The problem with any comic book sourced film ESP if it is successful is that the publishing house looses it's mind and goes crazy printing books from those characters.
Suicide Squad is not an exception.
The series has been fairly solid for the last several years and the increased spotlight has only given DC
more pressure to turn out a great book.
The cast of Task Force X is in constant rotation since they keep getting killed.
A shockingly clever use for the MANY D grade villains that have piled up over the last 90 odd years.
Grim and dark in ways that Marvel can only hope to be there is reason the book has been around for so long.

I found much of this story to be rather uninteresting and the art is not my preferred style. I was in a lower range for the review, but then the writing took some unexpected turns near the end and I added a star. I would still read more of the series in case it improved.

ARC From Netgalley. 3.5 Stars.
In the aftermath of 'Justice League vs. Suicide Squad', tensions on Task Force X are running high. When Deadshot turns on and assassinates Amanda Waller, Belle Reve and Blackgate Prison riot and Rustam, previous leader of Suicide Squad, brings his terrorist organization 'The Burning World' to the forefront, recruiting Deadshot in the process. Harley Quinn bands the rest of the group together to counter against them.
When another traitor (not yet discovered Captain Boomerang) kills newer member Hack, Waller decides to show up, having used Deadshot and Enchantress to help her fake her death, and 'The Burning World' gets shut down, earning Floyd some needed time off with his family.
An added one issue story focuses on Suicide Squad being sent on a rescue mission, but Waller has secret plans of her own... adds El Diablo to the Squad as well...
This Volume was alright. With the possibility of General Zod joining the team, I really look forward to seeing what the next Volume holds.
Recommend, though not their best hour.

I received an ebook copy of this book ahead of publication from the publisher through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Cool stuff. It's always good to get back to the old gang, even when it's such a group of misfits and degenerates. The banter between them is always entertaining, and more often than not we get some really crazy stuff from Harley Quinn that makes me laugh out loud.


Honestly, she's the main reason I even invest in Suicide Squad.

At any rate, lots of fun and great artwork. Can't ask for a lot more. :)

Someone is leaking info from the Suicide Squad. Then Amanda Waller is out of command and shot through the heart. Then Rustum attacks Belle Reeve Penitentiary and Deadshot joins his team. Haely Quinn and Hack are working on unearthing the traitor when Hack is murdered. Harley and the rest of the team work on putting Rustum and his team down while not getting themselves killed. Then there is the story where the Suicide Squad needs to rescue a former politician from the World Court of Justice. Fun times in Netherlands for the team! Plenty of action and intrigue with surprising villains. Read and enjoy!

I love the Rebirth series so much, so this volume was just another in a long line of awesomeness!!! Suicide squad is always a fun read and i look forward to future volumes

The relentlessly stupid "Rebirth" era Suicide Squad continues.....


First off, a free tip for DC Comics: If you have a trade paperback that isn't continuing from where the last volume left off, such as this one, maybe add a recap page or something to steer readers to where the missing issues can be found, and what happened in them. (The awful JUSTICE LEAGUE/SUICIDE SQUAD crossover is where the missing issues can be found, in case you care.) You'll keep your audience happy and clued in, and you might just sell a few extra copies of your hideous, pointless, unreadable crossover collection.


Now that that's out of the way, I have good news and bad news.


The bad news first.


Rob Williams is still writing the book, so it remains as pointless, loud, and retarded as the first two volumes. (And the crossover.)


The good news: In addition to SUICIDE SQUAD #'s 11-15, this volume also collects a one-shot entitled SUICIDE SQUAD: WAR CRIMES, which is written by......JOHN OSTRANDER!!!! Yes, the same John Ostrander that created this modern incarnation of the Suicide Squad. His story is criminally short, but he uses his pages wisely, and brings more depth and characterization to the cast than Rob Williams has done in three full volumes. Ostrander delivers the fights and brutality that DC demands, but also brings back the espionage aspect that he handles so well, and gives the book a brain, something sorely lacking in Williams' stories. The art for Ostrander's story is barely serviceable, but the story is a keeper, and is worth the price of admission alone.


As for the main story arc....


SPOILERS FOLLOW!!! PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!!





Zod is still imprisoned, and is still inexplicably twenty feet tall.

Someone gives our merry cast of murderous super-villains an unsupervised night on the town, because the book is retarded.

Amanda Waller has a bright idea about how to catch a traitor: Have a man who hates her guts SHOOT HER IN THE HEART jusssssst so, so she can "fake" her death, even though he will have shot her in the one miraculous part of the heart that looks really bad, but is oh, so easy to repair. Because, who better to trust to shoot you and keep you alive than a man who wants you dead at all costs? She's, no lie, up on her feet and in action within three days, because...retardation.

Killer Croc just...eats people. And everyone is OK with this.

Harley Quinn is smarter, faster, stronger, and fights better, than soldiers, super-villains, mercenaries, everyone, because DC needs her to.

There's a double-cross that happens unexpectedly, but don't worry, because the double-crosser, who just cold-bloodedly murdered his teammate, feels a little bad about it, so everyone just shrugs their shoulders and goes on like nothing happened.


As I said, this is epically stupid stuff....Waller's plan is the goofiest thing since DC's weird imaginary stories of the '50's and '60's, but this is all played perfectly straight.


John Romita, Jr., joins the series, and his art....I don't know if I still like it, or if I hate it. His already blocky characters look like straight-up LEGO figures in the book.

LEGO Suicide Squad...coming soon!


Anyway, this is bad, awful, embarassing stuff....But buy it to support John Ostrander, who DC needs to hand this book over to ASAP.


SUICIDE SQUAD, VOL. 3: BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE collects SUICIDE SQUAD #'s 11-15, and SUICIDE SQUAD: WAR CRIMES, and features all of the covers and variants, and earns a square four out of ten Romita blocks:

🔲🔲🔲🔲

(Solely given to John Ostrander, whose story was a nine out of ten, but only amounted to one-sixth of the book.)


DC Comics provided a review copy.

Another great addition to the suicide squad series, this time the team is faced with a traitor, a double bluff AND a test of their thinly veiled friendship.

'Suicide Squad, Volume 3: Burning Down the House' by Rob Williams collects Suicide Squad #11-15 and the War Crimes #1 special. The art alternates between John Romita Jr. and Eddy Barrows.

This story takes place after the events in Justice League vs. Suicide Squad. Rustam is still out there and still wants revenge on Amanda Waller, but she is on leave while the Suicide Squad is being looked in to. The Squad goes on a raid into Russia only to find out that it's like their targets knew they were coming. Then Rustam and Burning World attack Blackgate prison and the Squad has to take them down. With Waller out of play, possibly permanently, can the team do what they need to do? And how does Lex Luthor play into everthing?

It's a big confusing story arc. Characters feel a bit tacked on in places. Even when they get a break and some downtime, they don't feel genuine to me. Since the art varies greatly issue by issue, that kind of knocked me in and out of the book as well. I much preferred the Eddy Barrows art over John Romita Jr.

The War Crimes special included written by John Ostrander was a much better plotted story. It included some different Squad members in a story that felt very much like the kind of thing the Suicide Squad would be sent out on.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from DC Entertainment and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

Sneaky, Waller. And kinda a terrible (ethically speaking) move. But meh, you got what you wanted. Ready for the next volume!

Amanda Waller is on suspension following the events of Justice League vs. Suicide Squad and Rustam is back for revenge. He frees a bunch of prisoners and forms a group called Burning World to "free" everyone. A lot of motivations of the characters were hard to follow, especially Captain Boomerang's. The deal with The People seemed overly complicated, as well. It's sometimes better for an author to be more overt in his storytelling, rather than let the artist infer things, especially if you haven't worked together before. I preferred Eddy Barrows's "backup" art over John Romita Jr's somewhat clunky style.

There is also a stand alone John Ostrander story in the book where the team is sent on a covert mission to rescue the former Secretary of Defense from the Hague. It was great to see Ostrander back on Suicide Squad. Hopefully we'll see more of him on the title.

At last a full-length Suicide Squad Rebirth title almost worth the readies. After two mediocre and heavily padded books comes this, with a full story that has more than enough machinations and twists in, and a high-energy one-shot special from Mr Ostrander. All the characters are present and (in)correct, the artwork can sometimes stop concentrating on Harley's lovely jubblies, and the story is fun enough to make this one of the better Rebirth books. Nicely fun stuff.

So, this sorta finished up the Rustam attacking Amanda Waller storyline.

She is still being attacked and so can she come up with a totally brilliant plan or will she lose and finally die?

All the stuff with Rustam and The People and such was super twisty. With the brain bombs involved as well as a big role for Hack and also one for Deadshot (and of course, Harley was there in all her amazing Harley glory).

Then there was an annual sort of thing at the end (after the previous storyline ended), about something with Amanda Waller sending them to save a bad politician so we (the US) don't have to go to war with the Netherlands. It was a bit out of place after all the emotionality of the end of the previous story. I thought it was an okay TPB, not the worst, but not my favorite Suicide Squad TPB either.

I was given this ARC by Netgalley on behalf of DC Entertainment.

As would be expected a great read and some really funny comments and moments. At times I was not so keen on the artwork but even so a welcome addition to the Squad.

Since the Suicide Squad movie, these titles are hot property. Already heavily requested.

I received a copy of Suicide Squad Vol. 3: Burning Down the House from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Suicide Squad volume three is back, continuing from where volume two left off. Unfortunately there is an artist switch a little less than halfway through. Maybe it’s because I liked Jim Lee’s work so much, but I just found myself struggling to enjoy the new art style as much as the old. Thankfully it isn’t distracting, so I was easily able to focus on the plot instead.

Volume three is pretty heavily focused on Waller and the situations she gets into/causes. So if you’re not the biggest fan of Waller (which I kinda get) then you may not love this volume so much. There’s actually quite a lot going on because of this. We have traitors and double agents and backstabbers, the works. Needless to say there’s a lot of intrigue and confusion.
Everything sort of starts off with a recovery of a US asset (for lack of a better description) that’s been taking overseas by a competing force (I’m being a bit vague here so as to not give away all the details). While it was interesting to see some of the different members of Suicide Squad (about half the team was made up of “new” members) we didn’t get much time to see them. Additionally the constant perspective shifts combined with the undercover uniforms/masks made it more difficult than normal to tell who was who. For a minute there I even thought Waller had blown DeadShot’s neck bomb. You can imagine how alarming that was! Otherwise it was a pretty typical and enjoyable Suicide Squad mission.
The itty bitty break the team got was fun to see: just a few minutes of insight to some of the characters in their downtime. Harley’s break didn’t really surprise me (though again I find myself confused with how this fits in with her standalone comic timeline), nor does Flag’s (of course he would spend it checking up on everyone else). DeadShot’s break was…heartbreaking to say the least. And Boomerang’s? His was pretty interesting. He appears to be struggling with his identity after the whole dying and Hack bringing him back to life bit. It was unexpected depth for that character, but not unappreciated.
So…Waller…she’s a bit of a hate her but can’t live without her character. We’re not meant to like her character, obviously, but I also don’t see the Suicide Squad working without her (unless she got replaced by somebody that was equally ruthless). I’m saying this so you know that I truly never believe it when it’s set up to look like Waller dies. I just can’t picture it, and therefore don’t believe it. Unfortunately this resulted in some breaking the immersion for me, because I couldn’t get into the plot as much because of the intro to it.
I mentioned earlier there were a lot of backstabbers and double agents and the like in this volume, and I meant it. There’s at least one double agent (feel free to guess who) per side (even though the “other side” isn’t terribly clear yet), one traitor, one body, and a whole lot of confused Suicide Squad members. I ended up being totally wrong about the traitor, I think. They may have still be a double agent, that part hasn’t been clarified yet, or I got confused by it. Like I said, lots going on.
Speaking of the team, it was interesting to see how they all reacted once their bombs were turned off. Some of them were predictable, but others less so. I wish they had had more time to be free and show us what they would have done (obviously this doesn’t apply to Harley so much, since we can easily look towards her comics to see that).
All in all I think this was a pretty decent Suicide Squad volume. Not their best work, but certainly not the worst either. Ironically I think there was too much exposition for a Suicide Squad plot – if we’re being honest with ourselves that isn’t exactly the reason we read these comics. It’s for the fight scenes and the bucket loads of witty comebacks (which I totally envy). I’ll be curious to see what happens in the next volume, seeing that this plot is all wrapped up.

Rob Williams's Rebirth Suicide Squad Vol. 3: Burning Down the House is fantastic -- emotional, surprising, and well-done. Coming off of Justice League vs. Suicide Squad, Williams's Suicide Squad picks up a lot of steam. Artists John Romita Jr. and Eddy Barrows play off of one another well with the main story/back-up structure. With this third volume, oWilliams finally delivers the kind of Rebirth Suicide Squad story we've been waiting for. This volume's cliffhanger portends exciting things to come, and I'm eager for December to see if Williams can continue this upswing.

The artwork on this just looked awful, rushed and choppy. The lines were not smooth, rough and kind of just ugly looking. Really detracted from a vaguely interesting plot. Suicide Squad is never going to interest me as you'll never convince me these bad guys could turn good.