Suicide Squad #8 Review

Dogshot Indeed!


Writer: Tom Taylor
Artist: Daniel Sampere, Adriano Lucas, and Wes Abbott
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: August 25, 2020


I love being right.  Who doesn't?  But being able to say, "I told you so," because DC Comics canceled Suicide Squad sucks!  It's one of my favorite books coming out right now, and it's just starting to pick up some significant momentum.  We still have four more issues to go, including this one, so at least I have that.  Screw that!  I wanted more, and I blame all you lazy layabouts who didn't heed my warning and put this on your pull list.  I don't know who you are,  but I will never forgive you!  NEVER!!!  Now, on to my review of Suicide Squad #8, you jerks!



The issue opens up with the mention of Dogshot (which we've been totally using on the Podcast for months now!) and then does more 'splaining than Lucy ever did to Ricky.  We find out why everyone is so into Badhnisia (there's oil in them there hills!), a little about how Ted Kord got ahold of the Suicide Squad program and Airie and Wink's origin.  It may feel late in the game for most of that, but I am just glad we are getting it, and as a whole, it will make this a good self-contained two trade story by the end.

As far as the particulars, there wasn't anything that surprising.  Wink and Aerie were both victims of experiments, ending up meeting, and together they found the strength to escape.  In doing so, they ended up tussling a bit with Amanda Waller and the Suicide Squad, ate a supreme pizza, and tried to save the T.N. Teens.

The last part pushes the story forward as we see Ted Kord coming up with a plan that might make him even more wealthy than he already is, but also wipe Badhnisia off the map.  I am still not too hip with evil Ted Kord, and it's one of the few things I don't love about this book.

This is a character issue, and that's where Tom Taylor usually shines.  Unfortunatley, this issue falls a bit flat since we don't learn that much more about Wink or Aerie than we already knew or could have guessed ourselves. I wish we could have gotten more on some of the other characters like Chaos Kitty, but it seems that Tom Taylor has picked Wink and Aerie as the characters he thinks have the most traction.  They were already in his DCeased: Hope at World's End, which I will admit, was cool to see!  Here, though, it felt like a forced way to work Lola (from the T.N. Teens) into the story and make Ted Kord seem even eviler, hopefully before we get the big reveal, he isn't.  If you are up on the news, the next issue will be a doozy, and this might be a scheduled "quiet before the storm" kind of issue.

I liked Daniel Sampere's art, but being a huge Bruno Redondo fan, I was disappointed that he wasn't on the issue.  Still, everything looked good, and being mainly a flashback issue works out okay anyway.

Bits and Pieces:

Suicide Squad #8 is a set-up, cool down issue that gives readers a more in-depth look at Aerie and Wink's relationship while setting up this series's stretch run.  Big things are about to go down, and Tom Taylor is putting the pieces together to make it a memorable finale.  This is not a great jumping-on point (really, the series is almost over), but fans who have been reading it from the start should enjoy it.

7.5/10