SUICIDE SQUAD #7

By: Tony Whitt
Date: Saturday, March 23, 2002

Anyone who reads my reviews regularly knows that I'm an unrepentant Keith Giffen fan. That being said, I'll be the first one to admit that even great writers can sometimes have their off-days. Unfortunately, SUICIDE SQUAD #7 is one of them. Still, it's only the second part of a three-part story, so maybe things'll get better. Maybe.

Last issue, we learned that a mysterious island had appeared out of nowhere and had sent all the nations of the world an ultimatum called the Covenant-simultaneously. The world's nations, including the US, chose to take it as a threat, although the actual terms of the threat have not been revealed. The Suicide Squad has been chosen for "intelligence gathering" on the new island, and the make-up of this particular team is no less volatile than any of the others we've seen: Major Disaster, Killer Frost, Deadshot, Reactron, and a meta-human named Blackstarr whose abilities are on the same level of power as Superman. Problem is, even someone with that much power might not be able to stand up against people who can float at will, who can withstand gunfire, and who have not been seen on the surface of the Earth for several thousand years.

This newest story arc is bold, ambitious, and every bit as exciting as anything else that Giffen has written-but the framework set up for SUICIDE SQUAD in its first five issues might let it down. Up to this point, we've been led to believe that this title approached things differently than your friendly neighborhood DC title-it favored strong character interactions of the moment over continuity, it favored stories told within one issue rather than stories that spanned several, and it favored a more edgy and somewhat less serious approach. The new storyline, however, favors the exact opposite, and instead of the typical creepy-but-hilarious suicide mission we've seen in all but one of the first five issues, we get the bog-standard "world in peril" storyline that every other DC title barring the BATMAN titles seems to favor. Granted, Giffen is just as adept at those as he is with the lighter stuff-and the Sgt Rock flashback issue a few months back, almost a DC version of Marvel's "'Nuff Said" issues, proves he can handle the heavy stuff, too-but in these last two issues, it seems like he can't decide which direction he wants to go with.

Even at the best of times, Medina and Sanchez's distorted, overtly grotesque cartoon style is an odd fit for this title. When things gets nasty, though, the cartoony imagery somehow amplifies the horror despite how silly the characters look with their big, flat fingers. (Even the women have fingers like this, by the way. It seems no one in Medina and Sanchez's version of the DCU wears a petite glove.) But in this particular storyline, in which the stakes are so deadly serious, the artwork absolutely jars. The scenes with the mysterious islanders in particular are difficult to take seriously; and the destruction of the island of Kooey Kooey Kooey, which should have been the most climactic scene in the entire issue, has no impact. (It probably doesn't help matters that when we see one of the earliest victims of the attack killed at the top of a building by a massive tidal wave, we see someone who looks exactly like him except for a slight change in the shirt on the street below. Either there are two very unlucky Canadian tourists on this island who happen to be brothers, or Medina and Sanchez are being unimaginative and sloppy. I vote for option number two.)


Finally, what have now come to be typical Suicide Squad-style antics undercut any of the seriousness of the situation, and with one issue left to go in the story arc it's hard to imagine the world getting a reprieve this time, especially when even the JLA have been ordered to stand down. I would normally say I have no doubts that Giffen and co. can pull this one off-but I'd rather say that after seeing the next issue.

SUICIDE SQUAD

Grade: C

Issue: No. 7

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

Publisher: DC

Price: $2.50