Suicide Squad New 52 #4

Well this cover is interesting. Definitely not a fan of the art here. Everyone's skin looks like they're decaying, Captain Boomerang's namesakes are flying around like no tomorrow and are apparently electrical. Deadshot's little projectile shooter makes it look like he's pointing at this Basilisk character and saying "No! Bad Basilisk! Down! Down, girl!"



The actual comic opens up with a bunch of nameless mooks getting murdered.

Deadshot kills his mook with tried and proven not really true method of the neck snap.

Harley Quinn shows a savage glee in garrote wiring her victim while soothingly whispering to him/her.

King Shark has apparently eaten his allotted person but the artist is too lazy to show it or can't stomach actually drawing it.

It's annoying to see how easily the writers have turned Harley Quinn into a wanton murderer.








We've been told part of her backstory involved killing and then playing with the corpses of several lawyers. In all of her pre-52 life, she was never shown to be an outright murderer... and by that I mean she DID murder people but either was too mentally ill to realise that's what she was doing or was more of an accessory to murder as her beau obviously had the higher body count.

Harley Quinn did not get into this life because she wanted to or enjoyed killing people - she got into it for love. So while I would believe she would kill because he wanted her to or because there was a 'humorous' side to the death, I do not believe she would just murder directly like this because she'd been shown previously to not actually give a shit about being a bad guy.

And furthermore.. how effective would garrote wire be against whatever armour this hench person has on their neck? And also Harley's ear looks weird.

I don't get this part here though. Harley's like 'hochhh...' which I assume is like a non-enunciated version of 'oh boy' but then El Diablo's talking to her like she makes sense.

Not even in jest, my ass.

And another thing... Hydra, Basilisk, Cobra? All the Viper assassins in Kill Bill? Lay off with the snake labels! They're not all bad, you know.

But mostly Hydra. I know Marvel and DC steal from each other all the time but damn, you could have put some thought into it DC!

Haha, the guy at the bottom looks like he's doing a cat paw.

Oh look there are more people in the team.. they're just not valuable enough to be seen on screen. How would you feel to be one of the Basilisk chumps killed by one of these D-listers?

Now some things on this page don't make sense.

First of all - the way Harley turns to Yo-Yo so her red pigtail is nearest to him when they're previously shown to be standing side by side.. with her blue pigtail nearest to him.

She seems to have lost her gauntlets as she talks to him as they clearly aren't visible on her forearms anymore. Is this like the cape?

Then.... is she just being the token sex object or is she standing up for herself in the vaguest way possible against sexual harassment?




This also beggars the question.. does Harley change her shorts often or do they just ride up a lot because they're inappropriate sortie wear? Sometimes they look like actual shorts, sometimes more like underwear. The main problem here though is that some idiot designed this costume, didn't give a toss about the character wearing it or how practical it was for the series she was put in and ever since then, not one person can even draw it correctly including the jerk who designed it.

It's a little bit embarrassing.

Case in point. This is the very next page - for the two panels she's in.. Harley has apparently lost all of her eye makeup. That's nothing compared to the fact that one of her eyes is almost completely blue with no outline.

Or the way Dr. Visyak seemingly teleports around the lab.

Harley channels a bunch of widely accepted sayings and a Bugs Bunny quote into her repertoire which serves to somehow make her less cringey than normal.

Then the comic does that thing again when non-essential Squad characters are blacked out in the background so it's harder to gauge who is where and why.






Suddenly Dr Visyak and her team's use of cyanide doesn't seem so bad. It even makes Dr Visyak look more attractive in her unconscious state. Her male comrades just have to fall over any old how but no, Dr Visyak looks like she could be a model in any other setting. Because of course.

Deadshot's not happy - stating this is why they should have gone in quiet and starting a small fisticuffs with Boomerang. I'd be on Deadshot's side but yeah... he never said anything like this. No fair bringing up conversations we can't see in an argument, man!

El Diablo burns the toxins from her blood... with a kiss. Somehow. Lucky for him the doctor wasn't male I guess?



Some hapless guard comes in and reacts like I would. I like this guy.

Hey, Harley's got her eye make-up back! Also... her hair is now almost touching her shoulders when before it was only just past her ears...

Anyway she ignores Deadshots plea for her to get out of the way of his bullets which is fair enough because Deadshot could have just moved. It's not a trick shot, buddy.

Basilisk guy does his kitty paw and blows them up.
Seriously, I wouldn't makes this much fun if their palms were out and more sock puppet/snake-like.







Yo-Yo balloons his size dramatically and shields everyone from the blast. Although, we didn't actually see him get in front of Harley and Deadshot so they should be somewhat toast. And by the way.. an explosion would kill a fat guy the same as a stick thin guy so unless Yo-Yo has something else going on.. he should be toast too.

El Diablo goes to King Shark for help carrying the good Dr but pauses for a moment when he sees Shark's in a bloody trance. No one else helps him either. The Squad all struts away with Harley crowing "If Mr. J could only see me now!"

Yep, not in the Squad because she wants to kill, or to shave time off her sentence, or even because she wants to stop terrorists.. she's in it because she thinks Joker would give a shit about the Suicide Squad and find it impressive?




Pretty sure Joker would frown on most team ups unless he personally got something out of it, let alone teaming up to do 'heroic' things and stop chaos/anarchy.

By the way, Harley's hair is back to it's short length and her pants have changed length again. Throughout the comic, her colours change side erratically and so does the length of her corset.



Boomerang drops a bombshell on Harley about Joker's 'death' and Harley takes several moments to stop and wig out.

There are clearly three other Squad members behind her as they're walking along in the previous panel but Deadshot alone walks past her and stops in all this time.

Harley develops a bit of a twitch but eventually moves on.

This issue gained heavy criticism in the next panels for failing to pass the basic levels of proof reading required to edit a comic book or.. any sort of publication.

The team fail to check the exit for traps even though they've made a lot of noise while failing at their tasks.





Some Basilisk called Grey Lora refers to herself (I assume) in the third person and they are angry because the Squad like, destroyed half of their shit but also took the infected child from the stadium and killed their bounty hunter.

Basically what the story is trying to tell us is that these are all connected events but didn't do a good job of setting that up. Grey Lora is about to kill dem fools when Deadshot drops the name WONG FON SHAY. The very next page he calls her WONG FON YAY. The following pages show that one of Basilisk's operatives went missing and Deadshot shows them her deceased body under the caption WON FON YAY and throws Boomerang under the bus successfully. Boomerang calls her WONG WONG YAY but that's believable because he wouldn't know her by that or any name because he's killed her previously off-screen under the name Asp.

Deadshot offers the Basilisk Troup WONG FON YAY'S body in exchange for the living Dr. Visyak even though the way they switch between names would make me nervous about doing an exchange.

The convicts get a warm welcome back home with guns up their grills while on their knees. They make a point of scanning for nanite bombs to ensure they're active. Waller arrives to be passive aggressive to Deadshot and get upset when some lab dork turns off Harley's nanite bomb.

Outside the prison cell.

Harley's bootie shorts again change size, her gun holsters are missing, and her gauntlet is a different colour to what it was in the previous page. Sigh.

But but but she's just a girl with no powers...

That's why I chose to ignore protocol and release a murderous clown from the only thing keeping her in check in front of the supposedly ruthless Waller out here on the prison lawn. 

I work for the largest super-max prison for super-villains, and I choose to ignore the fact that this power-less girl is incarcerated here because of plot convenience and now that my part is done, I will conveniently teleport myself out of the scene. 

That said, Harley's lips look amazing on this page. Her eyes look nice too but the pink pus looking effect kinda ruins it.

The other Squad members get put in the drunk tank to chill out while the timer on their bombs is still active.




They then get immediately re-deployed to well, Belle Reve where a code red has broken out - a super-villain riot. Get it? It's a super-villain prison. Which beggars the question of why Deadshot and Harley Quinn are in fact at this prison. Which is like asking for logic in a comic book. Ah well.

Deadshot, El Diablo and Yo-Yo walk out and forget to bring King Shark because they're jerks.



So on re-reading this one.. it's not as terrible as I remember. Sure, Harley Quinn's outfit and costume varies wildly from panel to panel (she doesn't even have her butt diamonds anymore) and the editing is pretty bad. When I first read it back in 2011 I was super confused why Grey Lora was discussing the nano-virus kid and the bounty hunters from the dinner diner.

Now I'm like oh okay, I think they're telling me that Basilisk and Visyak created the nano-virus that infected the stadium and then sent Mad Dog to retrieve/kill the kid and nix any hope for a vaccine. It's still annoying how tenuous that link is and the betrayal hinges on something that happened at a time we weren't privvy to.

The Pre-52 Waller would not have made any of the mistakes this current one is doing and some dorky lab geek would never had thought to cross her intentionally or not.