Some thoughts about Suicide Squad: Get Joker #1

Can Red Hood hunt the Joker?

Jason has been taken to prison once again but Amanda Waller has bigger plans for him. Now, a new team of criminals will have to go after one of the biggest masterminds in the world and not all of them will survive.

This came just at the right time honestly.

Not because of the complete flop of the first movie that came a few years ago, nor the other comic book from a few years ago heavily based on that movie either (that somehow was even worse if you can believe it) but because the Suicide Squad series hasn't been good for almost a decade now, that's a long ass time. In the last year there was the apparently solid but ultimately misguided run written by Tom Taylor and the completely atrocious current book written by Robbie Thompson, the franchise definitely didn't have the best luck.

Brian Azzarello is decided to change that though. You might be initially worried about it because of how similar the tone and look of the series seems inspired by the first movie (and I don't know enough about the second/reboot to tell) but Azzarello brings his classic personality and wit into the DC Black Label book to create an entertaining enough experience.

Jason is the protagonist of the story and the writer gets all the classic beats about the character including his death and resurrection but fortunately doesn't dwell too much into it to make Jason sound annoying (which is something that not a lot of writers get). The dialogue really helps to get the point across and it comes with all the classic Azzarelisms that you either love or hate, there are puns everywhere and fortunately they sound good to me most of the time.

The rest of the cast is nicely depicted. At this point you have to expect Harley Quinn to be part of the Suicide Squad and she gets a respectable portrayal here because of her smart behavior hidden under a veil of insanity and her fixation with the Joker taking the appropriate route. There are interesting additions like Wild Dog, Plastique and a few others that create a fun dynamic (I especially dug what happened to Firefly, poetic), Amanda Waller was perfectly depicted since she always walks into a fine line between being despicable and understandable, thankfully Azzarello understands the difference (something that Robbie Thompson doesn't).

Speaking about the theme of the book, yeah, there are a lot of similarities with the films, especially how much the Joker looks like Jared Leto's version even if they try to disguise him in A Clockwork Orange costume, Amanda Waller is also influenced by it and it seems distracting at first but not enough to ruin the read.

Alex Maleev's semi-realistic style follows Azzarello's grim and gritty writing perfectly with excellent attention to detail and character expressions.

Solid beginning, can't wait for the next one.