Suicide Squad #22 Review

The downside to having a new writer come on board a New 52 series and reinvigorate it is that inevitably the writer will either make a premature departure or the series will be canceled due to low sales. The former is the case with Suicide Squad, as Ales Kot confirmed he's leaving after issue #23. Rubbing salt on that wound is Suicide Squad #22. This is easily Kot's best issue yet, and now we know it's also the penultimate chapter of his brief run.

Issue #22 is largely a standalone tale as Amanda Waller dispatches the team to Las Vegas to deal with a cult of anarchofascists. Anyone who ever wished for Suicide Squad to recapture the dark charm of Secret Six will finally have what they've been craving with this issue. The characters are genuinely funny for basically the first time since the book launched. King Shark especially regains a lot of his pre-New 52 charm. Kot thankfully understands that a book can be dark and violent and still maintain a sense of humor and fun to balance out those elements.

This issue also thrives on the interplay between the field team and the operatives back in Belle Reve. James Gordon Jr. emerges as one of the new highlights of the series. His intelligence combined with his unnerving sociopathic qualities make him a very fresh addition to the cast. Kudos to Kot or whomever else decided Gordon had potential outside of the immediate Batman family of books.

Patrick Zircher is every bit as important to Suicide Squad's newfound success as Kot. His gritty visuals perfectly capture the tone of the story, but he also shows a flair for the more outlandish sides of the DCU as well.

This issue does stumble at the very end as Kot delivers another final page that feels abrupt and divorced from the rest of the action. But that's a minor complaint in an otherwise stellar comic.

Jesse is a writer for various IGN channels. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.

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