David Campbell's Top Ten Suicide Squad Lines

Because Cronin's such a stand-up guy he allowed me to do a little guest spot here at Comics Should Be Good, where I can spread the gospel of Suicide Squad to the masses.

This week (and I use the term "week" loosely) on my blog Dave's Long Box I am focusing on Suicide Squad, the legendary DC series about a covert crew of supervillains who work off their prison sentences by performing insanely dangerous missions for the government.

Created by John Ostrander, Suicide Squad is widely regarded in my house as the Greatest Comic Book Ever. Watchmen? Feh. Maus? Please. The Dark Knight Returns? You're high. Suicide Squad reigns supreme over all lesser works.

One of the things that made Suicide Squad so transcendently awesome was Ostrander's tough guy dialogue, so let's run down Suicide Squad's Ten Best Lines together, shall we? We'll look at the first five best lines here at CSBG and you can check out the other five best lines at Dave's Long Box. Fair enough?

Let us do this thing.

10. "Hell is cold!"

Cronin and I both agree, this line from Suicide Squad #18 is a classic. The Flash villain Captain Cold gets drafted into the Squad and sent up against Agni, a pyrokinetic member of the super terrorist group The Jihad. Cold doesn't want to fight unless there's some money to be made, so he tries to make a deal with the guy. Agni responds by lighting Captain Cold on fire - bad call.

"Hate is cold! Hell is cold! And sucker - I am Captain Cold!"

Corny and awesome at the same time.

9. "Aussie rules."

The slimiest character in Suicide Squad is Captain Boomerang, another Flash bad guy. The Australian villain is hilariously consistent in that he always chooses the most cowardly and self-serving course of action - and he's mean.

In Suicide Squad #43, Boomerang impersonates Batman and gets captured by the Red Shadows, some commie goons. It's all part of an elaborate plan, of course, and Boomerang is saved by Squad leader Amanda - but not before getting knocked around by the sinister Zastrow.

Waller makes a deal with Zastrow as Boomerang is untying himself. When he gets free, Boomerang sucker punches Zastrow -“ POW! Right in the kisser.

"A bloke hits ya, ya do him one in return. Aussie rules."

8. Black Adam comes calling.

Squad leader Amanda Waller is laid up in a hospital bed at the Institute for Meta-Human Studies when superbad Black Adam comes looking for her in Suicide Squad #58, a War of the Gods crossover issue. The Institute is crawling with bush league superhumans like Catalyst who attack Black Adam - you can guess how that turns out.

Adam throws Catalyst through the wall in Waller's room and delivers a message via one of the doctors:

"There's a man outside who calls himself Black Adam and he's meeting with you or he turns the Institute into a crater. His choice of words, by the way."

7. Someone set us up the bomb

In Suicide Squad #41, the communist colossus known as Stalnoivolk, who we have met before, improvises in a ruthless way. He needs to take out the rampaging Count Vertigo, but nobody can get close to the guy because of his topsy-turvy puke power.

Stalnoivolk picks up his comrade, a combustible commie known appropriately as Molotov. His powers are a) drinking mass vodka, and b) exploding and then reforming. Also fond of referring to himself as "Da Bomb."

Anyway, Gorst physically throws Molotov a couple hundred yards through the air at the target.

"Go blow up Vertigo."

6. Amanda Waller will shank you.

If there's one thing Amanda Waller is good at, it's shutting people down. In this scene from Suicide Squad #22, Dr. Light gets a little uppity with "The Wall" and threatens to blow the whistle on their covert group.

She's heard it before.

"You're not the first one to make that threat," she tells Dr. Light. "Know what happened to the last one to make it?"

"Died. In the exercise yard. Got knifed in the back."

Man, threatening to have a dude stabbed with a sharpened spoon in prison -“ that's called hardball right there.