DC Comics reviews for 2/22/17 – Hal Jordan, The Flash, Suicide Squad

Suicide Squad #12

While this wasn’t the case last issue, Suicide Squad #12 definitely felt the absence of Jim Lee. Readers got spoiled by Lee’s streamlined and sleek style. New regular artist John Romita Jr.’s style could never be confused with sleek and this issue finds his characters looking especially chunky and boxy.

It didn’t help that writer Rob Williams incorporated a scene featuring digitized versions of the Squad. This was a rare misfire for Williams as the issue felt too cluttered to provide a reasonable amount of solid character interaction.

The cover helpfully spoils the issue’s main hook, but it doesn’t feel nearly as meaningful as it should. Maybe that’s because Williams already ‘killed’ off Captain Boomerang earlier? And of all the characters synonymous with Suicide Squad, it’s The Wall so killing her off hardly seems like a long-term plan.

At least Waller’s death sparks an investigation in the second chapter illustrated by Eddy Barrows. While his semi-regular gig on Detective Comics might keep him busy, Barrows would be a great choice to handle the main story of the title. The second story tends to be disconnected enough that the artist doesn’t matter as much.

In the book’s first half, Williams re-introduces The Jihad/Onslaught — characters familiar to longtime Suicide Squad readers. The team vs team action is disorienting with Romita’s pencils and underwhelming Onslaught character designs. Still, it’s good to see Williams reaching to the team’s history for adversaries.

Suicide Squad has been an enjoyable read for DC. Hopefully, this was just a bad day at the office and it rebounds next issue.

Rating: 5 out of 10