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Sunday 4 September 2016

New Suicide Squad, Volume 3: Freedom Review (Sean Ryan, Philippe Briones)


Amanda Waller discovers Sage has been manipulating Task Force X aka Suicide Squad as part of a conspiracy and takes herself and the team into deep cover. Meanwhile the Squad are fractured and proving to be more ineffective – is this the end of Suicide Squad? If you read this you’ll probably find yourself eagerly anticipating that!

Sean Ryan’s New Suicide Squad started so promisingly that it’s disappointing to see it end so poorly. The team have become a useless disaster. Parasite’s unconscious for most of it, Manta’s locked up, Deadshot’s injured and so heavily medicated that he can barely lift his arm let alone shoot straight, and Harley is lethargic throughout. She literally describes what I was feeling when reading this one: “It’s boring. I’m not having any fun.” Boomerang tries rallying them but he’s unconvincing at best, especially given that he instantly contradicts his own motivational message! 

The Sage conspiracy stuff doesn’t amount to a hill o’beans and it basically turns into a Waller comic with the Suicide Squad standing in the background, occasionally waking up to fight some faceless goons. There was an exciting moment when the Squad think their neck-bombs have been deactivated and lunge for Waller but it’s over quickly. I appreciate Ryan showing the effects of the missions on the characters in an attempt to develop them but they’ve developed into characters not worth reading about! 

The book closes out with a couple of instantly forgettable comics: the first featuring Deadshot and written by Brian Buccellato where Deadshot shoots some people (yawn), and the second featuring Katana and written by her co-creator Mike “Batman: Year Two” Barr which is predictably dogshit. Something about… ah, who cares, it’s Mike Barr. 

Unfortunately Sean Ryan‘s New Suicide Squad goes out with a whimper rather than a bang. The good news is that he’s moved onto bigger and better things, writing Nova for Marvel – check that out instead of bothering with this unmemorable blah!

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