31 Days of Scans - Favorite Team/Corps/Family

I had some trouble with this one, because I found it vague. When it refers to team, does it mean a general group, like the Avengers, or a certain lineup? There are 3 or 4 specific X-Men rosters I like quite a lot (some because of the stories told with them, others because I thought there was a lot of potential), but I don't give a tinker's damn about any of the current X-groups. I don't even know which teams there are these days. The trend towards vast superhuman armies has something to with that. Who isn't an Avenger these days?

Ultimately, I decided there was one team I like in almost every version, and I went with them. That's the Suicide Squad, provided John Ostrander is writing it. I haven't read Keith Giffen's work, so I can't speak to it one way or the other. But Ostrander's work, oh that's some good stuff. I like the Task Force X years, and the "if you can find them, maybe you can hire. . . the Suicide Squad" years.

The roster changes as frequently as you'd expect with a name like "Suicide Squad". People die, or leave, or just get banged up. New villains get arrested, or new heroes sign on, but it always works, because Ostrander takes the time to flesh them out, make them interesting, make the reader care about them. Dr. Light was mostly a miserable coward and butt of a lot of jokes. He still demonstrated on a couple of occasions that he could be cruel and dangerous, and then he even tried to be the big hero on Apokolips.

Fine, it backfired horribly, and he was left as a ghost, watching Boomerbutt use him as an example of the dangers of heroism. But it was interesting to see that Light recognized there was some strange camaraderie among all these people (even though a bunch of them hate each other), and decide he wanted in. Count Vertigo's this ruthless but flexible individual who struggles with severe hereditary depression problems. Captain Boomerang is a complete scumbag and opportunist, who nonetheless is just skilled and valuable enough he doesn't get killed. Rick Flag's doing the best he can with a job he doesn't want, subordinates he mostly hates, a boss who doesn't trust him, and a massive guilt complex that gets him into trouble. Deadshot. . . Deadshot's just severely messed up, but strangely reliable. If you know how to approach him, you can work with him, assuming you can keep him alive. Waller truly believes she can make something good out of this, and that it needs doing, but she has to compromise herself a lot. Fight dirty, but as she once noted, she's good at that.

It's this bizarre, wonderful mix of people. Ostrander sets up not only the villains as people with motives and backstories (Ivy's initially just trying to do her time and get out, but when she sees a chance to use Vertigo, she jumps at it. Vertigo meanwhile, just wants to free his country from their Soviet puppet government), but a whole support staff. Johnny Economos and his stories about his ex-wives. Waller's niece, Flo, her unrequited love for the Bronze Tiger, and burgeoning friendship with Oracle. Oh yeah, Suicide Squad gave us Barbara Gordon as Oracle. Briscoe, who named his attack 'copter after his dead loved ones, and even sleeps inside. Dr. Legrieve's assistant, Marnie, who gets far too involved in trying to help Deadshot. Father Craemer, trying to provide spiritual guidance to this bizarre cast. It's good, not only because it helps Belle Reve feel like a real place, and the Squad feel like something they actually took the time to plan out when they put it together, but the non-costumed folk make for a nice contrast to bounce off the costumed weirdos.

That comes up a lot with most of the characters, they have these hang-ups that they can't get over that keep causing problems for them. Waller can't stop trying to hoard power and keep secrets, and it backfires. She doesn't confide in Flag, so he creates a huge problem with he starts trying to kill Tolliver and Cray for blackmailing the Squad, even though Waller has it handled. Flag tries to take the responsibility for that on himself, rather than confiding in anyone who might have talked him out of it.

There are all these conflicts with other agencies (Zastrow of the KGB was an interesting foil for Waller, and Stalinoivolk was pretty cool, Eiling and Sarge Steel were opportunistic scumbags), but then sometimes they have to work together

I don't know if the Squad ever had a mission that was actually completely successful. Several were outright disasters, like the first mission to the USSR (to rescue an author who didn't want to be rescued), and the attempt to rescue Hawk when he tried to take part in some civil war in Latin America. The mission to rescue Nightshade's brother, except he was already fully possessed by a demon and waiting for her return. Maybe it's a bad idea to ask a group of super-criminals to rescue people? Waller's plan to keep an eye on Lashina backfired horribly.

Even the moderately successful missions were mostly stopgaps. The team-up with Roy Harper that destroyed a major cocaine distributor, but there are more where he came from. They dealt with Kobra on a couple of different occasions, and the Quaraci super-terrorists Jihad on at least 3 occasions, but it was never anything more than a delaying action. Rick Flag blew up Jihad's base with a damn nuke, and it didn't eliminate them. There's a real question whether you can accomplish much of anything good using methods like the Suicide Squad. Maybe the last story in the ongoing, when they helped take down a different Squad that was propping up a corrupt government. But even then, they're cleaning up a mess started because someone saw what Waller did, and decided to copy it. There are no clean victories for them.

But it gave everyone the chance to be badass at least once, or show off how dangerous they were. OK, not Slipknot, he just looked like a chump, but everyone other than Slipknot got a chance to show off, or in some cases, the opportunity to be humanized a little, so you care about them in spite of their being bad people. Punch and Jewelee are this goofy criminal couple, but they show on a few occasions they can be deadly. At the same time, they're oddly devoted to each other (if completely indifferent to everyone else's suffering), and they were really excited at the prospect of being parents. Boomerang, for all that he's a cowardly scumbag, shows that just because he can't kill the Flash, that doesn't mean you take him lightly. Bronze Tiger holds his own against Stalinoivolk, and then Vixen is the one who shows up and ends the fight. Nightshade took out one of Granny Goodness' Furies, and as you see above, Count Vertigo took out Darkseid's own personal assassin. Everyone gets a chance to show how it is they've survived this long, but it's no guarantee they'll survive the next 5 minutes.

I don't know where the top image is from, but I'm pretty sure it's by Luke McDonnell. Dr. Light and Kanto's deaths are from Suicide Squad #36, by Ostrander (writer), John K. Snyder (layouts), Geof Isherwood (finishes), Todd Klein and John Workman (letterers), and Carl Gafford (colors). Deadshot's brief stint as alarm clock and the group shot of the Soviets are from the first issue of the 2007 Suicide Squad mini-series, by Ostrander (writer), Javier Pina (pencils), Robin Riggs (inker), Rob Leigh (letterer), and Jason Wright (colorist). Boomerang waking up with a massive headache in another dimension is from Suicide Squad #11, by Ostrander (writer), McDonnell (artist), Kleing (letters), and Gafford (colors).