I Reads You Review: SUICIDE SQUAD #14

SUICIDE SQUAD #14
DC COMICS

WRITER: Adam Glass
ARTIST: Fernando Dagnino
COLORS: Matt Yackey
LETTERS: Jared K. Fletcher
COVER: Ken Lashley with Matt Yackey
32pp, Color, $2.99 U.S.

Rated "T+" - Teen Plus

“Death in the Family – Running with the Devil”

In “The New 52,” the Suicide Squad is a team of super-villains, in which the members take on risky missions in exchange for time served. The team’s base of operations is Belle Reve Penitentiary, a special prison for meta-humans and super-villains located in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana.

Suicide Squad #14 (“Running with the Devil”) opens in the aftermath of the team’s battle with Basilisk. The Suicide Squad gathers for the funeral of Floyd Lawton AKA Deadshot. The Joker crashes the par-tay with demands to make on his compatriot and Suicide Squad member, Harley Quinn. What does he really want? In the meantime, members of the squad struggle with changes in their lives and with their powers.

I haven’t read the Suicide Squad since Suicide Squad #1 arrived in September 2011 during “The New 52” month. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed that debut issue. Suicide Squad #14, on the other hand, doesn’t do much for me. It isn’t bad, nor is it really good. It’s inoffensive with a few interesting moments scattered throughout the issue. Of course, a middling comic book needs a middling comic book artist; enter Fernando Dagnino. He can draw, but his skills would be a better fit on an independent genre title, not a DC Comics title. There are better artists who can’t get work and who are more appropriate than Dagnino to work for a major publisher like DC.

The Joker’s appearance is a tack-on so that this issue is tied to The New 52’s reworking of “Death in the Family,” and while that tie-in is intriguing, it is a cheat. There’s just enough to make it an official chapter/tie-in. I’m not interested enough to seek out the rest of “Death in the Family.”

C+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux