I could still give a rat's ass about anything going on with The Squad as far as new comics goes that hasn't changed either. So long folks.

DC Legends . . . not quite the stuff of legend for me

Ya know folks I may get a little bit of heat about this but I after doing some reading of the DC Legends mini-series this weekend I'm not that big of a fan. Now ofcourse this isn't the first time I've read the series but even back then it honestly didn't grab me despite all it had going for it. You had The Squad's first mission along with a bunch of some of the best heroes and villains in the DC Universe's history and great talent on the series like John Ostrander and John Byrne. I feel the same way about the original Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series after having finally read it I felt like it was really over rated despite it's legendary status among the DC readership. Can't quite put my finger on it as far as the why but both of these series just didn't make for a great read for me unlike say for example Marvel's original Secret Wars which was like an adrenaline charged page turner which holds up pretty good even today.

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!

Len Wein...and now Harry Dean Stanton

Bill Sienkiewicz

Ya know it's ironic that this tragic news about Len Wein's passing should come just over a week after I fished this issue of Comics Interview 32 out of a quarter box. Which as you may have guessed I grabbed because of The Swamp Thing article inside. Cheesy as the early 80s Wes Craven film was it seemed really cool to me at the time and it was actually my introduction to The Swamp Thing character. And then one day I saw an issue at a drug store some where and that would be the beginning of what was a pretty big Swamp Thing collection. I even had this Swamp Thing action figure at one point it was actually kinda cool it had this detachable hand with a line attached to it that pulls the hand like a fisherman's reel.
As for Wolverine, I was a fan long before it was hip to be a Wolverine fan in the 80s I collected every appearance I could find. Back then a Wolverine appearance in a non-X-Men title was always guaranteed to bump up it's value but I didn't care much about that I just wanted to read more Wolverine and seeing him interact with other Marvel super heroes from Captain America to Spider-Man and even ROM was beyond awesome. Ofcourse Wein's body of work went far beyond just co-creating Swamp Thing and Wolverine and I think it's nice to know all that will still be around for future generations to enjoy.

Len Wein and Hugh Jackman at the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con

Over the years I've done a few unique Swamp Thing centric blog postings over here if you never saw them or don't remember them you suck, but here are the links anyways...
http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2010/11/why-didnt-squad-ever-run-into-swamp.html
http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2016/11/swamp-thing-and-golem.html
http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2013/12/poison-ivy-vs-swamp-thing.html

September 15th Update: So now we have it happen again this week. Another big name from our child hood as comic book and sci-fi fans has passed away. This time it was Harry Dean Stanton who died at 91. Stanton has had a long career on both the big screen and small spanning for decades. I knew him best as Brett from ALIEN and as Brain from Escape from New York. And don't forget about Stanton's brief appearance in the first Avengers film where he plays a security guard who finds Bruce Banner amid a mass of debris caused by him falling through the roof of an abandoned building while he was The Hulk.

Black Power

Fan art by Peter Temple left click to enlarge

Obviously I like this fan art other wise I wouldn't have posted it here but at the same time part of me wants to see even more black heroes from Marvel and DC in here kinda like those Marvel Universe Handbook or DC Who's Who montage covers. Off the top of my head specifically I'm thinking Luke Cage, Misty Knight, Blade, the John Stewart Green Lantern and Mr. Fantastic. Don't know if Amanda Waller quite fits the profile of what defines a "super hero" but I'd include her just on general principle.

Ok and now for another kind of black power. Just by chance today I passed through The 4th Annual Vintage Car Show in Downtown Hayward (California) while running some errands and look what they had there. Not at all a fan of the tim burton Batman films (or much of anything from burton for that matter) but I have to admit the batmobile in those movies was one of the few things they had going for them. The tumbler is my favorite though.

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

Adam West passes away at 88

Adam West as The Gray Ghost

Just heard the sad news (leukemia) a couple hours ago and I wanted to get a posting up this weekend with a little bit of my thoughts on West's career. As a kid I kinda used to like the original Batman TV show because like Spiderman on The Electric company it was one of the very few live action outlets available for some of my favorite comic book characters. As I got older I won't lie I did develop a certain degree of disdain for the show because of it's campyness although I certainly never felt that way for West himself who by all accounts has always been a stand up guy in his personal life.
I'm really glad that over the years he managed to in part rejuvenate his show biz career despite his type casting handicap with voice acting work on The Simpsons and The Family Guy. As some of you may remember he was also the voice actor in The Grey Ghost episode of the Batman animated series. That series brought a lot of critical acclaim and respect to the super hero genre and that episode in particular was certainly one of the best if not the best episode of the series. Ironically, West plays an out of work actor who can't couldn't find new acting gigs due to a type casting handicap but would go on to help Batman solve a series of crimes carried out by some psychotic fan boy using sophisticated remote controlled toys.

Ya know I have to admit even though I came to grow weary of the original Batman TV show I always maintained my fondness for the classic Batmobile from that series (I dug the Batboat to). I used to have the original die cast ones from Corgi but at least I still have a couple packaged ones from a Hotwheels release some 8 or 9 years ago which I saw in a Dollar store of all places. Looking back I should have picked up more of them. As a crime fighter you probably don't want to drive around seated in an open canopy (not much protection from gun fire) but that's ok it was such a cool design I still love it till this day.