Under & Over
Suicide Squad (volume 4) #26
Forever Evil
Cover Date: March 2014
Released: 15th January 2014
- Writers: Matt Kindt
- Pencilers: Rafa Sandoval / Roger Robinson
- Inker: Jordi Tarragona / Roger Robinson
- Colourists: Matt Milla / Blond
- Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher
- Editors: Brian Cunningham / Wil Moss / Harvey Richards
Continued from Suicide Squad #25.
We’re skipping issue #26 which is basically the story of Kamo, the father of King Shark and an ancient Hawaiian deity. Whilst in a parallel story we get the background of Gordon Jr. Whilst two fights happen alongside, the two Sharks and Gordon and Harley Quinn. It moves the characters to the point that Waller has control, more or less, of most of the characters but doesn’t contain out Pee Gee.
Instead we start issue #27 with Pee Gee having her Incredible Hulk moment, holding up the mountain that was dumped on them in issue #26, saving the two squads from certain death. Power Girl has this internal monologue about this not being her world and we get a good few pages of her origin. We actually get her origin on Earth 2, with her doing the classic Superman thing of saving an aircraft. We also find that she lived with Clark and Lois, in what is implied was until the Apokolips invaded. It’s very subtly implied that Earth 2 was until that point a Silver/Bronze Age world that was much lighter than the DC Universe at that time.
Because surprise this is an issue of origin stories! Next we get Unknown Soldier, who was a British Squaddie (soldier) who was a mercenary that basically got in to deep! Then we get Steel, who basically a tired hero who went to Africa, actually a real place, Ghana, rather than just “Africa”. He basically kept the place safe a secure. Boomerang and Warrant are straight up killers doing killer stuff, though we learn that apparently Boomerangs mother was an Aboriginal woman, and seems nice rather than just a stereotype mystic. Same for Deadshot but we learn how he met Harley Quinn.
Oh and Warren dies, he falls into a river and Deadshot fires into the pipe he was using to keep himself self, causing him to be washed away. It’s a page to show that Deadshot is still a villain, because thats cool apparently!
They then get out and we get a quick recap of the fight between OMAC and the two Sharks and we’re good to go with the next issue!
This is a weird issue the second in a series of origin stories, though at least the last one also told a coherent story. This is what people point to when they decry that the 00s comics were decompressed to the point that very little happens from issue to issue. To the point of an origin story for a character that literally doesn’t matter as he dies, or at least the body isn’t found.
But we have two glorious pages of the origin of Power Girl, actually revealing information what we’ve not gotten in her own series. It doesn’t add anything to the story but it does add to the character herself. So yeah a mixed bag in the middle or what’s meant to be an epic crossover story!