Suicide Squad New 52 #17 Twisted Up By The Red Orchid

April 2013

Oh my gosh that cover though.. I like the tree hands, that is cool but what is even happening with Harley Quinn? She looks a bit like someone made a paper mache version of her as she appears in the New52 Suicide Squad but then went and put Barbie doll clothes on her that don't fit as expected..

Well to be fair that costume never seems to fit her anyway but what I'm getting at is that this cover Harley looks quite a bit munted. As well as that, Red Orchid looks pretty docile and expressionless for someone 'twisting up' an entire Squad. I don't even get the name... have you seen orchids before? They're the most ornamental things ever, beautiful as they are. I guess you have to get in early to get all the good plant villain personas.

The comic itself jumps us into Chinatown where Harley, Deadshot, Yo-Yo, Voltaic and King Shark are busy doing full head shots and what's supposed to be witty battle banter. Yo-Yo makes a weird comparison between King Shark and Chris Rock. I didn't get it then and I don't get it now. It just seems like someone told the writers to chuck in a random pop culture reference. I don't think Chris Rock even did much in 2013 to be thrown in there as a one liner... did he?

The mysteries of the New52. Will we ever truly understand what drugs they were on? Mmmm....no.
Could be the same drugs that made them think that these dipshits could annihilate a bunch of Shaolin style gang members. Deadshot mistakes them for Japanese Samurais directly after referring to Chinatown in Cantonese.. but he's really not doing so well on the cultural knowledge front for a world travelling assassin is he?

Harley - who made a big deal about being the only one having fun now complains about being bored. Yo-Yo, who we last saw being shocked about confronting his sister now seems pretty relaxed and happy to make weird comments about fetishes. I'm not a foot fetish person myself, until recently I could barely stand to look at them (ha-ha foot pun) but what is he on about when he talks about his fetish being so obvious? This must all be off screen stuff because this is Yo-Yo's only major appearance so far, the rest of the time he spent being digested. 

So, eating fetish, even him being used as a whip or something I would get. Foot fetish, wouldn't have called that. What a horrible thing, to be turned on by the idea of suckling Harley's corpse white little piglets after they've been soaking in her weird ass thermal thigh highs and nurses shoes for weeks on end. Eeee-yuck.

Oh no, a random flashback appeared! Couldn't they have done this on the flight over instead of right before facing Yo-Yo's sister? Things like this is why MY black ops team is doing so much bett.....errrr....  I mean, whaaaat..

Anyway, naturally Min is a scientist in Metropolis and Jay is a wannabe thug who gets mistaken for a girl and uses that as an excuse to bitch about racism while being racist himself. He follows her into her lab which suffers structural damage when Superman fights something.. which you think any lab or heck, any building in Metropolis would be reinforced for but anyway. They go on to discuss how smart they both are over geothermal reactors which aren't stabilised in any way or even that far away from security or the front door.

The argument they have about Jay being a wannabe thug when their father did crime so they wouldn't have to would have been interesting if they had more time to flesh it out instead of oh no the geothermal reactor is inevitably reacting and now we have super powers that are nothing alike happened.

Plus the comic spent way too much time following the Squad running around killing.. well, to be honest I think they're all clones because every single gang member has the same face and outfit. Some have hair. Sometimes they get an expression but rarely because all focus is on Squad. Then we have.. oh, is this the scene that 'inspired' the elevator moment in Suicide Squad: The Film That Shouldn't Have Been Released?

Good thing these glass elevators are like fortresses with no easy way in, right?

They get to make elevator music jokes (Nirvana once acknowledged that they must have made it to stardom because Weird Al parodied them... I would hate to think what they think of this homage) before inevitably getting off at the wrong floor.. which... is strange because they're going to the penthouse. Even a friggin' idiot knows that's at the fuckin' top. Plus we can clearly see that none of the gang hench-dudes pressed the door button because they seem surprised to see these.. invaders of the glass elevator.

Then some guy holds a knife up to the glass and next think you know the cables snap and they're falling. That doesn't seem feasible. I'm surprised they didn't bring Captain Boomerang back in for this one so he could have some suitably cringe-worthy line about that not being a knife or some such.
Yay... Yo-Yo spent some time in King Shark's stomach and NOW he knows his own true power!

.....Or some such. If he could friggin' hold an elevator up containing a bunch of dead weights he can bloody well learn to get out of a stomach. Also, welcome back editor helpfully noting that Yo-Yo was eaten by King Shark. Now, fuck off you idiotic editor.

Finally they're at the penthouse and for some reason despite all the hullabaloo they caused and the ensuing delays.. there are no generic gang thugs waiting for them. Instead we have some China doll looking teenagers - Red Orchid's personal death squad/body guards - fresh out of their Go-Go Yubari cosplay which was in turn masquerading as Chigusa cosplay.

Because killer teenage girls in school outfits mixed with lingerie is not enough of  a cliché filled nightmare, now we have Harley.. right on cue with her 'I'm gonna have a girl-chat with them' 'love the outfit!' and 'So cute, I want one!' crap. Is it annoying because we hear it just about every time there's a "girl fight" or is it offensive because it's so darn generic and done?

Whatever it is, enjoy the fact that this cliché killer squad is useless in the face of the worst killer squad out there. Yeah, uh, Harley takes Si Wang #1 down with a tiny dagger to the knee.. so that was a bit sad. You just mega-hyped these girls up as super hard ass killers and then a tiny ass dagger - look, I thought it was a pencil at first that's how small it is - just takes one down and then she's killed off screen by a wannabe clown. What the actual hell? This girl just jumped through a wall but this tiny nail file dagger is the clincher? Wow.
Si Wang #2 is eaten from behind by King Shark despite being faster than both of them and also being in front of King Shark. King Shark yells out "Dim Sum!" just before doing this because... hey look King Shark was racist last issue, nothing has changed here.  The only believable death is Si Wang #3 who is electrocuted as she stabs Voltaic. Voltaic - the shivved zombie does not, in fact, shiv about this.

So that was a massive waste of about three pages and my time, which felt like a lot longer than three pages. 

Hey, here's Harley with a funny line about this comic following a kung-fu tournament schedule and asking for the main course. Did you forget they were in Chinatown because gee, they're so tasteful with their wording. Oh hey, now she's calling them Harajuku girls. That's uh.. a different .. you know what? Flogging a dead horse here, forget it.

Now's a great time for Harleen to come back and talk to Harley. You remember her split personality sob story, right? Well it sure picks it's moments to barge on in and be ridiculous. Everyone, meet Red Orchid. Her face is weird, her eyes are strangely drawn and her pose is even more uncomfortable than Harley's toe suckin' proposition.

She throws a bound dude at them and Harley who was all set to fight is like yeah I'll just grab this guy while Deadshot's like cool let's evac but then Red Orchid's like ha-ha I'll effin' poison you biyatches so then Harley's like oh no they took away my poison immunity in the rebooooot...ugh.... and then turns like lobster red. I'm actually pleased to see a different skin tone for a change. I mean, we already have one zombie on the team, do we really need another?

Deadshot forgets how poison works and asks Red Orchid to un-poison Harley instead of say, providing an antidote, and he gets gassed for his trouble. I approve. Dumbass wears a mask and it's not even a bit effective. Yo-Yo makes some dramatic statement about this bound guy being so important to Red Orchid then Regulus appears and starts more drama. Why are there so many bitchy zombies in this comic book??

The Short End of the Jester Schtick

Well this was an adventure of sorts wasn't it? You know how some people say comics like Tin-Tin are racist? Yeah well, DC wasn't having any competition at all here.

They're still pushing the Harley/Deadshot romance/flirting which is like nails down a chalkboard for me, personally. The idea of these two actually wanting to get it on makes me wanna projectile vomit into the nearest pile of New52 comics.

The King Shark afraid of heights and also projectile vomiting was rehashed in later Suicide Squad issues but repackaged for Killer Croc.

The art at least was.. well ok it was actually horrifying in parts but at least Harley managed to stay in her right colours (not accurate colours mind you, but at least she's not alternating sides all the time) for all the comic I think which has to be an actual record! Although her shoes seem to be matching the socks instead of alternating. Still, progress in a way.

Why does everyone lack eyeballs in this scene??

Other parts like at the end where Yo-Yo's fingers are incredibly long..  convince me he was actually extending them and it wasn't just someone who can't draw perspective again.

I was hoping they'd go into how the Red Orchid is now a gang leader, the very thing she didn't want her brother to become but instead it's just more Regulus turning up and doing stupid shit. Who even is this guy? Did we ever actually get a back-story on him apart from 'guy who looks like Loki from Marvel and hangs out with guys who are totally NOT Cobra' ?

Wotta Comedian!

Harley: Now yer talkin', Yo-Yo. You keep it up, and I might let you suck my toes.
Yo-Yo: The foot fetish thing is that obvious, huh?
Harley: Takes a freak to know one.
King Shark: You two creep me out.

Min/Red Orchid: My roommate's a GIRL. How did they not see that at security?
Jay/Yo-Yo/ Jie-Ru: Because all gweilos (Westerners) are racist and think we look alike.
Min/Red Orchid: You always say they look alike.
Jay/Yo-Yo/ Jie-Ru: Well... that's because it's true.

Si Wang #3: You bring shame to your family, Chang Jie-Ru!
Jay/Yo-Yo/Jie-Ru: Oh, and I'm sure your family is just thrilled with the way you turned out.

Bonus Panel