Suicide Squad: The Silver Age Omnibus

Suicide Squad: The Silver Age by Robert Kanigher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Suicide Squad: The Silver Age collects material from The Brave and the Bold #25-27 and #37-39, as well as Star Spangled War Stories #110, 111, 116-121, 125, 127, and 128.

I'm not a Suicide Squad fan but I saw an ad for this in the back of the Doom Patrol omnibus I read a little while ago. I checked Amazon and saw it for $19 and some change, marked down from $50, so I took the plunge.

The creative team is pretty stable throughout. Robert Kanigher handles the words and Ross Andru and Mike Esposito handle the pictures, apart from some guest art by Gene Colan, Russ Heath, and Joe Kubert.

There had to be a huge WTF factor from fans of the Suicide Squad movie that bought this. While I had a faint inkling this contained weird war stories, I bet a lot of people expected a team of semi-reformed super villains like the movies and the modern comics featuring the team.

The TB&TB issues in this deal with the 1950s version of the team while the Star Spangled War Stories issues feature the World War II incarnation. Both teams go up against dinosaurs about 99% of the time. That's an exaggeration but this thing is packed to the gills with dinosaurs.

The 1950s team feels a lot like the Challengers of the Unknown or the Sea Devils, three guys and a girl up against whatever menaces that Mission X sends them up against. Rick Flagg and Karin Murphy (I think that's her last name) can't succumb to their throbbing biological urges without alienating the other two guys on the team, two scientists so characterless that I can't remember their names or even what they look like.

The Star Spangled War Stories are all dinosaurs, all the time. The team members of Suicide Squad, aka Task Force X, are rotating in and out but this is pretty much soldiers vs. dinosaurs, no girls allowed.

The writing is par for the time period but less cringe-inducing than a lot of Stan Lee dialogue from around the same time. Read this for the art because Ross Andru was tearing it up. I have to think he was tired of dinosaurs forever after this wrapped though. The only story that stands out for me was Tidbit for a Tyrannosaurus and that's because it features both Joe Kubert art and GI Robot! I need more GI Robot!

It wasn't the best $19 and change I've ever spend on an omnibus but Suicide Squad: The Silver Age Omnibus has some great art and 99% more GI Robot than your favorite comic. Three out of five dinosaurs.

View all my reviews