Suicide Squad New 52 #7

This is another issue I reviewed back in the day under my original blog. If you're interested, you can check it out here. What, you haven't got time nor inclination? Well fear not, here's the into to it which I feel aptly sums up what I thought about the cover.

Suicide Squad Seven - The Alliterating Issue
Yes, it’s that time of the month again, so dig out your hot pants, get ready to storm Gotham PD and grab that skinned off Joker face because it’s the SUICIDE SQUAD #7 REVIEW!

Assuming I read like a normal person, let’s start with the cover. When I first saw this cover, I didn’t like it. Now I can see it full size it’s kind of growing on me, like Joker flesh on Deadshot’s face.(Tee hee) The new Harley Quinn logo surprised me, as last time they just stole her old one. You know, the one from the ‘original’ DC universe pre-reboot, post-pre-infinite... ehh... you know what I mean. The one that doesn’t exist anymore, or kind of does in some ways, but only in ways DC can make money off it.. Ehhh, you know what I mean.

Yep - remember how they used the previous Harley Quinn logo on the issue just prior to this one? It's been replaced with a new logo for her, and also doubles as one of the nails in the original Harley Quinn's coffin. Quite useful. Apart from that, the cover also raises some questions about Harley Quinn's costume... well, I mean MORE questions. 

For one thing.. does she wear the cape or not? It seems like every other issue it vanishes. Secondly... before her arm thingies looked like gauntlets... but one this cover in particular they look more like gloves. Also her nails aren't red one hand black the other.

So apparently this issue takes place immediately after Harley Quinn lets herself get arrested?

The 'simple' plan is to lead all the cops and the SWAT teams and what have you... around the corner. So... seems to me like they're still on high alert. If they'd waited like five minutes, I'm sure most of the non-essential cops would have gone home or off to patrol the town or something seeing as how in their eyes they had contained the situation. 

Plus everyone knows that if Batman wasn't there to stop it, he'll usually swing by the cop shop to see what happened. I get they're on a short time frame but damn, they couldn't wait five minutes?

Nope, Deadshot just *has* to extract Harley instead of doing what he'd normally do and shoot her in the head. Useless plot device!

Anyway - there wasn't time for them to wait, but there's time for a pile of exposition about the plan and another time skip, even though this is literally taking place immediately after the last issue. 

So even though they're Green Arrow villains, Lime and Light are cheap Green Lantern knock offs by the looks of things. 

"See, King Shark can't be here. None of us can. Technically, we're all still in jail." Explains Deadshot even though this cover has already been blown by Harley Quinn being seen already. But sure, let's make a hologram of Clayface over King Shark and then... Deadshot and Savant openly walk into the Police Station and make no effort to hide their well known masks from the cops inside or the CCTV there. 

Okay, well Waller has conveniently 'hacked' the CCTV but I'm sure at least a few cops will remember who walked in and just wailed on them with chairs and non lethal yet painful rounds while yelling to someone named Waller. Yup. Total black ops. Much secrecy. Very discreet. So..... fail. 

 Waller also mentioned that in the two minutes since being captured, Harley Quinn is loose in the building and also had time to take out the entire camera system anyway. Wow, that'd be totally bad ass! Can we see how she did that, comic team? No? Ohhkay.... guess we're just taking this all on blind faith then?

Anyway, Savant and Deadshot have yet another pissing match instead of getting a move on and should be thanking their lucky stars that no other cops appeared from the other rooms in the building, less they increase their body count. Meanwhile, Harley has found the face. It's stuck on a wall in some dank ass empty vault or something. Is this meant to be an evidence locker or what? On TV crime shows we see a huge array of boxes, files and other stuff in a shelving warehouse - why is this room so specifically empty? Shouldn't someone's face be in like... I dunno, a freezer or morgue?

Now I didn't notice this on the original read, but it looks like our flashback Harleen went straight to Dr Serano - the same Dr. Serano she killed during her escaping spree last issue - with the cut off finger that Joker gave her. 

Somehow Dr. Serano manages to look past the fact that Joker had an inside person kill an outside person and deliver the finger of said person inside to a criminal - and focuses on the fact that somewhere along the line Harleen has mentioned she has a crush on the Joker. 

Note that we weren't privvy to this conversation so we can't judge on exactly what was said but even so - we have two grown ass women yelling about 'crushes' and ignoring the larger picture. What is this, high school?

Suddenly, Harleen notices some blank paper and immediately recognises her notes on the Joker. Now we know this isn't true because the animated series showed that Harleen doodles all over her notes. THIS Harleen can't even write on paper yet somehow surmises that Dr. Serano is writing a book using her own pilfered research.

When we talk about the New52 changing Harley Quinn's backstory, we often mention the skin condition, her more murderous behaviour or her stupid outfit. Less often discussed is this instance. Keen Harley fans will remember that originally, Harleen schemed to work her way into the dangerous inmates area in order to write her own book on these insane criminals and make a profit. I'm not sure why they changed this. It seems like a quick excuse to make Harleen mad enough to attack her boss in her own shittily furnished office?

I mean, the desk is nice but there appears to be actual shit on the wall and all she has apart from that is coffee stains and framed mirrors. Then - this is my favourite part of this scene.. one of the guards at the asylum comes running in saying that he heard a noise! Are one of the loonies loose?! 

Forgetting for a moment the... odd phrasing of that sentence...This guy - is it meant to be Cash? I don't know - runs past the dishevelled Dr. Quinzel - who is clearly holding a bloodied glass shard and surrounded by the mess she left in the office - and helps Dr. Serano. Obviously it's just them in the office, no alarms have gone off...How did this biased ass guy get a job doing security in an asylum let alone anywhere else?

I can see it now - someone drank the last of the coffee? Damn loonies! There's no paper in the copier? Must have been those inmates! HR is on my ass about referring to patients in derogatory terms? Damn those nutcases! I just know they're behind this!!

Anyway, Harley lets Joker out for walkies. 

This page is not so bad for a fight sequence - it's definitely a lot better than what we've seen so far anyway - but immediately after this, Harley tricks Savant into walking into the cell that she fell in, and stepping on a pressure mine that she just happened to find in the Gotham Police storage. 

For one thing wasn't she just in the storage room? Was she coming back through the cells on her way out? What exactly is the layout of this police station anyway and where's the face now? Did she realise that the squad would come after her or just heard the ruckus of the squad killing a few cops? Where'd she pull her hammer from any... hmm... don't answer that. 

Either way, this plan for trapping/ending Savant relies on waaaay too many things going exactly as planned for it to be entirely plausible. Aha, I knew you were going to break my nose and trip me at this exact moment, so I have laid this trap in place for you! Mwahhahahahahaha! Me am genius!

Meanwhile, Lime and Light are losing their ability to hold the apparently bullet proof hologram so King Shark elects to escape down into the sewer. Lime and Light are like, eew, no even though seeing as how they can freakin' fly they wouldn't actually need to touch ANYTHING down there. Besides, they clearly had time to fly anywhere else - like when Light flies up up and away after Lime gets grazed by a bullet. Could she not fly to a roof top temporarily? Could Light not support her with her powers of flight? Can't they shoot frickin' laser beams? Seriously, what the hell!

Light just sits there on a rooftop and watches her sister die when Waller explodes her head. For some reason no one tries to climb up to detain her and for some other reason - Lime is escorted to a police car when Harley was taken inside the building (unclear if they are taking her to get medical aid or not) and I'm left wondering what happens when these cops go back around the corner and enter the police station. 

Deadshot is... somewhere.. no really, he's just in some other dank unfurnished part of the police station when Harley yells "Seven minutes in heaven, Deadshot!" and attacks him in the dark with a road flare. I originally didn't get the reference but now I have the internet in front of me I have discovered it's some creepy tweenage game involving closets and potential sexual situations. 

For one thing - eeew, Harley. Secondly... is Deadshot looking for Harley Quinn in a freakin' closet? What an idiot. 

Another flashback, another change to Harley's past because we see Joker pushing her into a vat of chemicals, presumably at the Ace factory. So, how far away is Ace Chemicals from Arkham? 

Not only did they gain immediate access without setting off any alarms or encountering any guards - there's no lid or any safeguards of any kind over these vats. Joker can just wander down and empty an entire load (hah!) onto the floor. 

There are a few skeletons down there, yet Harley survives. Pasty, but alive.  Apparently the floor also survives, so, that's something. 

Naturally, Harley's clothes are torn provocatively and her hair is now two toned perfectly.. but not her eyebrows! What exactly are they making in this stupid vat anyway? Convenient plot devices? 

Deadshot revives just in time for Harley's flashback to end. I'm guessing that there was no background artist for this issue because as far as I'm concerned, these characters just seem to be floating in a black void half the time. 

Lucky him, he gets to make out with Harley again but this time through someone else's skinned off face. I'm not clear if that blood smeared on her face is Deadshot's bleeding lip or if for some artistic reason the Joker's face blood hasn't dried out. 

Either way, at least one person is catching something tonight. Deadshot yells that Harley's picked sides on Dead or Alive. Is this another game reference? It's written in bold, so I assume that it's supposed to mean more than just 'I was going to bring you in alive but now I'm having second thoughts?' Who even knows with this comic! 

Anyway Harley ends up catching a bullet with her gut as our cliffhanger, even though by the time of original publication there were at least three upcoming covers available, each featuring a new picture of Harley Quinn so it wasn't exactly suspenseful. 

The Short End of the Jester Schtick

There were some good scenes of Harley being oh so crazy and creepy but honestly it would have worked sooo much better if it didn't look like a rebellious teenager in a bad emo outfit was threatening the other kids on the playground. 

It's hard not to see that whenever I look at this outfit. It's strange that someone showing this much skin and wearing an adult themed costume can look so childish. I don't know if it's the prepubescent figure or the actual outfit itself. I hope it's not the pigtails because I often wear my hair like that.

For those that recall Classic Harley Quinn's original solo series, they also elaborated on Harley's past in regards to someone trying to take credit for her work. This time it's her boss at Arkham (but not Arkham himself? I know things have changed but when she was working there it should have been J. Arkham in charge, surely.) Previously, it was Harley's college professor.

So they've changed the sex, the race and the location/timeframe but it's pretty much the same backstory. The classic one was a bit more fleshed out and while Harley didn't directly kill her professor, it was a bit ambiguous whether she was going to or not anyway. This Harley, as we know now has already slit this usurper's throat and will pretty much kill everyone else anyway.

Hence my dissatisfaction with the New52 Harley Quinn because she's just a bloodthirsty clone of the Joker in a hooker outfit instead of her own personality.  The solicts promoted this issue as the new origin of Harley Quinn but for all it's bluster, it's the exact same story.

The only difference is instead of having her choose to become the Joker's partner in crime for reasons of love, choose her own look and gradually show her crazy side.... they have her be forced into it via vat of scenic random chemical, dressed in whatever this Joker finds attractive and she's already a psychotic murdering bitch with anger issues.

Which is not the character I started reading because I related to her and found her humour so appealing. So this issue itself, while vaguely more interesting than the rest - still suffers from the unappealing timeskips, failure to invest more than a slight idea into the story and to be blunt.. even though it's a comic book.. the logic is just failbait. The whole drama about not being seen in Gotham while they should be in jail and then blatantly walking into a police station kind of fail. It insult the intelligence of the reader and takes you out of the story.

What could they have done better? Honestly, if Deadshot had stuck to his character and tried to off Harley that would have been more interesting. If he had tried to lead the Squad on a more... COVERT operation of sneaking into the police station, that would have been better. If they gave Lime and Light any kind of backstory besides stupid Valley girls and obligatory neckbomb death then we might have actually cared about them besides wondering how the hell these idiots were chosen for the Squad. 

Also the Jokerising Vat is suuuch a stupid back-story. Putting aside the whole notion that Harley's choices were taken away from her, the whole point of the Joker was that his creation was supposed to be murky and mysterious, so that even he wasn't sure of his backstory. Ace Chemicals is usually a factor but hell, why are they even still making this substance! What does it do? How are people surviving with only dyed hair? Why is there no basic fail safe measures to stop people falling in anyway? Where are the guards? Harleen only mentioned hurting people at the Asylum, not any guards or personnel at the chemical factory.

Besides, I can never see Joker wanting to make someone else EXACTLY like him, not with his ego.