Suicide Squad Issue #8 Review

If this is very confusing for you, you can find previous issues of recounted misery here.

I skipped issue seven, so here’s a basic recap:

Glass further desecrated Harley’s origin story, Savant sounded like an idiot in every piece of dialog, and Lime dies for basically the stupidest reason.
No I mean really, she gets grazed by a bullet, and instead of running away, she gives herself up to the cops…. And then, despite multiple warnings by Waller, she starts telling the cops about Task Force X. So Waller makes her head explode.

most inconsequential death ever

There is literally no reason why Lime did that. What did she think was going to happen!? What did anyone think was going to happen??!?? You can’t just kill off characters for no reason and expect it to have impact. It felt like a big show of “oooh look how edgy we are we can kill anybody.” Uh, newsflash, killing off a character that only existed from the last issue isn’t edgy. It’s easy. She was nobody. This wasn’t like killing off Ned Stark at the end of A Game of Thrones. This was like killing off…Like killing off…Well, like killing off that one character that probably has a name, but you don’t remember it because why would you even care.

Also Harley Quinn makes out with Deadshot while he’s wearing Joker’s severed face.

das not sexy

Anyway, issue eight pushes the bar for stupidity and terrible art that’s hard to look at! Good for you, issue eight! You go, issue eight!

While the cover is an awful clusterfuck of imperfect composition and an embarrassing lack of color scheme, it’s probably the least offensive cover yet.

Welcome to Hell

I keep wanting to subtitle these reviews with “WELCOME TO HELL” but I’m pretty sure this series beat me to it at some point. (Well, we had “ABANDON ALL HOPE” in issue five.)

The very first panel of the comic is this image:

what ew

After careful inspection, it appears to be a car dumping Lime’s headless body into the street.
Ignoring the fact that she appears to be an amorphous blob with limbs (seriously what the HELL), she was last seen being taken into custody by the police. The police, who decided to dump the corpse of a supervillain who has been mysteriously assassinated right in front of the GCPD building? Instead of like, I dunno, bagging and tagging her for the morgue? (Then again, this is Gotham.) Did Task Force X agents retrieve her body from the cops so that they could……..dump it in the street? I don’t understand the thought process behind panels like these. The only conclusion I can come to is “they care even less than we do.”

Either way, this issue kicks off with a flashback to the end of the last issue, with Deadshot, uh, shooting Harley. While apparently a shot to the shoulder is enough to kill one of her cultists, Harley’s gaping stomach wound merely knocks her unconscious while Floyd takes the time to call Waller for pickup. Also can anyone explain the panel transition here to me?

Because it looks like he’s somehow managed to, in between those pieces of dialog (stupid dialog to boot), get from the chair where he was tied up, to wiping his face on the floor. Or is that his arm? What’s with the phone cord when he’s wearing an earpiece?? Is it just nonsensical composition?

By the way guys, this is just the first page.

Soon we’re back in Belle Reve, watching Waller lecture at a deeply unconscious Harley Quinn as though she expects her to listen. The conversation goes, expectedly, something like this:

Waller: For all anyone knows, you never left Belle Reve and went on a crazy killing spree, ARE WE CLEAR?!??
Harley: (IS UNCONSCIOUS)

Also I’m not really sure how Waller’s supposed to cover up Harley’s mass murder-thon. I mean, she’s KINDA DISTINCTIVE LOOKING, not to mention the MUTANT HARLEY QUINN CULTISTS. Oh yeah, Harley Quinn? Man she had nothing to do with that don’t be a dunce.

Waller then goes on to pointlessly insult the traumatized doctor working on keeping Harley alive. I’ll chalk that one up to Glass knowing that Waller is supposed to be a hard-hitting bitch, but not actually knowing how to write that. (That’s the same as senseless bitchery, right?) The doctor and Waller stick a needle in Harley to revitalize her and

no this is the opposite of good

JESUS CHRIST THAT IS AN IMAGE I COULD DO WITHOUT EVER HAVING IN MY LIFE
By the way, apparently both Waller and the doctor didn’t figure to take the hose out of Harley’s throat BEFORE waking her up, so we get three panels of naked, distorted Harley flopping around trying not to asphyxiate and it is just as horrible as you imagine.

The first words she utters after her near-death experience are “jumpin’ jillikers” and FUCK YOUUUUUUUU

Waller continues to prove that she’s not actually Waller by calling Harley stupid names, making stupidly empty threats, and then saying “your ass belongs to me ‘snookums.”
Besides how wildly embarrassing that dialog is, let’s all take a moment to ask ourselves why Waller would possibly ever allow Harley back into the field after all the shit she just pulled.

The rest of the issue is mostly Waller checking in with the rest of the Suicide Squad. Notably, Tattoo Guy (El Diablo?) is getting his tattoos redone because apparently using them to fuel his powers means that they disappear? To which I say, “YOU HAVE A STUPID POWER.” How did he even make it as a supervillain in the first place? All you have to do to beat him is make him use up all of his tattoos. And why doesn’t he just use temporary tattoos if he’s just gonna use ‘em up anyway?? It seems cheaper and less painful.

Economical!

Deadshot on the other hand… Deadshot is good at shooting things. That’s his schtick. But apparently his run-in with Harley and her gross flesh mask  leaves him so rattled that he’s lost his eagle-eye shooting abilities. I would say that after such a disturbing event, it’s reasonable for someone to be traumatized but THIS IS DEADSHOT, COLD-BLOODED ASSASSIN, TOE-TO-TOE WITH BATMAN ON A REGULAR BASIS?? And he’s rattled by a little roleplay with HARLEY?

With Deadshot’s newfound uselessness, Waller chastises him, “as team leader, I don’t want you getting your team killed.” To which he replies:

Super sexy up-your-nose perspective

Ignoring the questionable angle of this shot (Waller, you might wanna get a hold of your eye before it escapes your face completely), AMANDA WALLER ARE YOU AN IDIOT. There’s getting what you want, and there’s being self contradictory. If he believes that his leadership will lead the team to their deaths, which you seem a bit AVERSE TO, it might be GOOD to not have him LEAD.

LOGIC WHAT’S THAT

Also did I forget to mention that Floyd’s regrowing his famous mustache back?

Puns

Okay look, I love puns, but jesus christ. Judging by Waller’s reaction, even Adam Glass knew that was terrible.

Savant’s scene fails to give him any personality at all again.
Well, he does come off as an idiot still, but it’s sort of run of the mill idiot and I am so sorry I like Savant too everyone this hurts me too.
Thankfully his scene implies that he might be leaving the book. Greener pastures, my friend.

So you know how King Shark ate Yo-Yo for no reason? Well, back in Issue six there was this non-sequitur of a panel.

Yeah apparently Yo-yo’s was just hangin’ out in King Shark’s esophagus for an issue or so. We didn’t see hide nor hair of him in issue seven, but I don’t know if we’re supposed to assume he’s actually dead or not. Maybe Glass just forgot about him, like we all did? Because I mean, if Yo-yo wanted to get out…

He probably has breath too

…He probably would’ve had more luck coming out now to Waller than he did pleading with the upside-down Quinn Cultist.
My little brother says that maybe King Shark is trying to hide the fact that Yo-yo’s alive or that he ate him or whatever for some nefarious purpose down the line, but I would say so far, Adam Glass hasn’t demonstrated that kind of plotting ability.
I would also like to mention that while saying this, my little brother is crushing two pieces of white bread together into a single piece. He’s sixteen.

Finally, through all of this, there are flashbacks from a purposely indiscernible point of view of a Kevin Smith lookalike being passive aggressive at the person we’re looking through the eyes of. What we’re supposed to get from it is that one member of the team was brainwashed by Hydra Basilisk to infiltrate Task Force X and betray them.

You know, kind of like what Harley Quinn did in the last arc.

 

Arielle Sorkin

Generally nervous human being.

One thought to “Suicide Squad Issue #8 Review”

  1. Spoilers! I haven’t finished A Game Of Thrones yet.
    Also, that tattooed guy is probably The Tattooed Man.

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