Suicide Squad Volume 2: Basilisk Rising is this comic equivalent of a 90s action movie starring Casper Van Dien directed by Renny Harlin. If that sounds good to you then youll love this book, but for anyone with taste, this book will be both dumb and tedious to read. Its also hella confusing due to poor (or, in places, no) plotting. But I digest The Squad are as dysfunctional as ever with the unlikeable and cold Amanda Waller keeping Task Force X (as theyre alternately known) in check with the threat of bombs planted in their necks and her finger over the detonation button. Depending on your knowledge of the DC Universe, theyre mostly made up of lesser-known characters like Iceberg, King Shark, Yo-Yo, Captain Boomerang and others; the two exceptions being Batman villain Deadshot and Harley Quinn, the Jokers kind-of girlfriend. Theres a 2-issue crossover with Mitch Shelley aka Resurrection Man as he and the squad tussle while Mitch conveniently gets the right powers when hes first killed by Deadshot, the perfect powers needed to defeat the Squad and successfully escape (which tends to happen a lot with this guy). But as the title would suggest, this book is mostly taken up with all things Basilisk-related, an evil organisation so blandly put together that they may as well call themselves Baddies Inc. itd be more memorable at least. Waller sends the Squad to assassinate their not-at-all-charismatic leader Regulus, a Loki-a-like figure whose storyline resembles Magnetos in Bryan Singers first X-Men movie. Theres even a direct lift of some of the dialogue a war is coming.
Regulus motives for doing anything in this book are murky to say the least. Were told he believes its only a matter of time before the metahumans (meaning superheroes) take over the world and desires a seat in the forthcoming New World Order. So his solution is to speed things up by turning regular humans into metahumans by way of some kind of bomb that does just that. Why he thinks the newly-turned metahumans wouldnt be more powerful than him and kill him or even want to work for him after what he did to them, doesnt cross his mind. The writing doesnt go much further beyond the superficial so we dont know either. Deadshot asks a question anyone reading this tripe would ask, which is why is he doing any of this? Regulus answer: Because I can. Oh, OK. NOW I care about this stupid character, now that I know zero thought has gone into his motives. Then the plot twists come thick and thicker. Theres a traitor on the team whos been replaced by an exact twin of the team member and no-ones noticed! The traitor on the team is there to kill Amanda Waller but the reason why is never explained. I guess because shes not a very nice person? Also, why she doesnt just detonate the bomb in the traitors neck isnt explained either. And then almost everyone on the team conveniently turn out to be sleeper agents again, why, when, how is never explained, and the code-word that awakens them is nonsense what if they were in a bar and someone said that word? And speaking of Waller, she undergoes quite a character remodelling in issue #0: Point of No Return. We get her backstory where find find out Amanda was part of a special ops team herself called Team 7 but after a disastrous final mission, somewhere in Malaysia, she loses the one person she cared about when Regulus kills him. This issue made me ask: just how old is Amanda Waller? Looking back at the issues before this one Id say shes late 30s early 40s: David Finch drawing Amanda in JLA#1 makes her look about late 30s, early 40s, as does Federico Dallocchio in Suicide Squad #8, as does Cliff Richards in Suicide Squad #13 - but Fernando Dagnino in Suicide Squad #0? He makes her look like Zoe Saldana! She looks ridiculously young and curvy all of a sudden. The final panel shows the various headshots of the Suicide Squad shes headhunting which must mean that the issues that follow #0 happen directly after so Waller mustve aged a ton in a very short space of time. Maybe its just the different artists, but the changes were really noticeable and confusing. Suicide Squad Volume 2 contains a baffling, nonsensical plot with echoes of a popular X-Men movie, characters that look completely different from one issue to the next or like more famous Marvel characters, featuring dull writing and art, no character development, and provides no reason for anyone to continue reading this lazily conceived series anymore. Read it if youve read too many great comics recently and want to read something terrible.