Suicide Squad's Most Wanted: Deadshot and Katana #1 Review *Jody's Take*

Bullets and Blade

Written by: Brian Buccellato, Mike W. Barr
Art by: Viktor Bogdanovic, Richard Friend, 
Diogenes Neves
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: January 27, 2016

A new year, a new mini-series begins! The birth child of the DC You and the Suicide Squad movie, we have a pair of stories starring the most famous member, Deadshot, and the one people probably know only from Arrow season 3, Katana.

I originally thought that these two would be working together on some suicide mission to take down a big bad that was threatening the government or something. Instead we have a double sized issue containing two different stories...With that in mind, this review will have 2 smaller reviews that will form a cumulative score at the bottom. So how do these tales of warriors fare? Lets find out...


Deadshot: Out of the Past

Written by: Brian Buccellato
Art by: Viktor Bogdanovic, Richard Friend, 
Michael Spicer

For Deadshot's side we have him being ordered by Amanda Waller to capture the daughter of a drug lord he's been ordered to assassinate...but he's not alone. For this mission, he has a partner named Will Evans whose big deal is sharp-shooting...and boy do I feel like we've been here before. It feels like they took the personality trait to keep control from Vic Sage and mixed it with his idea to make a rival for Deadshot when they put Deathstroke on the team. Will even has the freak out that Sage has when things begin to go off the rails! With the exception of Will and the less then imaginative mission at hand, I was legitimately surprised at how much I liked this half. The art was good, and we get a new factor of Deadshot's past that we haven't seen before. I will definitely be picking up the next issue to see where this story goes. Individual Score: 4/5

Katana: The Cult of Kobra

Written by: Mike W. Barr
Art by: Diogenes Neves

For Katana's side, we follow her during a mission for the Justice League to save a doctor in the center of Markovia, which is currently held hostage by Kobra and his forces...who look very reminiscent to Storm Troopers, which is fine, but not very Cult like. Nit-pick aside, I thought this story is a bit of the opposite of as I did above. What I mean by that is that while we don't get an interesting background factor from the character, or any form of character development as with most normal Katana stories, we did get a cool set up for the story as now Katana now needs to lead a revolution against the controlling Cult of Kobra. The art in this I thought was good as well, with the army of Kobra Cultists and the glimpse of the souls in the Soultaker being my favorite bits. I do hope that we'll get more character for Katana as we go forward, maybe something with the Soultaker making her a monster or some sort...Only time will tell.  Individual Score: 3/5

Bits and Pieces

This comic borders on being a shameless cash-grab for the movie...yet still has enough good entertainment in it for you to take a look. Personally I enjoy the Deadshot story over the Katana story, but both look like they could turn out some cool action packed stories. The main downsides are Katana's lack of character and the bland nature of Deadshot's mission. Right now it walks the line of being good or bad, but if they can build on the story they have now with good character development, it'll be an entertaining Mini-series.

7/10