Review: Suicide Squad Vol. 1: Kicked in the Teeth

Quick Summary

Pros: The unpredictability in this series makes it very fun as you are never quite sure what will happen next. The spotlight on Harley Quinn’s origin will be particularly interesting for fans of her character.

Cons: Infighting between members of the Suicide Squad is constant and drags the story down whenever it happens.

Overall: In keeping with tradition, Suicide Squad offers a story filled to the brim with action and twists. It tells a good story and tells it in a way that constantly keeps things fresh. The only problem creeps up when characters start fighting for thinly constructed reasons. However, the positives outweigh the negatives and make this a fun start to a new series.

Story

Since it first debuted, unpredictability has always been a staple of the Suicide Squad series. It is a series dealing with villains so you never know what they will do, or if they will live to see the next issue. Suicide Squad Vol. 1: Kicked in the Teeth delivers on this tradition. It is filled with twists and turns that will keep readers in suspense for the entire time. Though constant infighting between the Suicide Squad members prevents this story from being as good as it could have been, this series is clearly off to a good start.

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This story starts out with the members of the Suicide Squad being tortured, with their captors demanding to know who they work for. It is an extremely brutal scene, yet the Squad refuses to say anything. After their refusal, it is revealed that their captors were also their employers. Amanda Waller simply wanted to see if they would break before sending them out into the field. This makes for the first of Suicide Squad Vol. 1‘s neat twists.

From there, Task Force X is sent to a football stadium and charged with killing every single one of the infected people there. It is a brutal and violent scene that almost feels like it could have come right out of a horror comic, rather than a superhero one. It also is where writer Adam Glass shows that he is not afraid to get his hands dirty. The mission ends with the Squad needing to pin the death of the stadium on someone, leading Deadshot to kill another member of the squad. This is an unexpected, yet well executed, twist that demonstrates how unpredictable the series is going to be.

As the story progresses, a mass riot occurs at Belle Reve. During and after this riot, character development starts to become more prominent. It is revealed that both Amanda Waller and Deadshot have people they care about outside this prison, something which is sure to come up again in the future. In addition, both El Diablo and King Shark are shown to be even more unstable than previously thought.

Shortly after, the cast discover that the prison riot was all a cover for Harley Quinn to make her escape. This leads to the Suicide Squad tracking her down, while flashbacks tell the story of Harley’s origin. This means that, for the most part, this portion of the collection is an origin story with bits of modern day action in between. Though not as interesting and thrilling as the story’s beginning, more character development is something that a main character like Harley is going to need as this series progresses. It also allows for a great moment between Harley and Deadshot at the story’s conclusion.

The biggest problem throughout the book is the infighting between members of the Suicide Squad itself. One would think that a team constantly being thrown into fights would not have enough time to fight each other. This is not the case for members of the Suicide Squad. Instead, the book makes an effort to embroil the squad with endless turmoil, even though it may be this book’s worst aspect.

This infighting is especially bad when it comes to the issue of who leads the team. Every single story arc deals with a different villain questioning Deadshot’s leadership and ends with Deadshot silencing them. This plot point is uninteresting to begin with but becomes downright annoying by the end of this book. Hopefully the second volume does not continue to repeat this mistake as it brings down an otherwise enjoyable comic.

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Art

The artwork in this series is done by a couple of different artists, including Federico Dallocchio, Clayton Henry, and Cliff Richards. Overall, the product is nothing special and nothing to really write home about. It is the DC Comic’s “house art” style, meaning that it looks very similar to many other books out of the New 52. This also means that the only thing which could set this art apart is exceptional quality, yet that is definitely not present. All in all, the artwork here is not bad, but not great either.

Continuity

Suicide Squad Vol. 1: Kicked in the Teeth starts a new version of the Suicide Squad series.

The story here is continued in Suicide Squad Vol. 2: Basilisk Rising (Review).

This volume also references and stories from other comics book, all of which are detailed below:

• Superman’s emergence to the world and the stir it caused is mentioned. This is detailed in Action Comics Vol. 1: Superman and the Men of Steel.
• The story behind Joker’s recent condition is told within Detective Comics Vol. 1: Faces of Death (Review).