New Suicide Squad #9

By Sean Ryan, Philippe Briones and Blond

It appears that we are once again welcoming new members into the New Suicide Squad. This has been one of the more exciting things about this series, the revolving door of cool villains. Now it seems like they have a group of bad guys that are all formidable and more importantly, they’re not just characters that can be thrown away. As we march on to our next batch of members, you have to cross your fingers that your favorite villain survives.

Sean Ryan has done a pretty good job of making this fun concept a fun read. While there haven’t been too many people who have left the group, there were some big names like the Joker’s daughter and Deathstroke. Issue 9 begins a new story arc for the team, and it pretty much remains the same for the most part. The first several pages focus on a group that left the league of assassins to form their own crew, simply called The League. This is a slow part of the book, we get lots of dialogue and little action. Ryan does break it up with comedic scenes between Deadshot and Captain Boomerang. It’s good to see Sean Ryan allow the trio of Deadshot, Black Manta and Captain Boomerang to get the spotlight this issue while a popular character like Harley Quinn is relegated to one panel. As the issue goes on Ryan amps up the action and the violence starts. Ryan starts to bring the issue home near the end of the book and we will be curious where it heads as we wait for the next installment.

The art is handled by Philippe Briones and Blond. Briones and Blond are a step up from the last group that worked on this title, but there are some off panels. In the earlier pages of the book while Lawton and Harkness are messing around, one or two of the panels have them with pretty distorted faces. The highlight art wise this issue is the scene where the guys get tortured. Briones draws this sequence very well and the expression on the faces of the characters are all different, which is cool to see he didn’t give them all a generic look. The last panel is a great one that may seem a little eerie, but Briones draws it well. The colors by Blond compliment the pencils nicely. Blond doesn’t overdo it with his color palette and excels when he gets the chance to make things darker.

The next arc of New Suicide Squad has started and it continues to be one of the more entertaining books on the shelf. Whether you liked the initial run or not, Sean Ryan is really making this a good series for fans new and old. The art has picked up from the last arc, but there are a few areas where it could use a touch up. Overall this should be the start of another solid arc for an underrated DC title.