Review: New Suicide Squad Vol. 4- Kill Anything

Quick Summary

Pros: The main storyline is interesting and very unpredictable. Interactions between characters are fun to see play out and give some insight about the team’s personalities. The Harley Quinn chapter is well-done. The artwork looks good and helps make this a better book.

Cons: The beginning of this volume conflicts with the overall theme from the previous volume. One of this book’s subplots feels completely unnecessary and ends up being a distraction.

Overall: The final volume in the New Suicide Squad series ends up being the comic’s best individual collection. It tells a story with a unique setting, unexpected twists, and charming characters. Meanwhile, great artwork enhances the entire adventure by driving home the book’s tone and providing great depictions of the action. Established fans of the Suicide Squad will get a kick out of this collection’s characters while new fans will find this to be a worthwhile collection to jump in on.

Story

New Suicide Squad Vol. 4: Kill Anything, by Tim Seeley, is a fun romp with a great cast of characters. The story here is interesting, the twists are well-executed, and the character interactions are stellar. This collection also begins and ends a brand new Suicide Squad storyline, one that remains relatively isolated from the rest of the Squad’s adventures. Together, these elements turn this into a volume that is perfect to jump into, whether fans have read previous collections or not. There are a few missteps in this collection, especially if you are reading this immediately after New Suicide Squad Vol. 3 (Review) , but these are relatively minor compared to the overall quality of the storytelling. All in all, the story here is solid and does a great job in telling an individual Suicide Squad adventure.

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The main storyline in Kill Anything is very compelling and features tons of great interactions between its characters. Locking the Suicide Squad in a castle full of derange murderers is a solid concept to begin with but pairing them up with a new team of anti-heroes makes the whole situation even better. This situation allows the interplay between members of the Suicide Squad to be as good as it has always been and allows it to get even better as they banter back and forth with their new acquaintances. These interactions are then used to showcase personality traits, like Deadshot’s reluctant admiration for Harley Quinn or Cheetah’s surprising levels of sympathy.  

The best aspect of this storyline is how completely unpredictable it is from beginning to end. The book’s first chapter ends with the Suicide Squad dying at the hands of a new superhero team, yet this is quickly revealed to be a ruse in order to stage an escape attempt. Later, similar plot twists occur as the leader of a humanitarian group turns out to be a psychotic villain and Amanda Waller’s new associate turns out to be a former supervillain. This is a book that constantly keeps you on your toes in a way that suits the Suicide Squad well.

Outside of the main storyline, Kill Anything also contains a chapter that is essentially a look into Harley Quinn’s tragic madness. Written by Sean Ryan, this story is an emotional departure from the rest of the volume’s over-the-top action. The contrast works well though and this final chapter injects a bit of additional meaning into the rest of the collection.

However, Kill Anything also has a few flaws as well. One of these is that it does not jive well with the entire message of the previous volume. New Suicide Squad Vol. 3 (Review) concluded by definitively stating that the Suicide Squad members, especially Deadshot, needed the Suicide Squad as much as the Suicide Squad needed them. Then, this volume starts out by having them stage a breakout. Different writers can take teams in different directions but staging these themes back to back was poor planning by DC’s editorial.

Another small flaw in this collection is the entire existence of the Rose Tattoo subplot. This small arc offers almost nothing to the main storyline and only manages to distract from the main event. Its inclusion feels cluttered and random in a way that makes it unnecessary. This collection would have benefited if the Rose Tattoo subplot had been left out entirely.

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Art

The artwork in Kill Anything is great and ends up being one of the most enjoyable aspects of the book. Juan Ferreyra’s artwork looks haunting and gritty, in a way that suits the Suicide Squad and their environment well. This sets the book’s dark tone and makes the situation feel more grim than it would be otherwise. The diverse use of colors and general high level of detail also helps keep the book visually compelling on nearly every page. Overall, the artwork in this collection looks good and helps make this a better book.

Continuity

New Suicide Squad Vol. 4: Kill Anything continues the story from Suicide Squad Vol. 3: Freedom (Review).

The New Suicide Squad series ends with this volume. However, the story here continues in Suicide Squad Vol. 1: The Black Vault (Review)