Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Two, Vol. 2 by Tom Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Injustice Year Two, Vol.2: More emotional highs and lows than a hormonal adolescent, all in less than 200 pages.
Spoilery review ahead.
Continue reading
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Harley is still cool in this, so that’s a plus.
But Pure Insanity is a pretty good description of the plot. Lots of things go
BOOM!,
lots on infighting, and lots of team members come and go without much fanfare.
Deadshot, Deathstroke, Harley Quinn, Joker’s Daughter, and Manta make up the first round of teammates, but it doesn’t last very long. Deathstroke (it’s apparently mandated that he worms his way into every title possible) quickly leaves the team because of {insert spoilery reasons}.
Joker’s Daughter is another one that doesn’t last, and I, for one, was not sad to see her go. It appears that her superpower is running around screeching about that precious skin she wears on her face.
*shudder*
Her secondary power is pissing Harley off.
Deadshot is out of action fairly quickly as well, but he’s still on the roster, so he pops up every now and then in the story. After the first mission, Manta emerges as the leader, and stays in that position while Deadshot rests his legs in a wheelchair.
Captain Boomerang, Reverse Flash, and a whole mess of Man-Bat ninjas (no, that wasn’t a typo) all end up on the team for the next mission.
The Man-Bats really made me miss Shark King’s intelligent conversations…
As far as the missions go, they were all pretty typical ‘espionage against other countries’ kind of jobs. First up, Russia! Next up, China!
The Suicide Squad is basically just sent in to disrupt any sort of next-gen weaponry that isn’t being created by American scientists.
USA! USA! USA!
The (now gorgeous) Amanda Waller has problems of her own with her new bureaucratic co-partner, but it’s nothing she can’t handle.
She’s gonna wash that man right out of her hair…
Toward the end, the inept team manages to accidentally unleash (read: Harley pushes the wrong button) a superhero from China that was created by their scientists to become a weapon. It never says who he is, but the character looks like he’s going to become some sort of good guy.
Good job, Harley!
Overall, this didn’t suck. And I was really prepared for it to be an effort to slog through. So when it didn’t kill me, I was kinda shocked!
Nothing incredible here, but it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever read, either.
I received a digital copy of this book for review from NetGalley and the publisher.
Harley Quinn Vol. 2 by Amanda Conner
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
It was like reading a super-long fart joke.
Only not as funny.
Although, no offense to anyone who really liked this. I’m not trying to belittle what you like, or say that you have no taste. I just personally didn’t like this one.
Forgive me.
Volume 2 was a bit of a mixed bag. But most of the bag sucked.
There are moments where greatness poked its head out and smiled, but the vast majority of it just fell reallyreallyreally short of anything that I could find remotely enjoyable.
I think Amanda Conner might actually be a really funny writer if she wasn’t making Harley do the stereotypical bimbo/ditz stuff.
Inconsistently, I might add.
One minute she’s beating the hell out of a guy at a comic convention for flashing her (’cause he’s the Flash…get it!?), even though he’s go a speedo on under his trench coat. And the next minute she’s distracting a mugger by showing him her buttcrack.
Ok. So, are you pissed off about being objectified or not, Harley?
That whole line of thinking was just a Major Fail for me.
Then there’s the dialogue.
If you think it’s hilarious for a character to say something like
Oopsie-doopsie! I landed on my poopsie!*
, then you’ll want to run out and spend your hard earned cash on this right now.
*Not an actual quote.
However, these are:
“You rascally runaway rat!”
“Holee Rodee-olee!”
“Now ta take care a’ some
unfinished beeswax!”
“Holee Tuck an’ Rollee!”
“So done…with this…ballonery…buffoonery!”
“Holee Cluster-olee!”
I’m going to stop now. You’re welcome.
Harley is still moonlighting with that group of ladies on skates.
The Roller Derby thing? Ugh. Please drop that whole storyline.
Huge cliché, and not in the least bit funny.
There’s a Future’s End tie-in, where Harley washes up on a deserted island and reunites with Joker. Naturally, she is thrilled. And, naturally, he tries to toss her in a volcano.
Don’t even bitch that that was a spoiler.
He tries to kill her every time they hook up!
Power Girl falls from the sky, gets amnesia, and Harley convinces her that they are a team.
{insert issue after issue of boob jokes and quasi-lesbian innuendo here}
The end.
The stuff that really stood out to me (in a good way) was Harley trying to meet artists and writers at the comic convention.
Every big name at DC seemed to get a cameo, and Harley even managed to get Jim Lee look over a comic book that she had been working on. It was the highlight of the book for me.
There was even a cameo by The Arrow that was funny.
At the very end you get Harley’s origin story, but I’d already read that one somewhere else. If you haven’t read it, you might be more impressed to see it than I was.
Aside from that one issue at the convention, I mostly found this to be more of the same old lame shtick that’s turned me off in the past. Like I said, there were some good panels that saved this from being a one star garbage comic, but I really didn’t enjoy most of it.
I received a digital arc from NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review.
Harley Quinn, Vol. 1: Hot in the City by Amanda Conner
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Ok guys, here is my rather late contribution to Sidekicks week.
As one may reasonably deduce from the rating, I disliked this book with every fiber of my being. It is a well known fact that in order to be a good comics fan, you must:Â Continue reading
Secret Origins Vol. 1 by Jeff Lemire
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The only reason to read any of these Secret Origin stories, is if your are somehow unfamiliar with the characters.
Not only are the origins not Secret, they aren’t very interesting.
Somehow, I thought that because they were coming out with this Origin volume, I was going to learn something new, or maybe there might be a fresh twist on things.
Nope.
I’ll save you some time.
If you already read comic books, you’ve heard these stories before.
And, honestly, there are better versions of them out there.
Starfire and Harley Quinn were the only ones that haven’t been done to death.
Does that make them great?
No.
But at least I wasn’t rolling my eyes through either of them.
Superman, Green Lantern, and Aquaman were the only characters with stories that felt like the authors even tried to bring some kind of emotion to the table. I’m not saying they were AWESOME. I’m just saying it felt like they tried.
Green Arrow/Oliver Queen is just more we-like-the-tv-show crap, but if you’re into that, it won’t piss you off.
Batman, Batwoman, and Damien’s origins were all unbelievably regurgitated. Nothing was new.
NOTHING.
Red Robin (Drake), Robin (Grayson), and Supergirl, however, rounded out the bottom of the barrel.
I hated all of these guys by the time their issues were done.
Remember when Batman tracked Dick Grayson down and begged him to be his partner?
Yeah, me neither.
And evidently Tim Drake was super excited to partner up with Batman after he caused his poor parents to end up in witness protection.
Mom? Dad? I know I ruined your lives, but Brucey is gonna adopt me now, so…Laters! Enjoy looking over your shoulders for the rest of your (probably very short) lives!
Really? Drake comes off like a total douche. Normally, I like his character quite a bit, so…Thanks!
Supergirl.
*sigh*
One minute she’s fighting a Kryptonian dinosaur, and the next she’s (maybe) starting a war with North Korea over some of their astronauts that she saved.
Yeah. I know that nothing in that sentence made sense.
This isn’t awful, it’s just unnecessary.
It might make a nice gift for people who are just getting into DC characters, but I wouldn’t personally be thrilled to find this under my Christmas tree.
Suicide Squad, Vol. 4: Discipline and Punish by Ales Kot
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
3.5 Stars for sure, creeping a bit higher?
After the clusterfuck that was the “writing” of Adam Glass (is NOT half full of anything but shitty writing), this new direction from Ales Kot is a VERY welcome change. It’s like eating Spam for 3 meals in a row, and then, having a hamburger: The hamburger to anyone else, is just an average hamburger, but to anyone who choked down the Spam? It’s fucking Filet Mignon!
Finally, instead of infighting, triple agents, betrayal, the constant threat of blowing up bombs in their heads, and Deadshot being shot. dead. by. his. own. gun.; we have a squad of killers actually working at their maximum potential, and we’ve mostly eliminated the C-list cannon fodder.
No Yo-yo (shockingly he didn’t regenerate AGAIN), Voltaic is there, and talks, all totally normal, but gets the shit kicked out of him, and the aftermath, well takes him out of the picture. No Avalanche, El Diablo, Black Spider, or any other fucktards.
We get: Deadshot, ALIVE AGAIN!!!!!! Harley, Unknown Soldier, King Shark, Cheetah (Wonder Woman villain) and…James Gordon Junior…WHA?????? OK well he’s just an advisor to Waller, but he seems to make a lot better choices and suggestions than the past people have.
We finally get told that they unlocked Samsara Serum, which resurrected all the dead peeps (Deadshot especially). We also see the team work together to get the upper hand on Waller, and we also see Gordon wisely work with them, in order to balance things out and get everyone moving forward to actually accomplish shit.
The team are all actually bad guys here, not lame-o dudes. Deadshot kicks the shit out of Unknowy for payback after he killed him last volume, and Gordon knocks Deadshot out. Cheetah leaves Deadshot to fall to his death (though he doesn’t actually).
We finally see the violence directed against the right people (ie. targets, and not each other so much. We also have a revelation, tied to Voltaic’s death…that’s permanent this time…the Samsara Serum…will actually kill people exposed to it…including…Deadshot AND Waller!!! Dum Duuu DAHHH!
The art goes downhill in the second half of the book, but seeing as how the writing isn’t spam anymore…I’m not going to gripe too much about it.
Finally, instead of having their target always get the better of them, have a spy, an infiltrator, or just defeat them, with the aid of Gordon’s brain and everyone on point, they totally bitchslap the minions of the badguy (named John Lynch…how original! He’s the bad guy in the A-Team, in one of Ed Brubaker’s books – SLEEPER I think…and just obvious) who was also on Team 7 (seriously, who the fuck WASN’T on this Team 7?)
Finally a squad of psychos and killers (who are actually intelligent here) gets the job done and just makes the other baddies look like chumps.
Oh, and there’s a Foreigner song lyric used! I love it. 80s music nostalgia used in a 2010s comic…so good. Big Smile. (Oh and Gordon is in love with Waller!)
Then we’ve got 2 issues by Matt Kindt, which are both stand alones, one about Harley and one about Deadshot (because this series is making them the bread and butter of it, no matter what.)
I didn’t care for the Harley one too much, as Mike ably pointed out, there’s more info about how she got her costume together than anything else, and it’s not very interesting, just kinda rehashed info.
I’m guessing Kindt wanted these to be packaged together, because Deadshot shows up at the end of Harley’s, and his words at the end are more or less EXACTLY what he says at the end of his own story the next issue.
Deadshot’s focuses on his origin, which I wasn’t really aware of, and it’s kinda Batman-esque, and also in a bad part of Gotham…but it doesn’t have the same outcome, even though he also becomes a highly trained soldier in his own personal war, and he likes big money.
I almost liked it, except he lost the plot (Kindt) when he made it appear that Floyd’s only motivation was $$…for everything else he shows, he just ruins it by showing the $$ motivation. I could have done without that…and then he goes and pretty much says he’s useless without being aimed at the right target, and can’t do anything alone…so of course he has to go back to Waller and the Squad to be complete or worthwhile…
What a pile…for everything in the Deadshot issue I liked, he ruined it in the last 3 pages by wiping his ass with it.
So all in all, if you’ve not read any of Suicide Squad in New 52, this is average at best…if you’ve read it all, then this is like a Da Vinci masterpiece.
In all honesty, it’s just above 3 stars, but the context of how bad it was, makes this a lot better. Were I to read it without context or not right after all the others today, it wouldn’t impress as much.
I would actually go find volume 5 now…I will just wait for the library, but at least Ales Kot proved he’s at least worth paying some attention to as a writer who’s not stupid.
Suicide Squad, Vol. 3: Death is for Suckers by Adam Glass
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
OK this is the comically bad type of book…as in I want to see how bad it can get…it’s not one of those misogynist or homophobic or just stupid books, it’s just a lame book with stiff writing.
So, at the end of last volume, Deadshot shot Regulus by shooting through himself! So there really was a Suicide on the Suicide Squad…although I read it as he just wounded himself…and I read it like 4 hours ago…Anyhoo…moving right along to the start of Vol. 3 and we’re having a military funeral for Deady because well once a Marine, always a Marine, even a high-priced Assassin one.
Who should crash the funeral? Why Harley’s long lost boyfriend, Mr. Nicholas Face-Off Cage himself, the Heath Ledger!
He’s not so happy that Harley and Floyd (Deadshot) were getting their Missy Elliot, so they sorta break up in a violent manner, he leaves her chained up in a room full of skeletons…
Flash forward, and Waller is letting Boomerang go for his fine work with Basilisk, when Harley stumbles to the gates of Belle Reve, having escaped Mista J!
Then, who should pop up from the hospital bed, but? (If you said Deadshot, you win a prize. If you said Deadpool, you’re in the wrong company, and also, you’re probably too funny for this GRITTY REBOOT!)
So Deadshot has now returned from the dead, and Harley is healed from her issues…plus, we also have YoYo returned from his time in the King Shark Guts…however, some of them are still not recovered from their Basilisk battle…
So there’s a new mission, Deadshot and Harley are sent on, because of course, they’re the stars of this book. Who should join them? Yo-yo, a recovered King Shark and…Voltaic! (Wait, you ask, who the fuck is that? Why silly reader, that’s one of the members of the Squad from Volume 1 who Deadshot…Shot…Dead…in the Head…with Lead (bullets).) Ya, didn’t really care there, but OK, so they’re all now death proof or some shit, because the smarties finally realize that wait, they should all be dead by now…oh well, it’s time to go on a mission so we’ll just forget all of that stuff…
SIDEBAR! (Judge Ito: So ummm if they cannot be killed, why is this Waller able to bully them into doing her bidding by saying she’ll blow up the Nano-Bombs in their necks? If that’s the case, shouldn’t they just call her bluff? Besides, don’t they know the sequels always fail if they get rid of too many main characters at once?)
Anyhowzers…this time, we’re after a very evil one…Red ORCHID! Who is? Fucked if I know…well turns out, she’s Yo-Yo’s sister (cue up unnecessary flashback number 62 of this series). Yup.
Cue up some ripoff scenes from Kill Bill (room full of ninjas and shoguns and all this stuff of Asian martial arts culture in suits, I was waiting for Lucy Liu, but instead I got Asian Schoolgirls with Morningstars…yup VERY original!)
Voltaic gets stabbed through the heart with a Samurai sword, and doesn’t even flinch, so I’m assuming he’s a zombie or some shit, because he hasn’t said a word since his resurrection, so I’m guessing they’re going to tell us that they unlocked the secret of Resurrection Man (who’s hand they captured last volume…well, cut off and stole I should say…) and that’s why no one dies? I think that might make TOO much sense though, so shame on me…
Anyhoo. Red Orchid appears, alongside whomelse? Why, it’s Regulus! Who’s also not dead (and was just shot-dead by dead-shot…but is not.) how wonderful.
Yoyo’s internal monologue turns on and he becomes all Carpe Diem and heroic, as he leads the troops…
Then we see that Waller has sent them to retrieve a prisoner! Why, it’s KURT LANCE!!!!
(Ummm? Who? Well kiddos, he’s actually Dinah Lance’s husband, who she’s on the run from everyone for apparently murdering!!! – Turns out he too was part of Team 7 with Waller and Regulus (also I think Deathstroke was part of that team)) Ugh for fuck’s sake this is just retarded at this point.
The only reason I give this 2 stars is because of the bitchy joke that gets told: Yoyo tries to rally the troops, and cries out “SUICIDE SQUAD! ASSEMBLE!” to which Deadshot replies “That sounds ridiculous…who says that?” And I was like Oh no you di-int! And he was all, Hells ya I di-id! OOOOH Gurl!
Ya.
Well apparently, Regulus takes Kurt Lance and flees, and this is enough to make the hard as nails Waller run into combat!
At this point, Red Orchid has won and is about to kill everyone Poison Ivy style, but Yo yo wraps his head around hers, and gets Deadshot to shoot him in the neck (where his nano bomb of course, explodes heartily!). Hero! Yo yo goes out with a bang, but I feel like I’m going to see him in Volume 4 again…I just have a feeling…
The explosion leaves everyone dead..or so Deadshot thinks, until he’s saved by Waller, who’s somehow moved from her home base in Belle Reve, LOUISIANA to GOTHAM CITY in time to save them.
Then cue up the WORST dialogue ever…we’re talking Scott Lobdell, Ann Nocenti and Dan Jurgens rolled into one:
Waller to Deadshot: “Last I checked, I didn’t give you PERMISSION to die!”
Deadshot: “Amanda Waller, I never thought I’d be HAPPY to see you!”
Waller: “Don’t worry Deadshot, that’ll change QUICKLY…”
Shakespearean.
They all escape, and then Waller tells them they’re on a new mission, Deadshot says NO! Not until you tell me what’s going on! She reminds him of the Nanobomb! He calls her bluff! (For about the 5 trillionth time! No one is going to believe you any more if you don’t follow through Mandy.)
Then Waller…TURNS OFF ALL THEIR BOMBS!
Tells them this is personal, that she used to be on a team like them, Team 7…Kurt Lance is her FRIEND! And she’s going after him NO MATTER WHAT!
But why turn off our bombs?
Because I NEED YOU. And I will remember this if you help me.
And yet, no one shoots her dead right there, even though all of them could escape and be gone.
Then she makes all small talky with Harley, who starts to have a problem with Harleen in her brain and the 2 are fighting for control….
They’re attacked…by the Swamp Thing ripoffs that Regulus mentioned in passing last volume…
Waller is out! Deadshot says the only smart thing in recent memory, that OK, she’s not dead, they saved her, now let’s all fuck right off.
King Shark and Harley then tell him that he gave his word, and his word is his bond…Really??? REALLY? HE’s A FUCKING ASSASSIN! A PATALOGICAL LIAR! HE ALREADY DIED A BUNCH OF TIMES! HIS WORD IS NOTHING!
He’s about to leave anyhow when…”THE Unknown Soldier!” appears and tells him he better keep his word, because even scum like Deadshot should do that…
(And when he introduces himself, his words look like a logo!)
Uknowny (Imma call him dat) then says that he’s super fast and jacked and stronger than all of them and they’re gonna do what Waller wanted…Deadshot calls bullshit…
AND SHOCKINGLY!!!! UKNOWY SHOOTS DEADSHOT DEAD! WITH HIS OWN GUN! AGAIN! JUST LIKE THE END OF THE VERY LAST VOLUME! OH MY GOD! HOW ORIGINAL! I NEVER EVER EVER SAW THAT COMING! YOU JUST REDID THE SAME THING AGAIN! THAT IS SOOO EDGY!…for 1992.
Oh and they all look on with shock as Unknowy proclaims himself the new “Team Leader” of the Suicide Squad.
Tune in NEXT volume, when I predict that Deadshot…will be shot. dead. with his own gun. at the end of Volume 4!
I actually found this comically bad.
Suicide Squad, Vol. 2: Basilisk Rising by Adam Glass
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
OK, this was my first read for our “EVIL” Week Shallow Buddyread.
Suicide Squad has always seemed like something I ‘d want to read, a Dirty Dozen comic book with baddies who might actually be anti-heroes…
Sadly, this New 52 version is just a bunch of c-listers running around with Deadshot and Harley. Yes, they’re both back, even though it seemed like they both died last volume…or so I recall..
Harley is a bit stable here because somehow the trauma of Mista J’s face-off made Dr. Quinzel’s personality take the lead…not that it changes much because it seems like Harleen is just a slightly less unbalanced version of Harley.
Deadshot is his usual I trust no one guy, and that probably makes him the smartest one here…which ain’t saying much. Thankfully there’s not any of that poor little sick girl stuff that made Anne vomit from Vol. 1.
We also get more of King Shark, El Diablo, Black Spider, and Light. Oh joy. I’m pretty sure that Deadshot kills light because she is going to kill Waller, and he wants the pleasure for himself…
They spend the first half the book running after The Resurrection Man, Mitch Shelley…I read the old RM books from the early 90s, but not the recent New 52 version…seems not much is different, he’s still got the strange girl assassins after him, and they come up against SS to see who takes him…people manipulate, we get the usual pissing contest between covert government agencies, and in the end, he escapes. Or so we’re lead to think.
Then they get after Basilisk, the Hydra-ripoff agency of evil, like SPECTRE or whatnot. Some D-lister blows up the plane they’re on, and they mostly die, except our main characters, who arrive on a desert island…which just happens to be populated with cannibals…they’re saved…by Basilisk…led by Capt. Boomerang!!! Who, if you recall, was in the SS and died in volume 1 for being a traitor…oh…
And he works for the head of Basilisk, who’s named Regulus or some shit? Sounds like Romulus…the mysterious Wolverine comics figure…anyhow, turns out that Black Spider is the SS traitor for Basilisk, but then it turns out that Boomerang was actually planted in Basilisk by Waller to double agent spy…Deadshot kills Black Spider, but it’s only his clone…or something…
Anyhow, a bunch of people die.
Then we get some stupid backstory about Waller before SS and as a field op, where she goes against Regulus, but we get a hint that they were on a team called Team 7 or some shit and worked together before that broke up…then he releases some sort of bomb (much like the Terragen Mist bomb in Inhumanity that Black Bolt released) which makes people into Metahumans, or kills them…
this is what leads Waller to want to form the Suicide Squad.
Follow me at all? No? Good.
Everyone turns on everyone, and mostly everyone is a double agent, or sleeper agent, except Deadshot and Harley (surprisingly, the only ones who aren’t C-D or F-list villains/nobodies…oh and on top of that…the Yoyo, team member who was eaten by King Shark in Vol 1? Ya he didn’t die, just sat in the shark’s intestines for a month, until getting out…wants to kill Waller, who says that she just helped him unlock more powers…
Oh and in case you forgot? Every 3rd page, we are reminded that all the SS members have nano-bombs in their necks to be killed if they don’t follow the script.
So that’s this one…until next one, where everyone will be a triple agent…ya.
Like Sam well said, this is a 90s action movie with a D-lister directed by the equivalent…Lorenzo Lamas in Cinemax’s Suicide Squad, directed by the shambling corpse of Ed Wood.
SOOO Bad, it’s nearly good. I am mildly interested in Deadshot, and I like Harley (boobies!) that and the library sent me all the volumes at once, and it’s EVIL WEEK! So I will keep reading this, taking 3 for the team, who I’m sure I’ll double cross 4 times and die twice before the end of this…
Harley Quinn, Vol. 1: Hot in the City by Amanda Conner
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Read as a digital arc. Thank you NetGalley and the publishers!
So, I didn’t like it.
The first issue was this somewhat interesting Dream Sequence, in which Harley has this ‘conversation with the writers’, and together they try out artists for her comic book.
I say somewhat interesting, because there was no real story here, but it was fun to see the different artists switch things up from page to page.
Here are a few examples:
Art Baltazar
Adam Hughes
Darwyn Cooke
So. There was that. And even though it didn’t do anything plot-wise, I had fun Googling some of the artists that I didn’t recognize.
In fact, that first little bit is the only reason I’m not give the entire volume 1 star, because after that it quickly went downhill.
Quick test.
Do you like slapstick?
Yes? Then you might enjoy this one.
Unfortunately, I have a low tolerance for sight gags.
So, after a while?
This:
Started to look like, well…
This:
And, hey, if you like that sort of thing?
Then, by all means, grab your poncho and pull up a seat.
Alrighty, the next question you need to ask yourself is this:
How badly do you want to see Harley and Ivy make out?
Again, personally, I liked that these two were friends (without benefits), but there’s enough lesbian H&I fanfic out there to convince me that I may be in the minority with this one.
Whoa!
Down boys! And girls!
It’s not like you’re going to get to see a money shot. However, lots and lots of innuendo later, it looks like these ladies have taken their relationship to the ‘next level’.
Anyway.
Harley befriends a psychotic old man, gets a bunch of pets, sleepwalks, and accidentally swallows some of Ivy’s date rape seeds.
Yum.
There are a few funny/memorable scenes, but not enough to make me want to recommend it to anyone.
I’m sure plenty of readers will love this, but it just wasn’t my cuppa.
Shallow Readers 