Some thoughts about Future State: Suicide Squad #1

Who is in charge of the future?

Amanda Waller has taken the most powerful beings under her command to save the world her way but what she doesn't know is that there's another team coming for all of them.

Just like this week's Batman/Superman, Future State: Suicide Squad serves to prepare readers for the upcoming new era of the team but, unlike Batman/Superman, this title has the misfortune of being written by an even more hit and miss creator than Gene Luen Yang, is mostly a miss actually since Robbie Thompson was responsible of the extremely lackluster final issues of the last Teen Titans book. That being said, I'm always willing to give creators more chances although Thompson doesn't exactly impress here.

The first thing you will notice is the sometimes obtuse writing, particularly when Thompson describes some of the characters, which automatically takes me out of the story and doesn't really get much better after a while. However, the premise of flawed versions of the Justice League serving under Amanda Waller has potential but the problem is that Thompson doesn't really go much deeper from what you usually see. For example, Conner Kent is Superman here and the focus of his character is the conflict between his Kent and Luthor DNA which is just the typical stuff that you saw in Geoff Johns' Teen Titans run almost 20 years ago without exploring any new grounds with it. The rest of the cast is not particularly impressive either and the conclusion seems to lead directly into Thompson's upcoming Suicide Squad work instead of centering around the future itself.

Javier Fernandez' art is solid though with a pretty clear and detailed storytelling.

There's a second feature about the Justice League One Million written by Jeremy Adams and is actually more interesting, not only because it's about a fan-favorite team but also because it gives us a new insight in Black Adam's character. Fernando Pasarin's artwork is always pleasent to see thanks to his expressive characters.

Not bad overall but mostly because of the second story.