Oh yeah, here's the good stuff. I was tempted to use the splash page from #13, as a mirror to the one I used for Justice League International, but if I;m going to talk about Suicide Squad, I have to talk about the Wall.
Ostrander created Amanda Waller, and despite rarely being directly involved in missions through the first 3 years of the book, she's always the gravitational force the book rotates around. It's her suggestion to Reagan to use incarcerated super-villains to handle jobs for which the U.S. government would prefer deniability. The Dirty Dozen, but with superpowers, essentially. A few recurring villains (and a few heroes to keep them under control), with others on both sides of the bars rotating in and out on an as-needed basis.
Waller's a wonderful character. She's atypical in her appearance, not just in being a black woman in a position of authority. She's short and wide, but in no way a comedy sidekick. She's an older woman,, with grown children and a murdered husband, and it shows in her face. She's got lines and wrinkles, she's been through some shit.
But beyond that, she a character that both truly believes Task Force X is a good concept that can do valuable work to protect the world, while being motivated by the desire to have power that will grant her control over things. She's principled enough to object to the Squad being used to rescue an imprisoned dissident Soviet author (who, it turns out, doesn't want to be rescued), but also ruthless (she would no doubt argue pragmatic) enough to turn her back on rescuing Nemesis when he's caught by the Soviets during that mission. Or to publicly stand down as head of Task Force X after a congressional investigation, only to have her replacement be an actor who is merely the public face while she continues to run things from behind the scenes. She'll stare down Batman without blinking, but she can admit when she's in the wrong, assuming there's anyone around whose opinion she respects to point it out.
And that's the arc of the first 3 years of the book. Waller keeps grasping for power, keeps pushing for control, and it gradually burns out all the people who act as a check on her. It's hard work to push back against a relentless Wall every day. And as those people - Dr. LeGrieve, Nemesis, Nightshade, Rick Flag - depart in one form or the other, Waller only plays her cards closer to the vest, only grasps even further, too sure she's got it all under control because there's no one pointing out she doesn't. And it all blows up in a 3-issue arc where most of the Squad ends up on Apokolips, which is not a good place for them.
It isn't all grim, however. Ostrander works in humor here and there. The addition of Dr. Light, when he was still a walking punchline, or Punch and Jewlee and their oddball married couple routine. Reverend Craemer, as an outsider, is able to make observations with a dry wit. Captain Boomerang is, as Dave's Long Box once noted, a complete and utter dick. Which makes it fun when his scheme of committing crimes as Mirror Master leads to his being pranked by the entire prison. The mystery of the Pie Thrower, who manages to get even Lois Lane at one point
(Ostrander doesn't bring in the A-listers much, but it makes sense when he does. Batman would object to criminals being released early. Lois Lane would absolutely dig into something like Task Force X. Pity we didn't see Lois and Waller clash more.)
Luke McDonnell is the series artist for the first two years, and parts of the third year. The series doesn't lend itself to some of the larger spectacle that his time on Justice League of America with Gerry Conway did, so the skills he showed there doesn't get much run. The battles are smaller scale, fought uglier, dirtier. The art is usually less flashy, the characters drawn with less exaggerated physiques, the colors less eye-catching. Boomerang kills a super-speedster in the opening arc by stunning him with a boomerang to the back of the head, then simply kicking him off the roof in a tall narrow panel McDonnell does in shadow.
He gets to cut loose occasionally. The back half of the issue that splash page is from involves the Squad traveling to another dimension to rescue Nightshade's brother. There are some freaky temples and shadow monsters in those issues, as well as some nice work in panels where some sorcerer guy is burned up and shattered from within right in front of them. The main cast still look the same, not too dynamic, typically overwhelmed or dwarfed by what they're up against, but the surroundings are a far cry from the usual setting. After that, they wind up in an entirely different place and encounter Shade, the Changing Man, who hangs around for the next 20+ issues.
But that's one of the fun things about Suicide Squad. Amid the late-stage Cold War struggle and Islamic terrorism-related threats, you'd get arcs where they end up in another dimension, or discrediting some white supremacist who's trying a Robin Hood shtick.
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