Happy Friday! Ready to wrap up Suicide Squad: The Black Vault? I am pretty sure Zod is going to be a problem, but only two more issues to see what the team does. If you need to read part 1 see the link at the bottom of this post. Also Boomerang is dead, but does anyone in these comics ever stay dead? Time to go find out.
The Black Vault Part 3: Bad Brain: Waller is reminiscing of a visit to the city (unclear what city) as a child, today we see the city was destroyed by a battle between Darkseid and Anti-Monitor (I think this happened near the end of the New 52 run of Justice League and might give a better timeline for when all this Suicide Squad stuff is happening).
Zod is attacking everyone, Boomerang is just a pair of boots and Waller is mad that no one is reporting in. Flag and Deadshot are shooting Zod, but he is from Krypton and they are doing nothing but annoying him. Hack is working on something and goads June until Enchantress comes out to fight. Enchantress talks a lot, but is not able to stop Zod, he swipes her and Croc away. Harley steps up for about one second and then thinks better of it. Zod is about to punch/probably kill Hack, but Zatana steps in and is able to stop his attack.
Zod is pissed and wants to know how she stopped him (magic duh, Kryptonians are often weak to magic). Zod tries to heat vision the sword but it deflects. Katana's magic sword full of the souls that it has killed is able to cut Zod. Harley is trying to make a break for it but runs into a bunch of guards and has to go back and warn her teammates. Hack is super helpful though and finds a munitions cabinet. So Rick and Katana continue to fight Zod, while Deadshot and Harley take on many many guards.
Once all the guards are dead the true baddies behind this secret black vault reveal themselves. (I do not know if this is some kind of big reveal because I have never heard of them) The Annihilation Brigade is there to kill everyone!
(Mini issue within the issue)
Choose: A younger Katana is watching a house burn down. Waller is speaking to Katana in the present. She confirms that Katana believes her sword, "Soultaker" speaks to her. Katana agrees that it does. In the past we see ghosts telling Katana she must choose, while in the present Waller is recounting Katana's history. Her real name is Tatsu Yamashiro, she was an Olympic- level martial artist, but she retired from that when she met the love of her life, Maseo, and had two children. Her husband's brother, Takeo, fell for Tatsu (Katana) as well. He was a high level Yakuza member who came to possess Soultaker.
Tatsu and her family moved to the countryside but it wasn't far enough. Takeo came and burned her house down with the children inside. She found her husband dying and he told her to run and to live, that the sword corrupted his brother. Katana fought Tatsu and during the fight the sword chose her instead, leaving Tatsu's hand and giving her the chance to kill him.
Waller asks her why she is there. Katana simply tells her that the sword told her to come and to help. Something big was coming.
The Black Vault Part 4: Beat on the Brat: In the underwater base, in Siberia, fighting a super raged up Kryptonian...oh and fighting a group of Russian meta humans. The feed to Belle Reve goes dead, leaving Waller and Harcourt in the dark. Harcourt points out that the Black Vault sure seems like a Russian version of Suicide Squad.
Harcourt reveals that they knew of some operation in Russia with the codename "Karla," and that is the real reason they sent in task force X. Waller is pissed, but Harcourt points out they will either get out or they wont, they are the Suicide Squad after all, they are expendable.
Hack is still trying to download all the files while everyone else is fighting to stay alive. June wakes up as herself again. Zod grabs her and is about to kill her, but Kroc steps in (I think he like likes June). Kroc is trying to chomp off Zod's hand, but Zod tosses him. Lucky for Deadshot and Harley, Kroc lands on many of the Russian metas (they have names...I do not care what their names are).
Zod is ready to kill everyone, but Hack just needs one more minute (girl is taking way too long in my opinion). Flag steps up to face Zod, because he is pretty mad about losing a person (poor poor Boomerang). Katana tosses Flag her sword and Hack finally knows how to put Zod back in the Phantom Zone. Flag stabs Zod forcing him back into the orb prison. Now all they have to fight is a ton of Russian soldiers and super powered metas.
Deadshot asks how they are going to get out of here. Hack again has the answer. She turns them into data again and they are all back in Belle Reve. The Phantom Orb came with them. Boomerang is still dead, but now team America has the big orb...now what?
(Mini issue within the issue)
Full Mental Jacket: Flag is questioning Waller as to why Harley is on the squad. She is pure chaos and that means she will likely get him or others on the team killed. He wants to go on a mission with just her to test her loyalties and if she fails then she is off the team.
On their mission Flag tells Harley they found a place that is a storage dump for Joker Toxin. They brought a few other random soldiers (for story purposes). The toxin is surrounded by chainsaws. Harley tries to warn them it is a trap, but the gas goes off. Harley hits her head and sees the Joker. He is there to taunt her. The other soldiers are exposed and it turns them into homicidal maniacs. They come at Harley with the chainsaws. She takes them down all while dealing with Joker giving her shit.
One soldier is about to shoot her when Flag steps in taking out the soldier and taking a bullet for Harley. Flag is infected too, but is fighting it. He does get a little crazy face and starts to attack Harley too. She punches him and he tells her to just run, but she doesn't.
A little later we see a tied up Flag and a roughed up Harley waiting for backup. All of the other men are dead. Flag asks her who she was talking to and if the gas affected her. She tells him she is immune and thanks for a great first date.
Thoughts: I am not sure I am sold on Suicide Squad yet. I think teams are hard and even harder when I don't really care about most of the characters. If I am honest I am mostly here for Harley. I will for sure give it a few more volumes to see what happens. The little mini stories are kind of fun and I like a little deep dive into characters.
So I was looking through all the covers and they made many variants for issue #1 one and some are pretty neat, but I think my favorite was done by Lee Bermejo, who did all the B covers in this volume. The main covers were done by Jim Lee, who also did a lot of the penciling in the volume.
I had a couple of options for the best line, but I do not think it is surprising that Harley takes the honor.
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