How Deadshot's Redesign Inadvertently Led To His Suicide Squad Fame

Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundredth installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false.

As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends. This time, there will be SIX legends! Click here for part one of this installment's legends.

NOTE: If my Twitter page hits 5,000 followers, I'll do a bonus edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed that week. Great deal, right? So go follow my Twitter page, Brian_Cronin!

COMIC LEGEND:

Marshall Rogers' Deadshot re-design basically singlehandedly got Deadshot into the Suicide Squad.

STATUS:

Basically True

Recently, I mentioned that I had a legend that I couldn't believe I hadn't covered before, and this is that legend and let me tell you, even as I write this, I can't really believe I haven't done this legend before, so I wouldn't be shocked if I did and I somehow just can't find it (I'm pretty sure at this point that I DIDN'T, as I just can't find it, but man, it just seems like a legend I would have done years ago).

A few weeks back, I wrote about how Deadshot was rescued from comic book limbo by a fill-in issue of Detective Comics, so I'm repeating some of the set-up stuff.

Deadshot debuted in 1950's Batman #59, by David Vern Reed, Bob Kane, Lew Schwartz and Charles Paris. Floyd Lawton was a bored rich guy who decided to use his sharpshooting abilities to become a criminal, but first pretend to be a superhero and oust Batman from his perch at the top of Gotham City's crimefighting kingdom (to better to take advantage of Batman's absence when Deadshot started committing crimes).

It's a strong story, with Batman defeating Deadshot through basically just breaking Deadshot's confidence (by secretly messing with the scopes on Deadshot's guns)...

Okay, so that was it for Deadshot, until Steve Englehart then did an acclaimed run on Detective Comics in 1977. Englehart's run was designed to last for about a year's worth of issues (as the book was bi-monthly at the time) and Englehart wrote them full script style. He was planning on taking some time of from comics and live in Europe for a bit, and so he just sent in the full run and that was that. However, something caused a problem (as I wrote about in an old Comic Book Legends Revealed many, many years ago)

Well, you see, at the very same time Englehart was making comics history in Detective Comics, over in the pages of Batman, writer David Vern and artists John Calnan and Tex Blaisdell were doing ANOTHER memorable storyline, the famous "Where Were You on the Night Batman Was Killed?" storyline where each issue features a different villain explaining how THEY were the one who should be credited with finally killing Batman (of course, Batman turns out not to actually be dead) and the issue featuring the Joker was scheduled to be released [was the same month Englehart was scheduled to have a Joker spotlight issue]. So Schwartz, not wanting to have BOTH Batman books feature the Joker in the same month, asked Englehart to write an extra script so that they could bump Joker's appearance to another month, and the famous tale of Joker's Laughing Fish showed up with later.

Schwartz suggested that Englehart revive Deadshot for the fill-in story (to this day, Englehart has no idea why Schwartz decided THEN to revive a character who had gone nearly thirty years without being used) and Deadshot made his return in Detective Comics #474 by Englehart, Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin...

As I noted before, Englehart had nothing to do with the comics once they were scripted, so he didn't even see Deadshot's new costume designed by Rogers until he saw the finished pages (Englehart and Rogers later became very close collaborators on future projects, but this one was strictly done through Schwartz. Englehart might have worked the awesome wrist guns into the script, but he's unsure).

Okay, so Rogers' revamp was so cool that other creators used Deadshot a lot more than he was used after Batman #58, but not really THAT much more often. By the time that DC's Who's Who started, Deadshot was barely known. He didn't even get his own page, as Rogers and Austin delivered the drawing of Deadshot on his shared entry in Who's Who...

Around 1986, John Ostrander was asked to start a new series for DC called the Suicide Squad. The new twist on the book is that it would now be made up of DC super villains who Ostrander would be allowed to kill off if he so chose. So how do you pick out a book of expendable villains? His editor Robert Greenberger suggested Captain Boomerang, but otherwise, Ostrander just flipped through copies of Who's Who looking for cool characters to use.

And in an interview with Michael Browing in TwoMorrows' Back Issue #26, Ostrander explained how he picked Deadshot...

"Deadshot, at that point, wasn't actually a big player. I had seen his costume and read his background in Who's Who and thought he was a really neat looking character and there were some possibilities there."

In his Westfield Comics column, Robert Greenberger had his take on the situation, as well...

When John Ostrander and I were looking to fill out the roster for the forthcoming Suicide Squad, he was flipping through Who’s Who and Rogers’ art caught his eye. He decided then and there to include the character, delving into the psyche of a man who would become an assassin for hire.

And so Deadshot became one of the first members of the Suicide Squad...

Of course, he quickly became a key part of the team, especially when the late, great Kim Yale began co-writing the book with Ostrander. And so comic book history was made, all because of a sweet-looking costume!

Thanks to John Ostrander, Robert Greenberger and Michael Browning for the information!