John Ostrander: Suicide Squad The Movie Redux, Redux

John Ostrander

John Ostrander started his career as a professional writer as a playwright. His best known effort, Bloody Bess, was directed by Stuart Gordon, and starred Dennis Franz, Joe Mantegna, William J. Norris, Meshach Taylor and Joe Mantegna. He has written some of the most important influential comic books of the past 25 years, including Batman, The Spectre, Manhunter, Firestorm, Hawkman, Suicide Squad, Wasteland, X-Men, and The Punisher, as well as Star Wars comics for Dark Horse. New episodes of his creator-owned series, GrimJack, which was first published by First Comics in the 1980s, appear every week on ComicMix.

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2 Responses

  1. Carl Fink says:

    You wrote, “… Amanda Waller is so Amanda Waller for me.” That was one of my two main problems with the movie–no, no she isn’t, to this fan. (It feels arrogant to say that to her creator, but it’s the truth.)

    I read every single issue you and your wife worked on. I don’t remember a single instance in which Waller cold-bloodedly gunned down her own staff, to keep a secret that could never be kept in the first place, and walked away without a moment of guilt or regret. She was cold, yes. Mass-murdering psychopath, no.

    Perhaps I’m remembering wrong.

  2. Whit Knight says:

    @ John Ostrander, Hohoho back at you. I enjoy reading your work, Sir. The underbelly of comicdom ain’t always my cuppa…but, I suppose I can accurately recall the time when I saw comics growing up before my very 19 – year-old-eyes…circa 1970 and beyond, say, to 1973. That was the year I separated from the Air Force. I resumed my reading passion in the late 1980s. By then, comics had really grown up, at least from my perspective. In ’89, I re-found Hawkman, my childhood hero, courtesy of Truman, Alcatena et al (I picked up the trilogy)…My first and so far only fan letter was published in the first issue of HawkWorld. Okay, enough gushing. I’d read somewhere that 1961’s Katar Hol was “edgy”. I haven’t read enough of Fox’s 1940s Hawkman to speak with authority as to “edgy”. As to the ’60s, I prefer the Fox/Kubert rendition, edgy or not. I wasn’t sophisticated enough to really perceive the subtle sexual tension in those stories, even after Anderson took the wheel. As an almost-ten-year-old in 1961, I was hooked on the dynamic between Katar and Shayera (and does her name have two syllables, or three ?)., and could nearly perceive the almost-subtle aim of the persistent Mavis…I just remembered that I’d also caught up with the Hols in the mid-80s, briefly…then HawkWorld, then damn, the end of the series…then their conversion to Protestantism…oh, well. Skipping ahead, ignoring assorted iterations between then and now, excepting two recorded deaths of the Hols, DC is yet again bent on killing off Katar. Shayera bit the dust, as I recall, in The Savage (!?) Hawkman, yet another short lived series…is it my imagination, or is this current series, The Death of Hawkman, a riff on the Arthurian story? Just a thought…Be that as it may, what grabbed my attention in 1961 was that these two lovebirds loved their job, and each other, more so the latter. They fought for each other, not with. I’ll step down from the pulpit, now. Could you see your way clear to find a writer that could treat these people with dignity, in these tumultuous times? Thanks. Had to get that off my chest .