Review of Suicide Squad: Get Joker!

Suicide Squad: Get Joker! by Brian Azzarello

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Everyone who tackles Joker adds a different dimension to him. Of course, I could say the same for the Squad (especially considering it’s never the same team twice). There are new facets and backgrounds to layer on, creating a different angle to what is – really – the same tale repeated over and over. And I give Mr. Azzarello credit for spinning this version on its head.

But Red Hood is the most apathetic character to introduce. Rather, an incarcerated Red Hood is an uninteresting narrator. Jason Todd has lost all of his fire and personality, dragging his corpse along from one task to the next with the enthusiasm of a chaperone on a school field trip. It drags down the tone of everything, from the relationships between the team members to the plot itself. There’s little reason to care about the outcome (and anyone who understands the characters isn’t fooled by the “cliffhanger” ending).

Larry is the most interesting introduction to the cast, and he’s buried in the background. One starts to wonder how Amanda Waller came upon him and hired him into the bowels of Task Force X. He has sound instincts and adds the only action and intrigue into the entire book. And then he drops back into the shadows, forgotten in the interest of the main characters – who no one cares about any longer. It’s a damn shame.

Not my favorite spin-off of the series. (Hard to turn down a gift, though)

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