Who doesn't like Suicide SquaD? Well I know that I do and no matter what it is, comic, book, movie, I will never get tired of them.

I received this from Netgalley and DC Comics in exchange for my honest review. I loved the artwork in this comic but I did not care for the actual story line that was presented. The story line itself I just felt was a little boring and not really exciting but I did like the background files we got at the end. I also really loved all the extra art at the end, especially this particular one of Joker that I think was freaking phenomenal. I would most likely buy this exclusively just for the artwork so I'm not sure where I stand exactly on the recommendation level.

Suicide Squad is an amazing concept. Take some captured bay-guys and get them to do the things that America cannot be seen to do. If they get caught, either deny that they are part of Task Force X or kill them. In a world a superheros and villains, this seems to be the most logical things that could happen in our world.

The story is quite simple, the squad has to get into an underwater facility that houses an artefact that Amanda Waller wants and get it back. Whilst fairly predictable, the main plot twist  for me was way to over the top. Also the way that they went about solving this issue just did not work for me. The squad seemed to easily overpower this villain when they should not have (and his anger issues were a tad weird, but I can justify them given the circumstances).

The squad consisted of the same characters who were in the Suicide Squad movie (2016). Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Killer Croc, Captain Boomerang, Katana, and Enchantress. Only El Diablo was absent from the lineup (he was my favourite character from the movie). From what I have heard from previous Suicide Squad stories, they tend to include villains who are largely unknown to add a bit of unpredictability to the team. This team, even if you have not watched the Suicide Squad movie, is a pretty standard team with no real surprises.

The art work was probably my favourite aspect of this volume. Some of the scenes defiantly benefited from having the artwork bring up the standard of what was going on.

An enjoyable, light hearted read that looks to be going interesting places.

Suicide Squad's rebirth is, unfortunately, DOA. With so much riding on the Suicide Squad movie, it's easy to see why DC mirrored the cinematic lineup in this first volume. Just like the lackluster film, this effort eschewed characterization in favor of (attempted) sizzle, and failed to deliver. Jim Lee's always-wonderful pencils can't mask the flaws of the team's origin story, which is actually worse than the movie. (The non-Lee-drawn backup stories of the individual character origins are a bit better, though.) 

These reboots are always a weird combination of servicing the longtime fans and providing a good spot for new readers to hop on. An experienced Suicide Squad reader doesn't need this much fluff explaining why this iteration of the squad is put together, but a reader picking up issue #1 with no history with this team is going to need more depth before falling in love with the characters. By the time we reach the first death (this is the Suicide Squad, after all), it's too early to have any real emotional impact, and comes across as merely a stunt. The book services neither longtime fans nor new readers very well, and both audiences are going to need a good reason to pick up the next volume. 

I received a preview copy of this book from NetGalley.

The terrible gang of supervillains is back and they might just be the same.  Except now they have a new leader.  Rick Flag.  Amanda Waller shows up at Guantanamo Bay to give Rick Flag a choice:  Lead the team or die in prison where no one even knows he’s there.

Flag reluctantly joins the team, worried about the members’ strength and loyalty as they embark on their first mission.

Rick Flag is supposed to be the moral compass of the team, but without knowing too much about him, I have trouble buying that.

Much like a lot of the rebirth volume one collections, it includes the rebirth #1 issue.  And it is always disjointed and very different then the rest of the story.  I know they were trying to get people engaged and on a level of norm with the book quickly, but it ends up being jarring when it is collected in trade.  The first issue of Suicide Squad introduces the team, but throws you into mission that is never talked about again.  But it doesn’t read as a oneshot.

I’m very torn about this title, there are things that I found intriguing.  Such as the behind the scenes look at how Amanda Waller runs the team from Belle Reve, but I found the actual action and missions to be missing something.  They are just okay.  

The shining characters for me were the Enchantress and Hack.  Both were incredibly engaging, despite not having very much time on the page.  Those are the characters I want to know more about in the future.

This collection suffers from having a problem with incomplete stories.  The first full arc of the Suicide Squad is only 3 or 4 issues and so they had extra room in the trade to include a couple back up stories that I assumed were at the end of full issues when released.  But the problem is they go into these Task Force X personnel files that were interesting but again seem very disjointed from the rest of the story because they collect them all at the end.  In these personnel files you only get Deadshot, Boomerang, Katana and then a random story about Rick Flag and Harley Quinn.  It’s all very separated and doesn’t flow that well. 

It doesn’t include stories about the rest of the team and I was left wondering if the single issues continue them or they move onto the next major story.

I ended up being more confused about this volume than I expected.  As I was reading it, I was entertained, but not engaged.  This is definitely a trade wait for me.

Suicide Squad Vol. 1: The Black Vault collects Suicide Squad: Rebirth one-shot, Issues #1-4 and back up stories.

I'm a fan of D.C. Comics but haven't read much about the Suicide Squad or any of the individual characters in this volume collection, so my opinions aren't in comparison to anything else I know of these characters.

Premise: The POTUS calls into question the Suicide Squad's ability to function reliably and without discovery. The director of their prison assures him that it will work, hires an ex-military prisoner to lead them, and sends them on a mission to a secret Russian prison to steal a mysterious "cosmic item." After the main storyline, there are also a few comics explaining a little bit of the background of each member of the Suicide Squad.

This is a hard volume to rate as a whole. Due to the nature of the Suicide Squad, the storyline functions more as a series of individual, minor events rather than a team effort. It's also near-impossible to figure out the motivations of half of the characters, even after their profiles at the end. Hopefully, this will sort out a bit in the next volume; I like a bit more character development. Based on what I've seen so far, Katana is pretty bada** and the clear favorite for me. Harley Quinn is the wild card. Flag is the mediocre but determined leader. And the others go back-and-forth. The illustrations are good: not the best but better than most. I would say the storyline recommends itself to people who like action scenes best. I'm interested to see where this one goes!

Glad to see so much of Harley in Suicide Squad since she is what drew me to read it. Great quips from the characters.

I love DC comics so I was excited when I received a ecopy of this graphic novel.

I really like the story of this volume one and I did love the illustrations as well.  I think this one is very well done.

I give this 5 out of 5.

If you would like to purchase this you can do so at your local comic book shop or bookstores online and near you.

I was not too familiar with the characters of Suicide Squad before this Graphic Novel. I am not much of a DC fan, but I can see why most people really like the characters and why they were so excited for the movie to come out. I can honestly say this is way better than the movie. The characters were gritty, and pretty much the definition of ant-hero and if it was not for the bombs in their skull terrorizing innocent people would still be their plan.

Well, that was insane and very bloody and even had some things in it that I didn't expect.

Waller has added a new head of the Suicide Squad Rick Flagg. His second in command is Katanna. They don't have bombs in their head (well as far as I know) unlike Harley Quinn, Killer Croc, Captain Boomerang, Deadshot, and a young woman who is sometimes Enchantress. They are tasked with going into an underwater Russian base and get a Cosmic big thing. They meet some (to me) surprising resistance. They also meet and get help from a Harley fan called Hack.

It was a pretty cool Rebirth TPB, but then again, I always thought that the New 52 Suicide Squad was a pretty good title too.

I got this ARC through Netgalley on behalf of DC Entertainment.

I’ve now read enough of the Rebirth line to know not to get my hopes up for anything and, yup, Suicide Squad Rebirth is another dud!

This iteration of the team is the line-up of the terrible (yet OSCAR-WINNING!!! And for makeup? Bullshit that garbage had better makeup than Star Trek Beyond!) movie: Deadshot, Harley, Boomerang, Killer Croc, Katana, Enchantress and Rick Flag. They gots to steal some powerful MacGuffin called The Black Vault and fight a Russian Suicide Squad and General Zod.

Rob Williams’ choice to have the team go up against a Kryptonian like Zod was really stupid. All it underlined was how useless and poorly conceived Task Force X are. I can understand Enchantress to a degree because magical characters are useful, but the others? Why the hell would anyone think a team comprising Harley (an insane supermodel with guns), Deadshot (a marksman), Boomerang (a dumbass who throws boomerangs), Rick Flag (an ordinary US soldier), Katana (an insane supermodel with a sword), and Killer Croc (brainless muscle) could possibly stand up to global super-powered threats?!

The entire time these (mostly) non-powered characters were fighting a Superman-level powered being, I kept waiting for Zod to rip each one of their heads off at super-speed! It’s not at all convincing to see characters like these fight someone of Zod’s calibre and somehow hold their own! And the resolution to their fight was contrived drivel.

Most of the characters are boringly one-dimensional. There’s a new character called Hack who isn’t interesting in the least (she HACKS computers, geddit?? Oh, the IMAGINATION that went into her creation!!!), the Russian Suicide Squad were a joke, and Zod was just angry. I didn’t give a damn about the silly retrieval mission storyline. Also included are backups about some of the characters’ origins that are just as dreary: Deadshot’s doing it for his daughter, Boomerang’s a fuckwit, Katana’s tragic, and Harley’s silly and heroic for no reason. Awful, just awful.

I enjoyed Jim Lee drawing the main story, particularly the HALO drop scene, though I don’t understand how Zod got to be so giant – he’s suddenly Prometheus Engineer-size! The backups also feature an impressive roster of artists: Philip Tan, Jason Fabok, Ivan Reis and Gary Frank, who all contribute amazing-looking pages. 

Suicide Squad, Volume 1: The Black Vault is such a dull read. I liked Rob Williams’ recent work on Martian Manhunter and his Vertigo series Unfollow is brilliant, but he can’t work his magic on The Trite Squad. Drink a few Red Bulls before reading this to stay awake!

Suicide Squad, Vol. 1: The Black Vault (Rebirth) by Rob Williams et. al. is a free NetGalley e-comicbook that I read in early March.

Seeped in a murky slate, gravel, and sand palette with pops of Harley Quinn's candy floss hair and blue-aqua otherworldly aether, this comic takes some of its bad-ass narrative voice (particularly Amanda Waller and Rick Flag's) from the film version of the Suicide Squad and shoves forward some familiar, yet unexpected character appearances, namely <spoiler>general zod and the annihilation squad</spoiler> before veering back and finishing how the film began with dossierlike vignettes on how a select few squad members was recruited.

*I received this through the netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

My first introduction to the Suicide Squad was during the new 52 universe. I fell in love with these characters and found myself rooting for the bad guys. I will gladly root for Harley Quinn in any given day. The Rebirth series is a fresh new look into the Task Force X. There are some new characters introduced in the mix (which I'm sure was heavily influence by the release of the Suicide Squad movie last year). 

The graphic novel begins, as due most Suicide Squad graphic novels due, in complete and utter chaos. The task force is led into a violent situation and left in the dark by the leader of this organization, Amanda Waller. The Suicide Squad somehow manages to escape and on the other side of that is their new leader, Rick Flag. 

In this first volume a lot happens without their being much plot advancement. There are some surprise visits from some beloved villains of the DC world, the Suicide Squad fight for their lives and it's all topped off with the humor I loved so much in the New 52 comics. It was a solid start to this Rebirth and I am excited to learn more. 

One of my favorite things about this first volume is that you get a background story of some of the suicide squad members. Some of their backstories are altered a bit but it gives you an insight into their villainous minds. The absence of El Diablo, King Shark, and YoYo left me a bit sad, but as long as my favorite psychotic queen is there then I can forgive everything else. Great start and I'm ready for more. 


Be sure to check it out!

Full disclosure: I love Suicide Squad. LOVE.

In theory. Because, you see, I've never read the comics. And I still haven't watched the movie. 

But Bad Guys as Good Guys is my all-time favorite trope. And not only are the Suicide Squad the bad guys, they are bat shit crazy. If you don't think this is something I should've been reading from birth, you don't know me that well. 

So when I had the chance to read an ARC of the new Suicide Squad, I lept at the chance. And I wasn't disappointed in the least. Would someone who's been a fan for years be disappointed? I honestly couldn't say, because I can't read from that perspective. 

But as a long time fan, first time listener, I think this is such a promising series. The characters are witty, and darkly funny. There's so much surface that's only been grazed, not even scratched. You get background on almost all of them, but I am aching for more. Katana's was, by far, my favorite. I don't know what series she regularly appears in, but I need in on that. 

I have a soft spot for Harley. She didn't let me down here. She, naturally, got all the best lines. Though Boomerang fought for that top spot. 

The ink work is also fantastic. Sometimes the action got smushed in the panels, but that's normal for comics, and it's just me being a whiny brat. 

I am pumped for the rest of this series. So pumped.

I have enjoyed all of the modern iterations of the Suicide Squad, and the Rebirth version is no exception. Humor, action, and great artwork make this a must-read volume. The standalone vignettes at the end are also very entertaining. Highly recommended.

A new, albeit familiar, Suicide Squad  is formed as part of DC’s Rebirth project and easily falls in line to capitalize on the familiarity that the recent film provided. And like the movie before it, the comic is generic, played safe, and features a linear, if head-scratching, plot. 

The premise is tried-and-true and even a bit cliché at this point. The baddest of the bad are recruited by the government to be the ultimate of shadow ops and installed with missions that no one in their right mind would take on. All of the usual personalities are in place for the role call: the assassin Deadshot, the Joker’s protégé Harley Quinn, the merc-with-a-gimmick Captain Boomerang, the cannibalistic-mutant Killer Croc, and so on. The basis for the organization is an easy one, and the formula is ripe with success. However, the plot for this graphic novel, much like the feature-length film, is as lackluster as it is frustrating.  

For this particular starting point, the team is hastily put together in order to invade a secret Russian vault and abscond with a Phantom Zone generator. Yeah, like that Phantom Zone. Superman and General Zod and all that. Instead of a mirror floating endlessly in space, this portal is represented as a back orb. Yet never in this story, and perhaps this why the “Volume 1” designation appears, does writer Rob Williams bestow any answers for the whys. Why does Russia have this? Why does America want it? And why send a squad that is almost entirely comprised of typical human agents who simply wield guns, swords, or, well, boomerangs, to go against a potential Kryptonian menace? Hello, yellow sun. And finally, with all that has happened before with this series, even looking back to the John Ostrander and Luke McDonnell’s conception back in the eighties, why isn’t this introduction more exciting? Jim Lee’s artwork, which is merely serviceable in this outing, does not provide any further answers. 

Fortunately, Suicide Squad, Volume 1: The Black Vault contains some entertaining back stories on key characters. One to note of features the gorgeously illustrative work of Gary Frank spotlighting Harley Quinn. Another focuses on Captain Boomerang and his amusing fantasy of being an Australian super-spy. Both of these tales were written by Williams, proving he can break out the imagination when needed and crafts the back-ups with more attention and appeal than that of the main plot. Maybe that imaginative force is behind bars at Belle Reve and is only allowed to work on certain missions? Yet another question that requires an answer. 

Thanks to both Netgalley and DC Comics for the advance preview of the new Suicide Squad title. Reminds me of my letterhacking days and receiving similar advance copies for solicitation. I’m glad to be able to contribute such reviews again.

From the first volume, this absolutely isn't a book for me, but it isn't total crap, either. Damning with faint praise, I guess, but it's a fair assessment. I found the action dull, the story pointless, and the dialog was largely somewhere between mediocre and plain awful. ("He thinks you're an alien from Alien!" Ouch.) The art is serviceable, but that's about it. And yet, there are a few gems and actually funny moments scattered (somewhat widely) throughout. And the "Personnel Files" which were, I think, extra stories at the end of the individual issues are actually rather good overall. They're meant to give backstory on each character, probably under the assumption that there will be plenty of entirely new readers, fresh from the movie. Pointless if you already know the characters, but it's honestly the best storytelling you'll find in this entire volume. The Captain Boomerang story is a bizarre gem, a sort of Australian parody of James Bond. I can't recommend this book, and I won't be continuing with the series, but other people might enjoy it a lot more than me.

I was never a comic book reader but that is changing, and fast.  D.C. Comics has me hooked and Suicide Squad is just the latest in the awesome  comics I have read from their publishing house.  Suicide Squad The Black Vault is part of D.C. Rebirth (this gives you all the back stories on all of the characters in the comic, awesome for people like me new to the series), has all of the characters that you know and love or will get to know and love, like Capt. Flag, Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Killer Croc, Boomerang, Enchantress, Katana, and Waller, not to mention all the gruesome bad guys.  This was a awesome action packed first edition and I can't wait for the next.


review will go live 3/7/2017

After the mixed reviews of the movie, the comic is a welcome return to what the Suicide Squad is really all about.  Part of the DC Rebirth platform, Suicide Squad Rebirth, The Black Vault brings together the squad again under the command of Rick Flag.  An easy read comic that can be for new recruits or more seasoned readers brought beautifully to life by Jim Lees stunning pencil.