Tagged: Deadshot

John Ostrander: Double Cross Over

For the past few weeks I’ve been discussing the stories contained in the upcoming volume of Suicide Squad reprints (Volume 7, The Dragon’s Horde, out December 22). I’ve been running down the stories in order but this week I’m jumping to the last story in the collection.

This last story was a tie-in issue to the War of the Gods crossover event that DC was running at that time. I’m jumping to it not because it’s my favorite story in Vol. 7 but because it isn’t.

I’ve had mixed reactions to Big Company Wide Crossovers. They do interrupt the flow of what you have planned but, OTOH, that’s like what we laughingly refer to as Real Life: big events happen and toss our best laid plans out any convenient window. It is said the gods like when mortals make plans; it gives them something to shoot at.

There are all kinds of ways of doing a crossover issue; it can be a vital chapter in the overall story, it can show how the Big Event is affecting part of the world, it can be a Red Sky story. That happened during Crisis on Infinite Earths, the granddaddy of Big Events at DC.  One of the hallmarks of the events was the red skies. An issue of an ongoing series could qualify as a “crossover issue” if it featured red skies and some person said, “Ooh! The skies are red!” Something less than a vital piece of the narrative; I was a fan and not a pro at the time and I resented it.

However, the red skies stunt underscored one of the major purposes of a crossover – to lure the reader into trying other (or all) of the books in the line. Hopefully, they’ll see a bump in sales. Most of the time, the increase doesn’t last. So – you do another crossover and so on, ad nauseam, until you get fan burn-out. And then marketing tells you to do another.

I’ve participated in all kinds of crossovers, from doing the Main Event (Legends) to tie-in issues (hopefully none of which are “red sky” issues). Some were easier than others; some were nearly impossible. One we had to co-ordinate with all the other books out that week and I wound up with that assignment since I had two or three of them.

In the story in this volume, the Squad ties into the War of the Gods event. To be honest, I don’t remember what that crossover was about. My problem with the result is that it resulted in a not very good story, let alone a good Squad story.

Captain Marvel’s… excuse me, Shazam’s… Bad, Black Adam, comes calling on the Squad. He needs some warm bodies for an attack he is planning on a temple on an island in a lake in South America guarded by were-beasts and an offshoot of Amazons who live in the Middle East. Where? Somewhere.

Waller feels they’ll need a lot of warm bodies so she recruits a fair amount. The reader at this point probably expects most of them to die and they’re not wrong. We do, however, take the opportunity to get most of the Squad back into uniform. Black Adam claims that, when you go to fight gods, ceremonial garb should be worn. (The hold-out is Deadshot who recently killed the guy wearing his costume, shooting him right between the eyes. You can understand Lawton’s reluctance; the dry-cleaning bill on that would probably be steep.)

Oh, Kim and I (well, mostly me) threw in a new character called The Writer and then killed him off. He was supposed to be a well-known DC writer who had written himself into continuity. It was strictly a gag and, frankly, a puerile one. Apologies all around.

There’s a lot of yelling and fighting and characters die; not the sort of stuff Kim and I usually did with the Squad. It’s also incomplete; at one point in the midst of the battle, Black Adam vanishes into the temple followed by a few Squad members. Shortly afterwards, the island and the temple blow up. Why? Who knows. What’s in the Temple? Doesn’t tell you here. What was Black Adam’s agenda (he definitely had one)? To be told somewhere else.

There’s a block of white space on the bottom of the last page of the story in which the reader was informed where to go for the next thrilling chapter. The reader of this volume doesn’t have that and so they are left with an incomplete story with big gaps in it. And it’s the last story in this volume as well and I think leaves a somewhat sour taste in the mouth.

However, it may be someone’s favorite story. Years ago, I was on a panel at a comic book convention and was asked what was the story I’d written that I wished I could unwrite. I named it and ridiculed it and some poor guy in the front row looked stricken and said “But that’s my favorite story!” If this story was one of your favorite’s, I apologize.

But I have to be honest; it ain’t one of mine.

John Ostrander Is Getting His Redux In Line!

This week we’ll continue with my commentary on the latest collection of my run of Suicide Squad stories, # 7, The Dragon’s Horde. This one will be out just a few days before Christmas making it a perfect last-minute Christmas gift. Well, for some pretty strange people on your Christmas list, I’ll grant you. Once again, although I feel foolish in saying it, the Spoiler Flag is flying although the stories are about two decades old.

Last week we explored the first story in the volume which was the 50th issue celebration. That had everyone, living and dead, from the Squad in it. The next story, Fractured Image, focuses down to mainly just Deadshot. There are others in the story but the main plot centers on Floyd Lawton.

After a major storyline with lots of characters in it, Kim Yale (my wife and co-writer) and I liked to do stories complete in a single issue with a tighter focus to them. When you write an ongoing series, you need to think of the rhythm not only of a given story but of the series as a whole. You can fatigue the reader if you have too many Big Big Big stories with Action Action Action. It’s why we used to do Personal File stories in the Squad maybe once a year; focus on ongoing subplots and individual characterization. This issue isn’t quite a Personal File but it comes close.

Among other subplots, we advanced the connection between Eve Eden (Nightshade) and Tom Tresser (Nemesis). The two always had an attraction for each other but the time never seemed right; it gets right in this story. On a more significant note, Count Vertigo has a conversation with Deadshot that will linger for the rest of the series. Werner Vertigo is manic depressive and had recently been under the thrall of Poison Ivy in which his soul, as he puts it, no longer felt his own. He can’t live that way should it happen again. For reasons he doesn’t go into here, he can’t commit suicide so he wants to know if Lawton will put a bullet in Vertigo’s brain if Werner asks him. Lawton has no problem with that but warns Vertigo to be serious if he asks Deadshot to do it because he will.

The main story spins out of another subplot that we had been spinning for awhile. (Kim and I could nurse a subplot along for more than a year.) Lawton and Captain Boomerang had made a trip Down Under to Harkness’s old stomping grounds when they were summoned back to join the Squad on a mission. Because of Boomerbutt, the two missed their plane. As a result, their luggage got lost – including Lawton’s costume and wrist magnums.

Deadshot is not amused.

At the start of the issue, we discover the costume has been found and recovered – by a luggage handler in France named Marc Pilar who was described as a nothing working in the fringes of the mob. Lawton flies to Marseilles, France, to deal with the imposter and recover his property but there is a real question as to whether or not he can kill “himself.” Lawton had always been described as having a death wish but I never felt he was out to commit suicide. He just didn’t care if he lived or died. Now he is being hunted by “Deadshot”; will he let himself be killed by his alternate persona?

At this time in the run of Suicide Squad, I had decided it would be more realistic to take the Squad out of their costumes and code names. They were supposed to be a covert action group and, as such, should not be drawing undue attention to themselves. In theory.

I now look back at this decision as a mistake. These are comics and the costumes and codenames are a major part of the visuals. I think we started to hemorrhage readers at this point and it would help lead to the book’s cancellation about a year and a half later. Any book that’s more than five years old is going to start losing readership but this choice may have helped.

Nonetheless, I like this story a lot. It’s fair to say that Deadshot was one of the Squad “trinity” (along with Waller and Captain Boomerang) who were never going to get killed. Oh, they occasionally got shot just to make the readers think we might kill them but it was never going to happen. I just enjoyed playing with them too much.

Next time: when the Squad got silly.

John Ostrander: Suicide Squad TPB 6 — Control

This week we wind up our discussion about the 6th volume of DC’s reprint of my (and Kim Yale’s) run on the Suicide Squad. We’ll be discussing the final story in the book; it was issues 48 and 49 and featured Oracle, a.k.a Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl crippled by an attack from the Joker. She then re-made herself into the go-to information broker in the DCU. Well, Kim and I re-made her but you get the idea.

This story brings back another character from the Squad, Simon LaGrieve who had been the Squad’s shrink. He and Waller had not parted well and now he was the head of the Institute for Metahuman Studies (the IMHS). La Grieve was doing Waller a favor in treating two members of the Squad who were hurt in the previous story and in return, had a favor to ask of her.

There was a character in Firestorm (which I had also been writing and from which I also got the IMHS) named Cliff Carmichael who was Ronnie (Firestorm) Raymond’s nemesis. I’d inherited the character and, to be honest, I didn‘t much care for him so I decided he was a sociopath and he wound up at the IMHS.

There at the Institute, thanks to two dunderheaded scientists, Cliff got a hold of the late Thinker’s helmet. (I’d killed off the Thinker in another Squad story.) He used the helmet to analyze the helmet itself, create a series of microchips that he had inserted in his head – along with a computer port – and became a real cyberpunk. He gained the ability to interface with any computer and, oh yeah, could create a field within which he could grab control of another’s person’s brain. Doncha just love simple, easy, straightforward backstory?

Minor digression: The two dunderheaded scientists were named  ­­Pangloss and Caius. Pangloss is named for a character in Voltaire’s Candide and there’s a Doctor Caius in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor. I do that from time to time; borrow names from other literary works. Simon LaGrieve was named after Simon LeGree from Uncle Tom’s Cabin. He carries no other traits with that odious character but I did it as in in-joke for myself related to Belle Reve prison which had been the Squad’s HQ for much of the series.

Belle Reve is also the book’s connection to Tennessee Williams, being the same name as the plantation that Blanche DuBois and her sister Stella had been raised on in A Streetcar Named Desire. Blanche lost it and my conceit is that it was bought by someone who lost it to the government which then built a prison on it. That’s why the prison is in the swamps in Louisiana.  (There’s your bit of Squad trivia for the day.) A plantation should have an overseer and that’s how Simon LeGree became Simon LaGrieve. End digression.

Carmichael, a.k.a. the new Thinker, was now stalking Oracle. Why? Because LaGrieve asked Oracle to help set a trap for the escaped Thinker. The idea was to introduce a virus that would wipe the chips in his brain but the plan backfired and now the Thinker is stalking Oracle to punish her for her part in the scheme. And LaGrieve wants the Squad’s help in stopping Carmichael before he can do it. Of course, Amanda agrees; she and Oracle also have history.

Not really a spoiler alert: Waller succeeds and Oracle survives but not before the Wall also tries on the old Thinker’s helmet. Carmichael with that kind of technology was scary; Waller with it? Brrrrr!

The cover to issue 49 is also one of my faves in the series and one of the great ones featuring Babs Gordon. Drawn by Norm Breyfogle it just has Barbara in her wheelchair pointing a gun out in the general direction of the reader. There’s a bat symbol behind her, a determined look on Bab’s face, and a one-word balloon: “Smile.” Definitely a reference to the Joker who put her in that wheelchair.

There’s some hits and misses in the story. To show the first confrontation between Oracle and the Thinker, we had it take place in cyberspace. The look was heavily influenced by the movie Tron (the first one). It’s interesting but also now a bit dated. Don’t blame Luke McDonnell and Geoff Isherwood who were the artists; they were simply following the instructions of the writers. In fact, don’t blame Kim either; I think this was my big idea.

There are only a few members of the Squad available for the mission: Bronze Tiger, Captain Boomerang, Deadshot, and a hidden Atom. We carry over the gag from the previous story that Boomerang’s and Deadshot’s luggage is lost by the airlines, largely due to Boomerbutt. Deadshot is not pleased and Harkness is getting real nervous.

A big issue in this story is whether or not Barbara, who knows that the Thinker is after her, will shoot him. And who does she really want dead? For me, that’s the most vital part of the plot.

The story resolves with Waller getting uncharacteristically physical, basically beating the crap out of the Tinker. Actually, it’s very satisfying, I think. And Oracle agrees to resume her relationship with Waller and the Squad.

Oh, and we also set the stage for the double-sized issue 50 which will be reprinted in late November when the 7th volume of the Squad TPBs come out. Volume 6 will be out around May 23 and now you have all the background dirt on these stories. The Squad should always have background dirt.

John Ostrander: The Suicide Squad – The Jerusalem Serpent

For the past few weeks we’ve been discussing the latest TPB reprint of my Suicide Squad run at DC with me giving some of my thoughts about what went into the stories. One of the things I like about this volume is that it gives a nice variety – there’s a four-part story arc, a single-issue story, another four-parter, and then a two-parter.

This week we’re going to focus in on the second four-parter, The Jerusalem Serpent. The villain of the piece is named Kobra, a Jack Kirby creation. He’s the leader of a cult-like terrorist group and had bounced around the DCU for a number of years. He was a made-to order bad guy for the Squad although I monkeyed with him a bit. In DC cosmology you had the Lords of Order and the Lords of Chaos (which, in itself, was patterned after the cosmology in much of Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion series). Doctor Fate, for example, was an avatar of the Lords of Order. So I made Kobra a follower of the Lords of Chaos, working to usher in the Kali Yuga- the Age of Chaos. The guy had a real Jones for it.

He was offset in the story by another character that we had brought into the Squad – Revan, who had originally been part of the Jihad, the super-powered terrorist for hire group we met way back in the first issue. Revan was a modern Thugee, from whom we get the term thug. He and Kobra both worshipped Kali which might make you think they were on the same side but Revan sought to delay the Kali Yuga while Kobra wanted to usher it in. This made them implacable enemies and they were described as the mongoose and the cobra. They were destined to fight to the death and, in this storyline, they do. Well, one of them does.

In this arc we also meet an Israeli band of superheroes, the Hayoth, all of whom were created specifically for this book. The Hayoth were the four living beasts of Ezekiel and Revelation in the Bible and, in this, I hear Kim’s voice. She knew Bible lore better than I did or do.

Their leader, and Waller’s counterpart, is Colonel Hacohen, also Mossad’s liasion with Hayoth. Its members included Judith, essentially a Jewish ninja. A man named Moshe Nachman was code-named Golem and had the ability to alter the chemical composition of his body to sand, mud, earth, water and so on.

The last two members are among my favorites: Ramban, who we described as a combat magician, and Dybbuk, an Israeli A.I. or Artificial Intelligence. Ramban is named for one of the great Kabbalistic magicians of old. A dybbuk, in Jewish folklore, was a possessing spirit. In this case, Dybbuk can possess other computers, machinery, just about anything that has electricity running through it.

Kobra gets caught in the early pages of the story and imprisoned by the Israelis but he has sent a message to the Americans: “The Age of Kali Yuga will dawn in Jerusalem.” Waller and the Squad are hired by an Egyptian official to find out what Kobra intends and prevent it from happening. So why does he care what happens to the Israelis? As the official puts it, they don’t want a madman like Kobra manipulating events to his own ends – ends that would not benefit the Arabs or the Israelis.

So Amanda Waller gets hired and she and her team must infiltrate Israel, something that is harder for some than others. A running joke throughout the arc is Deadshot and Boomerang trying to get there. They’re coming from the previous issue’s adventure in Australia and, because Boomerbutt insisted on getting a drink (or two or three or five) on the way to the airport, they’ve missed their plane. Their luggage, however, has gone on without them and then gets lost in the system. Deadshot’s uniform and guns are in his luggage and he is not amused. Harkness understands all too well that this could get him killed.

Waller is not amused either.

The Wall figures out early on that Kobra got caught because he wanted to get caught. The Israelis dismiss such a notion but Waller wants to figure out why and this gets us to the heart of this story and the reason its one of my faves.

The A.I., Dybbuk, is guarding Kobra 24/7 which gives the Avatar of Chaos a chance to engage in a dialogue with him/it. Dybbuk is an innocent, like Adam in Eden. He has no knowledge of Good and Evil. Kobra is the serpent seducing him. Is Dybbuk a person or a machine? Kobra convinces the A.I. that the only way to know is to determine a course of action and then choose to follow it through.

The course of action? Sending Israeli jets to destroy Islam’s third holiest shrine, the Dome of the Rock, which happens to be built on the ruins of Solomon’s temple. The Jews then will be able to rebuild the temple. In theory. Of course, it will also ignite the unholiest of Holy Wars – and usher in the Age of Chaos.

The Squad and the Hayoth battle each other while the Squad seeks to stop the jets’ attack but the real climax to the arc is a dialectical conversation between Dybbuk and Ramban, a philosophical discussion about not only making a choice but the value of making a moral one.

I hear Kim’s voice all over those pages; my late wife and writing partner knew the source material being cited and how to present it. The fate of the world depends on two beings talking and coming to the right decision. As Ramban says, “To know what to do is good, to know why you do it is better.”

Ah, that‘s the Squad I loved.

We’ll wind this up next week with the final story in the collection and that one centers on Oracle.

Be good.

John Ostrander: Suicide Squad The Movie Redux, Redux

Completing the trifecta of John Ostrander related items suitable for putting under the Christmas tree, today we have the Suicide Squad movie now out on DVD, Blu-Ray, and assorted other platforms that I don’t understand. The movie came out in August and now, just in time for Christmas, it’s out for your home theater.

This may be a trickier recommendation than my previous two because, although the movie did very well in the theaters, not everyone was a fan. In fact, some hated it. Me, I loved it – but I admit to a slight bias.

The version I got was the extended version with the bells and whistles – extended scenes and bonus features (which I’ll get to in a minute). I’m not always crazy about extended scenes or deleted scenes; more often than not I can see why they were cut. Although there was a scene in The Godfather between Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) and his son (Al Pacino) in a hospital corridor set early in the film where Michael angrily tells his father “I will never be like you! Never!” I still can’t believe they cut it.

However, I like the extended scenes in the Squad. I think they filled out the story, added characterization, and explained one or two things. It doesn’t take care of all the flaws. For example, (SPOILER ALERT) after the climax Deadshot rightly asks Amanda Waller, “How come you aren’t dead?” It’s not answered and it’s a fair question; acknowledging a flaw doesn’t correct it.

The plot is a little too “save the world” for my taste; when I wrote it, the Squad didn’t really do that. There are other flaws as well, all of which I admit, but I had a good time every time I watch it and I did again. The good very much outweighs the bad so far as I’m concerned. I love the character interactions and Amanda Waller is so Amanda Waller for me. They had read and knew the source material and made a fine adaptation of it. I’m gratified.

And there’s a bunch a special features and, if you’re a fan of mine, you might be interested that I’m in some of them. I sat down and did a video interview and parts of it were incorporated into the special features. If you’ve read/heard interviews with me in the past, you’ve probably heard the stories I tell here. Not everyone who watches this will have heard them, though. I suppose I should find a new way of telling these stories but it’s practiced and professional the way they are now and, I think, moderately entertaining. So now I have my name not only up on a building in the movie, I’ve told my story in the background feature.

It is odd to watch myself in the video. I always have a disconnect between myself on the screen and my own self-image. Do I really sound/look like that? I guess so. I look presentable and sound reasonable and that’s not always the case, so I’m content.

Should you buy the home version if you were not crazy about the film in the first place just to see me blather? No, absolutely not. If you didn’t like it before, even the addition of extended scenes and (ahem) me will not improve that for you. However, according to Amazon, the Blu-ray is among their best sellers in action/adventure so I guess there are plenty of folks who are enjoying it.

A second Squad movie has been announced as in development but with no release date yet set or any other particulars so far as I know. I’m looking forward to it.

Now, if we can just convince Warners to make a movie of Tom Mandrake’s and my version of The Spectre. Heck, I’d pay to see that one!

In the meantime, Happy Holidays to you all. Whether you buy a John Ostrander related item or not.

Ho Ho Ho.

John Ostrander’s Picking Favorites

amanda-waller-grimjack-kros

Last weekend I was at the Geek’d Con in Rockford, Illinois. It was a small first time con and it had some things to work out, but over all it went okay.

I really enjoyed the fans but, for me, the big moment was when my niece, Julie Adams, showed up with her husband Rob and their three kids, Rachel, Hailey, and Ryan. They even sat in on the Q&A panel I did on Saturday and, bless ‘em, asked some questions themselves. And, as is typical with kids and especially kids who are relatives, a question or two were tough to answer.

The big one I was asked (by Hailey, as I recall) was, “Which of your characters is your favorite?” Deceptively simple, that question. “That’s like asking a parent which is their favorite child,” I replied, glancing at Julie and Rob. Both grimaced.

I’m not sure that answer completely satisfied Hailey (or her brother and sister) so I did explain a little more. “This may sound like a cop-out but it’s whatever character that I’m working on right now. It has to be that way. I need to be that excited about the character I’m working on if the story is going to be any good.”

Okay, I admit it was a bit of an evasion but it’s true; I really can’t pick just one of my characters as my favorite. That said, I can name several of the characters that I’ve worked on as among my favorites. One, obviously, is Amanda Waller of the Suicide Squad. There was no-one like her when she first showed up some thirty years ago and there’s really been no-one like her since. She doesn’t mess around; she has a vision and she goes after it. She uses people (villains mostly but not exclusively) and if someone has to die to get the job done, she’ll sacrifice them without a second thought. As Deadshot in the movie says of her, “That is one mean lady.”

Thing is, I’ve never thought of her as an outright villain. An anti-hero, certainly, but she does have something of a conscience. She’s kept people around to call her on her bullshit. What they say may not change what she does but, as she has said at least once, “Just because I don’t do what you say doesn’t mean I’m not listening.” She’s more of an interesting character if she has a sliver of a conscience; otherwise, she’s a sociopath.

Two others on the Squad also qualify among my favorites – Deadshot and Captain Boomerang. With Boomerang, it’s that he’s actually well-adjusted (more or less); he knows he’s scum and he’s happy being that. He has no desire to be better than who he is. Every time you think he’s sunk as far as he can go, he finds another level to which he can fall. Deadshot just doesn’t care – period. I don’t see him as having a death wish. I think he just doesn’t care if he lives or dies and that, IMO, gives him a lot of power.

I also really enjoyed working with Father Richard Craemer, both in the Squad and in The Spectre. He’s a good man, a good counselor, with a good sense of humor (useful when dealing with nigh omnipotent Spectre). My late wife, Kim Yale, and I created him and based him on religious people we knew in our respective families who also were good people.

I even enjoyed the cannon fodder in the Squad – characters brought in to be killed off. I had to invest something in them in order to make those deaths mean something and have an impact on the reader. One of my faves among these was Shrike (Vanessa Kingsbury); an innocent mass killer, she felt she was Born Again even though she couldn’t help killing more people as she went on. She weirded the heck out of Father Craemer.

Minor characters like Punch and Jewelee also among our faves. More than a little nuts, they were like criminal yuppies from hell.

I could go on at great length about some of the other characters in the other series that I’ve done over the years but this column is long enough (and late enough) as it is. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one very big name – John Gaunt. GrimJack.

You could say in a way that he was my first born. I had written four 8 page back-ups in Warp and one full length story in Starslayer when GrimJack debuted in the back of the latter title. He was my first original creation in comics, influenced in equal parts by Robert E. Howard and Raymond Chandler. A hard-boiled barbarian working out of the multi-dimensional city of Cynosure, I could place him in almost any setting and make it work. We even did a time traveling Western.

He was also a scar-faced Cupid. Kim and I knew each other before GrimJack but we were just friends. She was also a big fan of the book and it was one particular issue, “My Sins Remembered,” that really got to her. She wrote to me (although at the time she lived less than a mile away) and we went out for coffee and we talked about the issue and what had affected her so much. She opened up to me and I found myself connecting to her in ways I hadn’t before. About seven months later, when I proposed, Gaunt was a part of that presentation (including a GrimJack teddy bear). So, I guess, gun to my head (which Gaunt is certainly capable of doing) maybe he is my favorite. Along with his supporting cast. And his next incarnation.

See how difficult this is?

Right now, my favorite characters are Kros (from Kros: Hallowed Ground which I’m doing with Tom Mandrake) and Hexer Dusk (which I’m doing with Jan Duursema) because those are the ones I’m working on at the moment. You can find samples of both on Indiegogo and even pre-order the books if so inclined.

I’m also starting a new love affair for a project I’m working on with Mike Gold. It’s not announced yet so I can’t really tell you much about it but my enthusiasm is mounting.

I just can’t help myself!

Suicide Squad: Marc Alan Fishman’s Conflict of Interest!

Harley Quinn GloveHello all. As I’m sure nearly everyone else here on ComicMix has given their two cents on the recent release of Suicide Squad (with the most important among us, John Ostrander, being the end-all-be-all in his review), I’d be remiss if I didn’t also drop a few opinionated pennies in the bucket.

My opinion of the flick, sadly, isn’t a high one. Had John – someone I admire so much as a writer, and cherish as a (dare I say it) personal friend – not been one of the sources by which David Ayer and his team built the Squad around? I’d really be inclined to say I left the theater unsurprisingly disgruntled. But I left at least with a snicker and some joy for the good things buried in the layers of bad.

Walking in, admittedly, my expectations were low. Given the bar to clear thanks to Batman v. Superman, all I really wanted was a film that could at least take a step back now and again to have a laugh and/or human moment. I didn’t need to see Deadshot and his dirty dozen eat gyros in Central City mind you, but I needed to be reminded now and again that the DC Movie Universe wasn’t all angsty rainstorms and mommy issues.

Walking out, I felt I’d been treated to – as my friend and comic shop owner Eric Garneau quipped — a two hour music video. Stuff exploded. One liners were dropped. A little depth and human emotion permeated a few of the Wall’s wicked wrongdoers. And I didn’t leave exhausted by most of the ham-fistedness of it all.

If I’m allowed to file some complaints… (And, duh, SPOILERS be ahead, matey)

Jared Leto may had thought going method was the way to really capture the Joker. But the inked and lovelorn desperate putz they paraded out during the film was hardly the clown prince of crime I personally love to loathe. As presented, he was a chalk white gangster without a soul. If it’s one thing every Joker before him has shown (and much of that comes with the script) is a depth beyond the forced smile and purple pants. In Suicide Squad, he served only one purpose: to grant us our Harley Quinn, the sexpot screwloose heart-of-the-team.

A secondary concern would pop up when it came to the obvious screen time of Will Smith’s Deadshot as well as the aforementioned Dr. Quinzelle. Clearly the studio loved how marketable each would be; Deadshot is basically a living action figure, and Harley is Hot Topic made flesh. But with each of them getting considerably longer stretches to dominate the film, the more interesting members of the team were left to fill fodder roles.

Had we not seen Captain Boomerang stuff the pink unicorn into his jacket several dozen times, would there even be much to the character as given to us? He was funny as he continually opted to try to half escape or drink beer, sure… But there’s far more to Digger than the movie opted to offer.

And what of Killer Croc or El Diablo? To me, Diablo stole the film, with his well-paced slow burn (natch) arc. It left me wanting to know far more about him. While Croc apparently was happy to be the muscle of the team who was always relegated to wide shots due to the budget clearly being spent on Enchantresses’ CGI maelstrom.

Which leads me to the last nit to pick. From the second she was introduced, Enchantress was truly used as nothing more than a deus ex machinsquad. Overpowered, over CGI’ed, and under-acted, I never believed for a second that the June Moon inside wanted our Not-Tom-Hardy Rick Flag. But the point is moot. She was there to give us a squad and produce yet-another-army of expendable computer monsters to bash. Meh.

For what it’s worth, I feel the need to end on an uplifting note. Much as John himself pointed out, so much of the success of this film would rest on Amanda Waller. As the Samuel L. Jackson Nick Fury of the DCU (who predates that actual character by several decades… thank you, John), Viola Davis was everything I wanted in the Wall and more. In fact, I hope we catch her rooting around every DC movie from here to the eventual Kingdom Come.

Ultimately, if someone were to ask me about Task Force X I’d pop in my DVD of Justice League Unlimited and show them how it was done as a masterstroke. Otherwise, I suggest switching your brain to mute, getting a large greasy bucket of popcorn, and just enjoy the madness. Suicide Squad is, to date, the best DC’s movie makers have yet to offer. Enough glints of hope exist for the casual fans to have a good time.

And hey, should the Squad return? Well, if it drops a few shekels of credit to John Ostrander… my next ticket will be bought in advance.

John Ostrander Reviews the Suicide Squad!

suicide Squad world premiere

Warning! Danger! Spoilers! I saw the movie, I’m going to talk about the movie, there may be some plot spillage. Yadda yadda yadda.

John Ostrander DivaAs we start, I think you should know my biases. I think you should know any critics’ bias. Myself, I use them mostly as consumer reporters. If I find a critic whose tastes largely coincide with mine, I tend to trust them more. The late great Roger Ebert was one. Knowing who is giving you their opinion is important; what does their opinion matter if you don’t trust them?

Regarding the Suicide Squad movie, well, I’m biased. I’m prejudiced. I have a vested interest in its success. I want it to succeed. However, if I didn’t like it, I’d be more likely just to keep my trap shut.

My trap is open.

I really liked the film. Not perfect by a long shot, but a really good time in the movie theater. And for me a lot of it was just amazing. The look, the detail, the feel of the film is not something I’ve seen in superhero movies before.

Chief for me were the performances, starting with Viola Davis as Amanda Waller. All the other characters in the Squad, both the comic and the movie, were created by others. In the comic especially I would re-define and expand on them but they were established characters. Amanda Waller was my creation and Viola Davis embodied her to perfection. I was happy when she was cast, I was delighted when I saw her in the trailers, and I was ecstatic when I saw her in the film. Davis has Amanda’s voice, her look, and her attitude. I was delighted at the after-party when I got a chance to see her face-to-face and tell her how much I enjoyed her performance.

Next up is Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. She is sexy, innocent, funny, lethal, crazy and dangerous. And she’s a thief – she steals just about every scene she’s in.

Let’s look at Will Smith as Deadshot. Some folks have objected that he’s not my Deadshot. No, he isn’t and that’s just fine by me. My Deadshot was not the character as he had been created or portrayed prior to my appropriating him for the Squad. Gail Simone’s version was not exactly my version either. You don’t expect two actors who play the same character in different versions to be identical so why expect those versions in different stories to be identical? Smith did a great job – intense, cynical, with a weak spot for his daughter (although I thought their last scene together had a disturbing element). Smith is a fine actor and one of the world’s biggest stars; he sure as hell wasn’t slumming here and he made Deadshot his own – which is exactly what he was supposed to do.

Last paragraph, I talked about you wouldn’t expect two actors playing the same character in different stories to give identical performances. That really applies to Jared Leto as the Joker. He crafted an entirely new version of the character from the late Heath Ledger’s portrayal in The Dark Knight. That’s absolutely necessary and it’s a different look. Like Pygmalion, he creates a woman that he can love; in this case, it’s Harley Quinn. If we accept his love for her (and her love for him) as genuine, does that make him less of a sociopath? Ledger’s Joker loved no one except, perhaps, Batman. He’s no less strange or deadly but his entire plotline revolves around being re-united with Harley.

Jay Hernandez has a significant role as Diablo and I would have liked to see more of the character. He has a terrific and horrifying back-story but this is a character who is trying to do good even as (I think) he believes he is beyond redemption.

Likewise, I would have liked to see more of Jai Courtney as Boomerang. As Christopher Walken says of cowbell, you can never have too much Boomerang. He’s very much as I wrote him in the Squad – he knows what he is and he likes it. In that respect, Boomerang is very well adjusted. Which is scary.

There’s a surprising theme running through the movie; there is a lot about love. Joker and Harley’s love, yes; Deadshot’s love for his daughter; Diablo’s love (and guilt and remorse) for his family; Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman)’s love for June Moone (Cara Delevingne) while June’s alter ego, the Enchantress, appears to love her brother. Katana (Karen Fukuhara) loves her dead husband and carries his soul in her blade (OK, a lot of the relationships are not the healthiest in this film). Even with Amanda there’s a brief phone call and there’s tenderness and love for whoever she’s speaking with. Love shapes and forms a lot of the characters and they, in turn, mold the story.

Are their problems with the film? Sure. The antagonist(s) are not well defined and, to my mind, you need a good antagonist to help define the protagonist(s). It’s the antagonist who usually sets the plot in motion and it is defined by what they want. The story is a little more generic “we have to save the world” than I usually did; I always liked having one foot squarely in reality.

I also liked having a political and/or social edge in my Squad stories. That would also give a greater feel of reality and I don’t see that here.

That said, my artistic DNA is all over the place. This is The Dirty Dozen with supervillains and that’s my concept. They did that and did it well.

I know some of the critics, both in print and online, do not like the movie. That’s okay; everyone has a right to their own opinion even when it’s wrong. My problem is that, at least with some of the media reviews, is that the critic is also tired of superhero and “tentpole” films and, overtly or covertly, would like to see their end. Look, I get it – they have to see all the films out there and they must be tired of all the blockbusters.

If every superhero film is not The Dark Knight, they’ll bitch. I think that’s going on here to a certain degree. Just as I came prepared to love the movie, they came prepared to hate it.

My late wife, Kim Yale, was a movie critic for a while for a small suburban newspaper in the Chicago area and I went with her to some of the movie screenings. Don’t tell me that some of the critics didn’t come with pre-conceived attitudes to some films. I know better. I saw and heard it.

As for some of the online haters – if a film doesn’t fit their pre-conceived notion, it is wrong. Female Ghostbusters, a black Deadshot, Ben Affleck as Batman (Affleck, by the way, does cameos as both Batman and Bruce Wayne in Suicide Squad and is terrific) – these are all sins and must be decried.

Give me a fucking break.

Look, you can be the most important critic on Suicide Squad. In this case, your voice is your money. You decide if you want to see the movie and then go. If you like it, tell others. I guess you could also tell them if you didn’t like it but you don’t have to. I won’t mind.

If the film is financially successful (and, from what I’ve seen as this review is being written, it’s on track for a pretty good opening weekend), then Warners will be encouraged to do a sequel. And I hope they do. They made a good film this time and I believe they’ll do it even better next time around.

It’s your call.Suicide Squad Times Square

John Ostrander is “Indifferent Honest”

Harley Quinn Suicide Squad

On August 1, the Suicide Squad movie premieres in NYC and I’ll be there. I’ve watched the trailers and the hype and, I must say, I’m hyped up. From everything I can see, David Ayer (the writer/director) and the cast have read my work on the Squad comic and are using it. Viola Davis as Amanda Waller especially seems pulled from what I did and for me personally that’s very exciting.

I don’t expect the film to be a direct translation of the comic; this is a different medium and has different needs. I love my fans a lot but there’s not enough of them to fill a single theater for a week. The movie has to appeal to those who never heard of the comic. However, in its DNA, this is the Squad I created. At its core is the concept of The Dirty Dozen with supervillains. That was my concept. Amanda Waller was my creation. So – yeah, that’s my Squad up there.

The Squad as a comic and I suspect as a film will also reflect, to a certain degree, some of my sensibilities. The main one will be the moral tones of gray. For a long time, despite being in four colors, comics were very black and white. There were Heroes (white) and Bad Guys (black) and the Good Guys beat up the Bad Guys. Comics were very primal in their Good Vs. Evil.

I don’t see things like that and I don’t write that, especially with the Squad. With the Squad, the bad guys are forced to “do good,” with that “good” defined by Amanda Waller who herself is morally very gray. Even the “heroes” who went along to keep the Squad in line were themselves compromised morally, often just by being associated with the Squad. They had their own problems. No one was 100% good – or 100% bad either.

That’s how I see people so that is how I must write them if I am to write honestly. Shakespeare has Hamlet say

I am myself indifferent honest;
but yet I could accuse me of such things that it
were better my mother had not borne me. . .

I think that’s true of all of us. We are all only indifferent honest.

These days that may not be a popular view. There’s a lot of black and white thinking out there. People are viewed in black and white terms; issues are defined in black and white terms. Too often discussions these days start from the premise “I’m right and you’re wrong.” Politics and religion are prime culprits in this but fandom can be the same way. Example: when Wil Smith was cast as Deadshot some people were outraged – the film was going to suck because Deadshot wasn’t white. No discussion was allowed.

I can go that route as much as anyone. I really don’t like Donald Trump and I’m not prepared to reconsider it. I don’t understand people who are in his corner; I find him to be a dangerous megalomaniac. However, my job as a writer to to find a way to understand him and his supporters. Where is something like them, like Trump, in me? If I wanted to write a Trump-like character and not make him just a cartoonish buffoon (well, any more of a cartoonish buffoon than he already is), I have to find those parts of myself that resonate with him, with them.

Once, in Wasteland, I wrote a story from the perspective of a serial killer. I wanted the reader to identify with him, to find out where he lived in them so first I had to find those points in myself. That took me to some very creepy places but, I think, the story worked. From what I’ve read, Jared Leto felt he had to do something like that to play the Joker in the Squad film. It’s a weird contradiction – you have to use empathy to create a character without empathy. And then I ask the reader to go there as well.

Ultimately, with the Squad stories I wrote, I asked the readers to identify with the villains. As Will Smith’s Deadshot says in one of the trailers, “Don’t forget – we’re the bad guys.” If the film works (and I think it’s going to), it will ask the audience to identify with these “bad guys” – just as we did in the comic.

Hopefully, we will all be uncomfortably entertained.

John Ostrander: You/Not You

You : Not You

One of the interesting facets of talking about writing is the contradictions you find in the craft. For example: All your characters are you. All your characters are not you.

All of your characters are you.

Every character you write must have some of you in it. All of them. Not just the ones you like to identify with. All of them. The large and the small, the good and the bad, male and female, no matter what age, race, or nationality. If you’re going to write honestly about the character, you must be in the mix.

This can get uncomfortable. Once, when I was writing a white supremacist  in an early issue of Suicide Squad, I had to look into myself and ask, “What in me is like this man?” Look, I’m an aging white guy; there’s going to be something there. No matter how much I’ve worked at freeing myself from that, and I have, there’s going to be something there.

I found it. It’s not enough to understand such a character’s point of view; it’s necessary to find what is in you that is like that. However much I dislike that aspect of myself, it is there to some degree and it can be used. It was.

We all have multitudes within us. We are slightly different people depending on who we are with; with our parents we’re slightly different than we are with our siblings than we are with our friends than we are with our lovers and partners. Each of them know a slightly different aspect of us. That’s one of the purposes of supporting characters; they bring out different aspects of the protagonist.

We play so many different parts in our own lives on a daily basis, we should be able to find some aspect of ourselves – good or bad, laudable or disreputable – that will allow us to identify, to be, the character that we are writing.

I’ve often said that writing dialogue between several characters is the writer having conversations with his/herself. We are all our characters.

All of your characters are not you.

You have to have some perspective on the characters that you write and that requires some distance. The differences are important.

There is, mostly in fandom, a form of criticism pertaining to a “Mary Sue” (among female characters) or a “Larry Stu” (among male). Generally, it means a character is an idealized and unrealistic version of the author. For the most part I dislike the term; it’s too easy, too lazy, and too pat a critique. The person using it generally only has to accuse the author of either having a Mary Sue or Larry Stu and that’s it; no further discussion is needed or, often, allowed. The accusation is made. End of story.

However, as with most stereotypes and clichés, there is a germ of truth. A good character can be very seductive. Few people believe themselves to be evil; even Shakespeare’s Richard III, who describes himself as a villain, believes he has a right to do what he is doing. I met someone once who believed that if he could take something that you thought was yours, he was within his rights to do so. “You only have a right to what you can hold onto,” he would claim. Not someone I wanted to spend any time with, but an interesting idea for a character.

I saw a TV interview with a guy who was doing time because he was a hired killer for the Mob. Coldest son of a bitch I’ve ever seen. Literally would just as soon kill you as look at you. “My life doesn’t matter to me, so why should yours?” was what he said. Again, not a person I would ever want to meet, but it became part of my core concept for my version of Deadshot in the Squad. Lawton doesn’t have a death wish; he just doesn’t care if he dies – or if you do.

The whole “You are your character/you are not your character” thing is a dichotomy and that’s fine by me. I think that most often you find the truth in contradictions. It’s what Del Close taught in his Second City and iO improv classes. Del held this contradiction as a rule: it’s not either/or; it’s and/both.

Finally, don’t try to reconcile or explain the contradictions. State them and trust to your reader to dope it out. Do your job right and the reader will think that the character is them… and not them.