New Suicide Squad: Kill Anything Review By Deffinition
New Suicide Squad has been flat out terrible. Like…flat out…terrible! If you’ve been keeping up to date with my reviews on the series then you’ve seen my opinion on the books go from bad to worse. The graphic novels have really dropped the ball and with a constant change of writers and artists, it’s had trouble finding its feet.
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New Suicide Squad: Kill Anything is the final New 52 SS book and it has the power to redeem the series in its final hour or send it of as one you won’t want to remember.
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Will this be a fitting swan song or the final funeral march for a book long dead?
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Let’s find out!
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New Suicide Squad
After the success of The Suicide Squad, other governments want to replicate America’s triumph. We open with Waller giving a tour of Belle Reve to her English counterpart and this aptly introduces the team before sending them off on their first mission.
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Tasked with protecting a Chinese diplomat, the Squad are ambushed by an Asian version of themselves and as team members start dying left, right and centre. To the book’s credit, the tension during this introduction ramps up exponentially and it left me feeling hopeful for the rest of the book.
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It’s a brilliant opening and one that completely restored my faith in the series. There is an astounding canteen fight that made me wince as all types of cutlery get stuck between teeth and orifices (I don’t know why but that kinda stuff really gets under my skin). I loved seeing Waller squirm as her Squad is wiped out in front of her peers and there is a lot going on her both subliminally and surface level.
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Hours Group
The team of course, haven’t been killed (though there were plenty of times in what follows that I wish they had), they have in fact been liberated by Horus Group. This team of activists battles for human rights and wants to stop the unethical practices of Waller and her ilk.
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Never before had I seen this motif taken in a book and it’s a brilliant idea that I wish was touched upon more.
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Sadly, this is quickly dropped when the leader of Horus turns out to be a psychopath. Murdering his allies he instructs his followers to kill the squad in order to gain a place at his side.
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It’s very cliche and instantly strips the book of its most interesting aspect, which is a huge shame. What you are left with is a rather humdrum battle against a one-dimensional villain and his cronies. Whilst the creative team do inject a level of psychology into the story by having Harley Quinn break down their opposition’s psyche, it still amounts to nothing more than mindless action overall.
The Hunky Punk
Another huge misstep comes in the form of The Hunky Punk. This silver age villain interjects some nostalgia into the book early on due to his comedic costume and British charm. Setup on a redemptive arc, the character seems as if he will grow from villain to a hero in a heartwarming way that will write the wrongs of his past.
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However, upon arriving at the castle to aid the squad he is brutally murdered for no real apparent reason. It completely strips the Hunky Punk of all the character building moments that preceded it and it means that the prior pages spent developing him amount to nothing more than a huge waste of time.
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The book wraps up much as you’d expect and everything gets set back to the status quo as we enter DC Rebirth making for a bland and banal finale to a series that has been disappointment after disappointment.
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The Verdict
New Suicide Squad: Kill Anything sends the series off with a whimper rather than the bang it deserved. I had such high hopes for this run but every book has disappointed me in more ways than one and it is impossible to recommend.
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I’d advise those looking into picking up the books to stop at Volume 5 of the original run. There were some great stories to behold but from there the books are a mess and lose all the charm and characteristics that defined them at the New 52s inception.
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Kill Anything can be completely skipped and I am praying that Rebirth can revive this diminishing saga.
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This book is a missed opportunity and that’s why it gets a…
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