Today, we look at how the Suicide Squad was revamped with the help of, all people, Batman!
This is a "Gonna Make a Change," which takes a look at the odd evolution that comic book series used to make. You see, nowadays, when a comic book series wants to re-tool, comic book companies simply cancel the book and start a brand-new series (heck, change a creative team and books will often reboot). In the old days, however, comic book companies felt that they had too much capital invested in the higher numbers and wanted to avoid starting over with a new #1. So we got to see some weird changes over the years.
This example is not quite as extreme as some of our past looks at comic book evolutions, but it is still a fascinating revamp, especially considering Batman's role in things.
As I wrote yesterday, the Suicide Squad had a dramatic journey to Apokolips in issues #33-36 of the series. Before that abrupt adventure, though, the Squad was about to get involved in taking down the mysterious Loa (also known as L.O.A., or Louisiana Ordnance Association), a drug-dealing operation that had been introduced back in Suicide Squad #20. The concept of the Loa is that they used Voodoo mythology to design their drugs, including a specific batch of drugs that could effectively turn the user of the drug into a zombie under the Loa's command. They were planning to ramp up production and the Squad was going to try to take them down, but then the Apokolips situation came up.
The Loa were a very clever adversary, however, and they came up with a way to seemingly take down the Suicide Squad with just a phone call. They leaked an accurate news story that revealed the the Suicide Squad still existed. The government had previously denounced Task Force X and claimed that a new guy was in charge of the whole situation, but the Loa knew that he was a figurehead and that Waller was still in charge. With the news splashed all over the headlines, the Squad was now considered a disgrace to the then-current Presidential administration and it was shut down.
First, though, the Squad wrapped up one of the series' longest-running mysteries, "Who was the pie thrower?" Someone had been hitting various people in the face with a pie for the last year and a half in the series and in Suicide Squad #37 (by John Ostrander, Kim Yale, John K. Snyder III and Geof Isherwood), it was revealed to be Captain Boomerang, who assumed there was nothing that Amanda Waller could do to him. She surprised him by having him dropped on a deserted island and then leaving him there...
In Suicide Squad #38 (by Ostrander, Robert Greenberger, Luke McDonnell and Isherwood), team leader, Bronze Tiger, who had gone against direct orders to lead a rescue mission to Apokolips, is basically broken down by an interrogation led by government superhero czar, Sarge Steel, who got Tiger to admit that he gets a thrill out of hurting people. They basically "broke" him.
Okay, so in Suicide Squad #39 (by Ostrander, Yale, McDonnell and Isherwood), the Squad is now disbanded, but Waller decides to spring three members of the team - Ravan, Deadshot and Poison Ivy, and tells them that once the mission is over, they're free to go. They hunt down the Loa and when they have them cornered and the Loa surrender, Waller murders them all...
She waives her right to a trial and accepts a deal for manslaughter and instantly begins serving out her prison term and that's how things end for the Squad...
And so the Squad ends...or does it?
Suicide Squad #40 (by Ostrander, Yale and Isherwood) follows up a year later, as Batman finds himself caught up in an international conspiracy involving the Soviets and a Soviet metahuman known as the Steel Wolf...
Steel convinces Batman that the situation needs the Suicide Squad, so they visit Waller together and she agrees to bring the Squad back, only if she get a presidential pardon and the Squad is now an independent operation that the government pays a million dollars for each mission. Steel agrees.
Waller recruits Vixen and Bronze Tiger (who is a MESS right now, psychologically) to the team and Batman tracks down and brings in Poison Ivy and Ravan. Count Vertigo, who had recently been in the Squad, is being used to prop up an Eastern European country that some people are trying to use to push the United States and the Soviet Union into a conflict over.
The Squad now no longer uses costumes on their missions, as seen in Suicide Squad #42 (by Ostrander, Yale, Isherwood and Mark Badger)...
We see Deadshot, but he has been hired to kill Waller! In Suicide Squad #43, she offers him a dollar more than whatever he is getting paid to work for her and shoot the person who hired him and Deadshot agrees...
In the end, Batman and the Squad successfully stop the bad guys and thwart the international incident, but Batman notes that the Soviet Union was obviously crumbling, so wouldn't Waller be lost without the Cold War and she explains that things are going to be so chaotic that she and the Squad will be more necessary than ever before.
The new Squad was basically a black ops version of the team, no costumes and a lot more international intrigue than before (and it had plenty of international intrigue before), and the revamp did keep the book going for another two years (Batman guest-starred a few more times in the series, presumably to keep helping sales).
Okay, folks, if you have suggestions for comic book series that went through notable format changes that you'd like to see me spotlight, just drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!