Written by Cullen Bunn
Illustrated by Ronan Cliquet
Published by DC Comics
Writer Rob Williams is leaving Suicide Squad.
When I found out. I was a bit excited. Williams writes some crazy stories but he really hasn’t done a definitive version of the group. John Ostrander has done so as well as Adam Glass. When I heard Cullen Bunn was writing the issue I was excited. Bunn is certainly a capable writer and he has produced some great work over the years.
And within ten pages I wanted Rob Williams back. We see an inmate escape Belle Reve in the opening scene. It’s a pretty standard breakout. The art is less than thrilling so it made it feel like a chore for the scene rather than fun.
We then see Amanda Waller gather the troops. Their mission is, of course, to track down this inmate. But Waller doesn’t put together the A team. We get the D+ team at best, with characters like Skorpio, Tao Jones, and Ragdoll amongst them. They are are terrible characters and feel like rip offs of more popular characters. You’ll figure out who’s who pretty quickly.
They decide to go into the woods surrounding Belle Reve to track down this inmate. And guess who they run into?
Swamp Thing!
And since nobody except Tom King has any sort of handle on Swamp Thing in Rebirth, it all falls flat.
Bunn can’t get his story to work here. It’s a whole lot of lead up. The problem is that it all falls flat. The art and the writing don’t work at all together.
At the end, it all feels kind of pointless. I hope DC can get this book together once Williams leaves. Right now I’m not so sure.
RATING: D+
