Suicide...Squad?

Ofttimes, it would probably make sense for the operatives of the Suicide Squad--most of whom were usually super-villains working off their sentences--to go plainclothes. Um. Hmm.

That would make sense, except Deadshot--up top, in black, shooting at someone we can't see--is wearing a black shirt and shoulder holster ensemble that look like they're from the Charles Bronson collection. Bronze Tiger--taking a kick at Batman--looks neither bronze nor tigerish in what appears to be a purple gi and matching puffy pants. Captain Boomerang and Count Vertigo (he's flying with the ring-shaped blasts) look somewhat incognito, though.

And I'm not sure who some of the others are, especially the one with the loincloth, the fishbowl on his head, and the Rocky the flying squirrel underarm wings. That's either a trainwreck, or fashion brilliance; as they all draw attention from each other...per the GCD listing for Suicide Squad #62, that appears to be Piscator, of the Jihad or Onslaught, as it seems to be called now. I also believe that name is Latin for 'fisher', and can't think of anyone who got a good name out of the Latin.

Frankly, and you're gonna laugh? I bought this issue mainly because the Atom, Ray Palmer, was on the cover. Superman, Batman, and Aquaman were investigating the death of their old JLA teammate; while a young Adam Cray becomes the new Atom, working for Squad head Amanda Waller. Ray's death is a trick to draw out Micro/Force, shrunken rogue CIA agents (leftover from the tailend of Power of the Atom); but works too well. Blacksnake kills Cray and most of his fellow agents, before Ray reveals himself and takes him down. Way down. Submicroscopic. He considers leaving Blacksnake there, but takes him to jail instead.

Later, as Sarge Steel and Waller discuss Cray's death, she says Ray plans on training a replacement then retiring again--this is circa 1992, a good...fourteen years before Ryan Choi took the job! Steel says Cray's death got to Waller as well; but Waller isn't ashamed to admit every death on the Squad does. Even if she doesn't like them, she doesn't spend them easily; and she pointedly tells Steel it's too bad everyone doesn't feel that way.

A lot going on in Suicide Squad #62, "Number the Dead" Written by John Ostrander and Kim Yale, pencils by Geof Isherwood, inks by Robert Campanella. Wish I had the previous chapters!