SUICIDE SQUAD #4

By: Tony Whitt
Date: Friday, January 04, 2002

A conversation about movies causes General Rock to remember one of his last missions in 1945 when, at the behest of the Unknown Soldier, he assembled a suicide squad for a mission to kill the Iron Major, once and for all. Then, as now, the stakes were high, and not everyone survived-and not everyone played by the rules.

As taken as I have been with the first three issues of this series, I'm in heaven over this one. Giffen's always been one of my favorite writers-except when he's doing things like AMBUSH BUG, of course, and even then there's positive things to be said-and to see him handling a WWII era story with no superhero characters around so deftly only increases my respect for the man's abilities. I'm not a big fan of war comics myself, so I'm even more amazed that this story kept my interest-another testament to Giffen's skill. Mind you, I'm still a tad unsure how that movie conversation fits in with the wartime story, but that's probably just me. It usually is.

There's probably only one thing about this issue that doesn't do the script fullest justice, and that's Medina and Sanchez's artwork. Any other time, it's pretty obvious that the style of these artists veers towards what might positively be called "storyboard" and what might negatively be called "cartoonish"-either way, it's not the most realistic style out there, but given the general bent of this series it normally works fairly well. It's only here, when their artwork is laid side by side with the work of a more realistic, no-frills kind of artist like Russ Heath, who draws the flashback story, that the flaws in Medina and Sanchez's work really start to show. Heath's artwork calls to mind the best work of Jim Aparo-amazingly enough, another artist whom I've rarely enjoyed-but it's far more interesting and less static than Aparo's work ever was.

There's also something in this issue that Marvel could learn from, given that company's highly-promoted but so far rather disappointing "'Nuff Said" books in December. The six-page sequence in which the Iron Major's men intercepts the Suicide Squad's boat at the pier is done completely without dialogue or even sound effects. It's exactly the same sort of silent storytelling that Marvel's teams are trying-and usually failing-to do properly, but here Giffen and Heath are so synchronized that the sequence is flawless. It's immensely impressive, perfectly clear-and we don't even need a script at the end of the book or a pointer to the company's website to get it.


All slightly negative comments about the regular artistic team aside, the overall quality of this series has been nothing short of astounding. Giffen and company are doing quality work here, and if 2002 goes out without this team getting some sort of recognition for it, it'll be something to send in the Suicide Squad for, indeed.

SUICIDE SQUAD

Grade: A-

Issue: No. 4

Author(s): Keith Giffen, Paco Medina, Joe Sanchez, Russ Heath

Publisher: DC

Price: $2.50