Sunday Splash Page #380

"Dossier", in New America #1, by John Ostrander and Kim Yale (writers), Gary Kwapisz (penciler), Aubrey Bradford (inker), Sam Parsons (colorist), Tim Harkins (letterer)

One of these days, Saturday Splash Page will actually get to Tim Truman's Scout - some day, maybe - but for today, the other of the 2 mini-series set in the gap between Scout and Scout: War Shaman (the first being Swords of Texas.)

New America follows the rise of Scout's old acquaintance Rosa Winters from soldier, to general, to, at the very end, President of the new United States of America. Each issue centers around a single operation. Most of them are collaborations between the coalition government Rosa's working for and Israel, and serve as sort of window into the state of the world in this timeline. In issue 1, Rosa convinces the priest brother of a dead revolutionary to take up the cause and spur the people of Baja into revolt after the Communist Mexican government agrees to sell the province to Japan in exchange for munitions factories.

In the second issue, Rosa and the Mossad squad wipe out the royal family of the Kingdom of Alaska in such a way that both Russia and Canada (the two larger powers that flank the kingdom and which it uneasily plays) think the other is responsible. The third issue is a rescue mission of the Pope, held captive in Colombia by a drug lord that runs the country.

The course of the story is that Rosa grows hardened against loss or betrayal. Father Galvez is assassinated during a speech in issue 1, but Rosa catches a glimpse of one of the Mossad agents slipping away with a sniper rifle in the chaos. Dead martyrs are easier to control than live ideologues. Rosa has no qualms killing the sniper when the opportunity presents itself during the liquidation of the Alaskan royal family in the second issue, or at killing the rest of the squad at the end of issue 3 to ensure the Pope stays in America's hands rather than Israel's. Earlier in that issue, one of the Israelis had mentioned that Rosa was their friend, but the other squadmembers are their family, as is their country. And so, when she kills them, Rosa explains that her country is her family, and friends come second to that.

Politics may make strange bedfellows, but never one you sleep with your back to, apparently.

This hardening of the soul, the shearing away of compassion or mercy, is mirrored in her external appearance. She loses a hand in the first issue, replaced by a cybernetic one with guns built in. It's those she uses to kill her former friends and allies, the guns responding to her thoughts, something she explained required a lot of practice and control to use properly. Which is true; she doesn't take the hand off while she sleeps, so imagine the potential risk if your head rested on your hand and you had the wrong stray thought?

The final issue begins with her appearing to die, shot down in an ambush brought on by Israel selling her out to President Bill Loper. Because Israel gets the Pope back in exchange, though neither side has any illusions about this being some long-term partnership. Just as Mexico and Japan each thought their arrangement was the key to the eventual conquest of the other. The end result is, Rosa becomes leader of what's left of the opposition, but now both hands are cybernetic, along with one eye and ear.She keeps her face hidden now, behind sunglasses and a bandanna, beret pulled low.

She hires the gun-runners from Swords of Texas to act as a lure for Loper's tank forces, so she can ambush them with what's left of her army. There's no qualms about letting Banner's people sweat for a bit while surrounded by enemy tanks, because it's the best way to make sure the ambush works. And for that battle, Rosa's pilots a specially-modified tank that she can plug her hands into and control with her mind. (The way Kwapisz draws it, she reminds me a little of that member of the X-Men foes the Reavers that has a tank for a lower body.) Loper flees, and Rosa pursues him all the way to his broadcast station, where she murders him in the middle of a televised plea to the nation.

Appeals to the populace are a big part of this mini-series. Galvez is killed during a speech encouraging the workers of Baja to unionize and resist both the Mexican and Japanese governments. The pope brings about his own rescue with a public address, which Mossad makes sure isn't interrupted, that announces he's held prisoner by the drug lord and probably going to be killed. Loper goes for a similar approach, though it feels more like a man on his deathbed, pleading with his Maker. But the Pope and Galvez were true believers in their causes. Loper might be religious, though it feels like the bullshit, mega-church televangelist type, but he just wants to save his own neck.

Issue 2 lacks that angle, but it's also the issue where Rosa spares the youngest daughter of the Alaskan royal family, ultimately adopting and renaming her after the President Rosa served before Loper had her killed. It's the little bit of mercy and kindness she's demonstrates, her one action in the mini-series that isn't motivated by political maneuvering or revenge.

Sunday Splash Page #373

"Monkey's Paw," in Munden's Bar Annual #2, by Kim Yale (writer), Hilary Barta (writer/artist/colorist), Willie Schubert (letterer)

Like a freak snowstorm in May, Grim Spring returns without warning!

We didn't talk about Munden's Bar much when discussing GrimJack three years ago, but it was a back-up story that ran most months. Typically, though far from always, more light-hearted than John Gaunt's adventures, and featuring a wide variety of guest artists, writers and stars. First Comics did two annuals, one in 1988 and the other in 1991, each a mixture of stories that ran previously in GrimJack and new stories.

Most Munden's Bar stories fall into two categories: Those that are about the bar and Gordon the bartender or the other regular customers; and those that are really just about having some notable guest-star from a different book show up. To the latter, this annual reprints the story from GrimJack #26 where the Ninja Turtles came to Munden's looking for a spaceship they could hitch a ride on back to Earth (if I remember the results of the annual poll First Comics ran, was the best-selling but least-popular Munden's Bar story that year), and end up first in a brawl, then in a dance contest. But the annual also includes Evan Dorkin having Milk & Cheese show up to wreak havoc, and Kate Worley and Reed Waller include a story where Omaha the Cat Dancer tries to escape a police raid by ducking into the bathroom and comes out in Munden's.

Those stories tend to feel weak, since they boil down to, "Hey, here's this character you might know from entirely different comics!" Not much else to them, and if you don't care about the character in question, the story hangs on nothing. Not always; the back-up in GrimJack #40 would probably fall under this category and I love it. But I tend to prefer the ones that are more about Munden's or Cynosure in general.

The first annual reprints a story - "Doppelgangster," drawn by Jerry Ordway - where a cop, heartbroken that his wife's been cheating on him with a sleazebag, sees said sleazebag murder him in the mirror over the bar. Except the mirror is actually a window to a parallel dimension. So the cop goes looking to avenge "his" murder. The story for the above image was a new one, although the drunk magician, Foody Magicker, is a character that had shown up and caused mayhem a couple of times previously. In this case, he's not even doing magic for free drinks ("tricky, drinky, drinky, tricky" as he puts it in one of those earlier stories.)

It's not included in the annuals, but I was always fond of "Closing Time" (written by John Ostrander and Del Close, drawn by Rich Burchett) from GrimJack #8, which is, as the title implies, what Gordon does to close down the bar every night. It ends with an amusing 4th-wall break that also gets neatly at how inured Gordon is to strange things, from living in this city and tending this particular bar.

Sunday Splash Page #326

 

"Masks and Manes", in Manhunter #14, by Kim Yale and John Ostrander (writers), Doug Rice (penciler), Pablo Marcos (inker), Julianna Ferriter (colorist), Albert De Guzman (letterer)

The most well-known Manhunter is probably either Goodwin and Simonson's Paul Kirk, the super-soldier unfrozen by a secretive "Council" to lead an army of clones of himself (only to end up killing those clones), or Marc Andreyko's Kate Spencer, the district attorney who borrows a bunch of supervillain gear to become a lethal avenger of the night.

But the first Manhunter to get their own series, which ran for two years, is Mark Shaw. Shaw has some backstory about being part of a Manhunter (the proto-Green Lantern killer 'bots) cult, and as part of that, pretending to be both a JLA-fighting super-villain, and a merc hero type (under separate identities.) I can barely follow that even when Ostrander and Yale try to explain it.

The important part is Mark received a lot of training, but at the cost of his sense of self. Now he's trying to rediscover himself as a person, while using that training as a bounty hunter (and solver of other assorted problems.)

Ostrander and Yale try to thread the needle between more serious missions and threats, and sillier ones. So Shaw might get a line on Captain Cold because Cold's a Cubs' fan and bets on them - to win, the dumbass - religiously. Or he might keep Catman from escaping a museum heist by altering the cops to a particular car with a lot of unpaid tickets, and Catman's finds his getaway vehicle booted.

Those tend to be more interludes than long-running threads. There's a lot of stuff with Mark's family and his place in it. He's adopted, so he doesn't feel like he fits, and the family is loaded, full of CEOs and attorneys, so a career as a costumed skip tracer isn't the done thing. Lots of recriminations, guilt, harsh words on all sides there. Mark has to deal with two versions of a superhuman, shapeshifting, questionably sane assassin. The latter fight, which takes up most of the last quarter of the book's run, puts Mark's family in the line of fire and forces him to more fully confront his time in the Manhunter cult. It's not putting it behind him, so much as making peace with the bad and assimilating the good.

Also, it involves a benevolent telepathic alien Yeti, so there's that.

The book and character sort of spun out of Ostrander using him during the Millennium event tie-ins for Suicide Squad, so Shaw interacts with Waller a couple of times, gets some help from Oracle and Waller's niece (the one who died on Apokolips). He gets tangled up in The Janus Directive, which is a better tie-in than the Invasion! one, where Wally West's harridan of a mother hires Shaw to go to Cuba and rescue Wally (aka the Flash) from aliens, or Castro, or something. I think it's an attempt at a more lighthearted story, the whole thing a big stupid mess, but it's not funny, so it doesn't work. The one where he takes a job from an Australian salvage company to stake first claim on some alien war-mech that got left over, and finds Checkmate, the Rocket Reds and Lexcorp all after it too, works better.

Doug Rice draws most of the first year-and-a-half of the book, with Grant Miehm taking over for the final arc. Rice's art is looser than Miehm's, more malleable to comic exaggeration. Mark's mask is more expressive under his pencils, almost fluid at times. Rice uses shadows to break up panels or guide the eye more than Miehm, but Miehm's heavier line probably fits the grimmer, more brutal fight with Dumas at the end.

Random Back Issues #125 - Suicide Squad #41

Now we know Captain Boomerang buys his gear from Acme.

Alright, Amanda Waller was released from prison last issue, because the U.S. government needs someone to deal with the Soviets getting involved in suppressing a revolution in Vlatava. Batman's involved, too, after investigating the murder of a cargo hauler on the Gotham docks led him right into the Steel Wolf, Stalnoivolk. Batsy's not too happy about working with Waller, but he's never happy, so whatever.

By now, Stalnoivolk's in Vlatava, watching the incumbent leader's forces get trounced by the Vlatavan rebels, led by a manic Count Vertigo. The Russian super-speedsters Blue Trinity are there in plainclothes, but they aren't doing any better against Vertigo, and his power even messes with missile guidance systems, so forget using those.

So the Steel Wolf picks up Molotov, and chucks the Russian with the exploding power at Vertigo. Doesn't kill him, does knock him flat, putting the rebels in retreat. Stalnoivolk's more concerned with the notion someone tried to double-cross him in Gotham, but Zastrow (essentially Waller's Soviet counterpart) is more concerned with General Kaligari, current ruler of Vlatava. The general wants more overt support from the USSR. Tanks and soldiers and such. Zastrow points out the Red Shadows are meant to counter Vertigo, while keeping Soviet involvement under the radar, but recognizes Kaligari could out their presence to make Gorbachev look bad, on the chance it gets him replaced with a more hardline leader. Which is something Stalnoivolk might appreciate as well. So maybe he blew his own cover?

With thought processes like this, it would be a miracle if every real-world intelligence agency didn't decimate itself.

While all that's going on, Waller's getting the team back together. First to Paris, where Vixen's showing off one of her own designs on the catwalk. She's not keen on rejoining the Squad, until Waller mentions she knows where Ben Turner, the Bronze Tiger, is. Ben flipped out (or was induced into a breakdown) courtesy of Sarge Steel around the time the Squad fell apart, then vanished. Mari's concerned, so she's in.

Ben's not doing well, or even thinking of himself as "Ben." The two start fighting, to the amusement of some dipshit Great White Hunter. But Alan Buck-and-a-Quartermain catches a bottle in the face from Waller and she uses his machine gun to end the lover's spat. Ben doesn't want to wipe the paint he regards as his face away, but Waller ain't having any of it, and what the Wall wants, she gets.

Meanwhile, Batman's in Puerto Azul's capital, where General Vaca's reign is going down the toilet, to his indifference, and a conniving Poison Ivy's fury. But it's fine, she's drained the treasury and she's got her own guards to help her escape. Oh, wait, Batman's here to tell her that her accounts are frozen, and her guards. . .

Yep, the inevitable result of combining "Batman" and "goons." If Ivy wants out, it'll be with him, and she'll have to work to earn her escape. From there, Bats travels to London, where Ravan set up shop, killing people as part of his beliefs that he delays the arrival of Kali by doing so. Batman blows up the church and walks out with Ravan slung over his shoulder. 

That's four. Who's Waller picking for her fifth? Why none other than Ol' Boomerbutt, looking much the worse for wear after a year on the island where she stranded him after his exposure as the Mystery Pie Thrower. In fact, Boomerang's about to launch himself off the island - and to his death - on a giant boomerang he's constructed out of - actually, I don't know what he made it out of. Palm fronds? Either way, Vixen launches it prematurely and once Digger sees it smashed to pieces on the rocks, agrees to join up.

Well, the team's assembled, what can go wrong? Maybe a shadowy figure who is aware of all this, and tells Deadshot to kill Waller?

{10th longbox, 280th comic. Suicide Squad #41, by Kim Yale and John Ostrander (writers), Geof Isherwood (artist), Carl Gafford (colorist), Todd Klein (letterer)}

Saturday Splash #112

"Into the Kobra's Fangs," in Suicide Squad #47, by John Ostrander and Kim Yale (writer), Geof Isherwood (artist), Tom McCraw (colorist), Todd Klein (letterer)

Issue #39 of Suicide Squad ended with Task Force X officially shut down, and Waller in prison for killing the heads of the Loa. Also, she let Ravan, Deadshot and Poison Ivy go free after they helped with that, as promised. As much as I've always wondered what Waller got up to that year in prison, the next issue began a new era for the book, what I'd call the "plainclothes" or "A-Team" era, which continued until the book's conclusion two years later.

Essentially, the higher-ups recognize they still need something like the Suicide Squad to deal with certain, unpleasant, problems, and Waller's the best combination of smart, hard-nosed and honorable to put such a thing together. But Waller's done being a civil servant, that just gets her left holding the bag when some politico orders her to make miracles out of a P.R. stunt. Now, the Squad are an independent group for hire. It gives Waller, and anyone who works for her, right of refusal, but also means there's no government protection if things go wrong.

But the pay is a lot better!

Ostrander and Kim Yale, who were co-writing the book by this point, retain some of the other core characters. Deadshot, who had become a compelling character with his own set of rules and perspective, but has to, in a sense, kill himself at one point. Captain Boomerang's still there, being a shitheel. There's a recurring gag after Boomerbutt causes he and Deadshot to get separated from their gear, where Deadshot makes casual threats about killing Boomerang, or debates whether to shoot or save him at different times. Waller and Vixen find Bronze Tiger, who's suffered his own nervous breakdown and is trying to act like a cold, ruthless man. Vixen wisely recognizes the emotional minefield that is and gets gone after two missions. Poison Ivy joins to save her butt from angry revolutionaries (this version is a far cry from the ecologically-mined version that exists today), and manipulates Count Vertigo, who begins contemplating ending his life.

If anything, this Squad is less psychologically stable than the earlier versions were.

There's also the mysterious Oracle, who had been helping the Squad going back to the Belle Reve days behind an anonymous identity. She was eventually revealed to be Barbara Gordon, Ostrander and Yale laying the groundwork to rehab the character after the DC muck-a-mucks decided The Killing Joke just had to be part of post-Crisis on the Infinite Earths canon. There's even an arc where Oracle takes command while Waller's incapacitated, maybe an early dry run for her Birds of Prey. And there's the Atom, seen above. The writers keep his identity a secret for less than a year, but then play with the questions of how he got a size-changing belt, and where Ray Palmer's at.

Geof Isherwood is the penciler for much of this stretch, with a variety of inkers, including himself, Luke McDonnell, and Karl Kesel. Where McDonnell tended to make the characters fairly squared-off, all sharp lines and stark shadows, Isherwood rounds the appearances more. The shading is more gradual, the faces more fleshy and textured. The angles used for perspective within the panels seems to vary more, things getting tilted or dynamic as another situation goes to hell. The new version of the Suicide Squad is in more of a grey area than ever, operating for briefcases of cash exchanged in conversations and meetings that never officially took place.

The lines about which side is "right" are obscured further, brought home forcefully in the final arc, when Waller's squad has to contend with a C.I.A.-sponsored version that's propping up a Latin American dictatorship, as the C.I.A. traditionally does. It prompts some soul-searching in Waller, or simply gets her to admit what she's known for a long time. This is a far cry from the version DC has today, who draws no lines in what she'll do, and expresses no remorse or regret for any of it.

Wasted a perfectly good character, they did.

The book seems to bring in bigger names as guest-stars. Maybe because the Squad has no official standing, so it's harder for the government to keep them out. Or because it allows for more variety in the types of situations they deal with, and where. Batman pops up a couple of times, once with Aquaman and Superman. Black Adam shows up for a 1-issue War of the Gods tie-in, that's more notable for involving Grant Morrison's stand-in from their Animal Man run.

Random Back Issues #99 - Suicide Squad #63

How in the blue hell did I make it through 98 of these before landing on Suicide Squad? Friggin' dice are rigged, man.

This is the last story arc of the original run, and we open on the island of Diabloverde, where we find a man running for his life down the streets. He gets attacked by a bunch of super-powered losers - Deadline, Bolt, Blockbuster, Sudden Death, and Shrapnel - for being out after curfew. During their game of Hot Potato Homicide, Bolt mentions that the gig may be boring, but it pays well and they get time off their jail sentences. Hmmmm.

Two locals, Maria and Rimon, look on in horror, but this is all a diversion to cover Maria reaching the coast and sailing to the U.S. Where she will kill Amanda Waller, as one does. Waller and her team are currently based at the Institute for Meta-Human Studies, and The Wall's enlisted the help of old cast member Dr. Simon Legrieve and the Dybbuk, a sentient AI working for the Israeli super-team. They want to help another AI, dubbed Ifrit, created by the group Jihad and based on Mindboggler, who died in the first story arc of the book after Captain Boomerang let her get gunned down. It's Waller's hope Dybbuk can release her of the programming insisting she kill the Squad.

While she and the others wait, Maria infiltrates the building and takes Boomerbutt hostage, although he's all too happy to lead her to Waller. I'm reminded of what Dave Campbell said on his blog, Dave's Long Box, lo those many years ago: Captain Boomerang is a complete and utter dick. What a great character.

They show up just as something is starting to happen with Dybbuk and Ifrit. Ramban can't just whip up a spell whilly-nilly, so he settles for a nifty light show and promising to send Maria to Hell via the 'Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth.' The threat of being in the crossfire kicks Boomerang's self-preservation into gear and he disarms Maria with a nifty elbow to the gut/judo flip combo, as Dybbuk and Mindboggler emerge.

Except Mindboggler prefers to be called her true name, Leah Wasserman. Mindboggler was nothing more than 'a reaction to her upbringing.' She's also convinced Dybbuk to take a more human name, and now Leah and "Lenny" are getting married. Everyone except Colonel Hacohen is in favor of this, and Ramban points out the Colonel is not Lenny's father and has no say. Besides, Leah seems like a 'nice Jewish program.'

Well, that's all very amusing, but Boomerbutt's still got the would-be Gavrillo Princip in a hammerlock. Waller asks what the deal is, and doesn't like what she hears: the Suicide Squad is on the loose in Diabloverde. A man named Edwardo Guzman gained powers from the metagene bomb and used them to overthrow the previous regime. He was elected president, but began calling himself Guedhe, a god of death, and shut down everything while declaring himself dictator for life. Which could be a problem since he seemingly couldn't be killed. When a resistance rose up, the Suicide Squad arrived to back Guzman.

I must confess confusion as to why, if he's shut their economy down. What's the U.S. get with no production of crops or exploitation of natural resources? Waller puts in some calls and Professional Shithead Sarge Steel confirms the CIA stole her idea. You know, Sergeant Rock had to fight a Nazi with a metal hand, and I bet we've never seen that guy and Sarge Steel in the same place. Makes you think.

Waller demands a peso from Maria and tells her she's just hired the Suicide Squad to liberate her country. Ostrander used this bit - the merc being hired for a ridiculously small amount - in GrimJack, too. Boomerang of course raises a fuss, but Waller points out she'll cover everyone's fees with her shares of their previous jobs, and he didn't seem too concerned about Maria killing Waller, so he's going, or else. Because this is the Squad's last ride, baby.

There are a couple of pages about Deadshot's costume being sent to him in the mail, after he symbolically "killed" himself several issues ago, someone contacting Cliff Carmichael, the current Thinker with an unknown offer. Also a delegation from Vlatava ask Count Vertigo to resume leadership of their country to help stabilize it, but the Count is too depressed and suicidal to be certain it's a good idea.

{10th longbox, 256th comic. Suicide Squad #63, by John Ostrander and Kim Yale (writers), Geof Isherwood (penciler), Robert Campanella (inker), Tom McCraw (colorist), Todd Klein (letterer)}

Random Back Issues #72 - GrimJack #64

John Gaunt's looking a bit different than the last time we saw him, but that's because he's also a guy named Jim Twilley!

By this point, we're following one of GrimJack's reincarnations, 200 years later. He's still getting the right people pissed off at him, though. Hired by a man named Alfred Godden, who feared he was going to be killed by someone named Dis, Twilley arrived to find Godden dead. Godden's daughter shouted an accusation at him, which is enough for Justice Drok (has to be a Judge Dredd spoof) to carry out an execution.

Gaunt/Twilley gets a reprieve in the form of Justice Peece, who resembles Commissioner Gordon a bit. Peece is a robot cop capable of non-linear thinking, so he's been assigned to investigate murders. Peece hears GrimJack out, who explains Godden believed he was going to be killed by someone named Dis, for doing them dirty in a past life. Godden's daughter explains she was just pissed GrimJack didn't protect her dad, so Peece commutes the sentence and takes over the investigation, sending both Drok and GrimJack on their way. 

Neither is happy about it, but Drok can't disobey programming. Gaunt however, does as he pleases, and heads to the suburbs. The Bainbridge family's kid had lots of souls, but only inhabited the body at the time. The rest roaming Cynosure, learning anything they want. Like, possibly the location of a person named Dis. Chuckie's not interested in sharing, but Twilley's magic speaks louder and the kid coughs up the goods. Chuckie relinquishes the body back to Zack, who breaks down sobbing. At the dad's question of how he did that, GrimJack only replies 'I know the dark better than you son will ever know it.' That's an understatement. Also awkwardly worded.

Meanwhile, a group called the Ninth Circle, is making backup plans. They're a bunch of demons using human bodies for shells, including Godden's daughter. The Circle isn't convinced they can pull off their scheme without some help, so they summon a 'True Hell's Angel,' TDP bike cop Jericho Noleski. Who arrives on a flaming motorcycle with four cans of a six pack left.

The last time Noleski showed up was 200 years (and 14 issues) ago, when he drove into a demon gate to seal it up as a final act. Hard to believe he only drank two of those beers in all that time, but Hell probably has some decent booze, and Noleski's the sort who would find it.

GrimJack, following Chuckie's information, heads to the Thatcher Building. An entire apartment block on wheels, endlessly circling a massive highway, offering temporary housing for the poorest of the poor. Dis is hanging out inside Li Ho Fok's opium den. They don't remember killing anyone, but do know about the Ninth Circle. And that's because. . . well, if you had, "Dis is the first thing formed after the great battle between two primal gods and created the multiverse," you are correct. Also, you're probably cheating.

Dis created different universes by dreaming them, but lost energy in the process. They created the demons to build Cynosure to gather back that energy so Dis could achieve full strength, split back into the two gods, and start the whole thing over. The demons decided they preferred the universe gradually burn out, and designed a building to keep Dis trapped. Essentially, the Big Bang/Big Crunch theory versus the entropic universe theory. Did the Legion of Superheroes do that with Time Trapper versus the Infinity Man or something?

Anyway, GrimJack destroyed that trap 200 years (and 10 issues) ago. Dis isn't sure they care whether the demons succeed in killing them or not, and neither is GrimJack. If Dis dies and Cynosure eventually burns out, Gaunt can't keep being reborn, since his fate is tied to the city. Sure, but how quickly does that happen? There's gotta be a quicker way to end that cycle.

That's about when Noleski makes the scene. GrimJack tries getting his attention, but remember what I said about Noleski plunging into a demon gate? Gaunt's partially the reason Jericho needed to make a grand final act at that moment, so Jericho goes ahead and causes the building to crash.

In the Munden's Bar back-up (set 200 years in the past), a reporter waits for his informant, I mean snitch. Flea had been a series regular whenever Gaunt needed information, but even he has scruples. Mac Heath (who was the loan shark that was an literal shark in GrimJack #29) killed a judge brutally enough, Flea's gonna tell the papers. If he makes it to Munden's Bar.

[5th longbox, 10th comic. GrimJack #64, "Catspaw" by John Ostrander (writer), Flint Henry (penciller/inker), Gerald Horton (inker), Martin Thomas (colorist), Gary Fields (letterer). "Snitch" by Kim Yale (writer), Tony Akins (penciller), Tom Baxa (inker), Paul Mounts (colorist), Gary Fields (letterer)]

Sunday Splash Page #142

 

"Everybody's Looking Over His Shoulder," in Deadshot (vol. 1) #1, by John Ostrander and Kim Yale (writers), Luke McDonnell (artist), Julianna Ferritier (colorist), Tom Harkins (letterer) 

Released in the winter of 1988, this was Ostrander and Yale taking the chance to flesh out Deadshot's backstory and family history, to try and explain why he was how he was. Why is he so indifferent to his own life, or anyone else's? Besides the fact it makes him do cool stuff, I mean. In this first issue, he pretends to be for hire to get close to a drug lord named El Jefe, who stays on the move in airplanes constantly. When he points out one stray shot from Floyd will depressurize the cabin and kill everyone, including Lawton, Deadshot's response is "So?"

There's a great panel of the three guys around him with their jaws dropped right after that.

The real plot's kicked off by the abduction of Floyd's son. While Floyd heads off in pursuit, his therapist at Belle Reve, Marnie Herrs, tries to go digging into his past. Because she's become too attached and wants to save Floyd. Which gets her tangled in the twisted mess of loathing and backstabbing that is Floyd's parents' relationship. There's a lot in there about the two of them, and the social class they ran in, that apparently informs Floyd's perspective on relationships with women. There's also a lot about Floyd and his deceased older brother, Eddie. "Good" brother versus "bad", which I know Ostrander used as part of why Deadshot deliberately misses when he aims at Batman.

I would imagine a lot of it's hokum in any real psychological sense, but it makes interesting ground for writers to play in.

The fallout from this mini-series would come due in Suicide Squad at basically the same time, when Waller tells Deadshot to make sure Rick Flag doesn't kill a senator by any means necessary. Floyd's approach is. . . innovative? Or maybe just a valuable lesson for the Wall to better define her variables when it comes to Deadshot.

For a story about some damaged people trying to screw each other over because of petty grudges, McDonnell's art style is appropriate. It feels a bit like a proto-Sean Phillips. The characters aren't as gritty-looking, shadows aren't used as heavily, everyone's a bit neater, maybe more square, but no one looks glamorous, either. A lot of dumpy, out-of-shape guys and people carrying the years of holding grudges and trauma on their faces. There aren't many fantastic elements to the story, and so McDonnell doesn't make people look fantastic. Floyd's the only one running around in a costume once he gets on his own, and at the end of the day, he's just a crazy guy with guns strapped to his wrists.