Writer: Rob Williams
Pencillers: Jim Lee, Stephen Byrne
Suicide Squad #5 is kind of a mixed bag. There are strong character moments here. I love the completely unexpected kinship between Croc and Enchantress, because it actually makes sense. They have reasons for relating to one another that I don’t think anyone would have connected beforehand. But it feels organic.
I also love that Zod appears to be around for the long haul. There are heavy suggestions in this issue that he is going to have a much bigger role to play as things continue to develop. I definitely want that to be the case. He’s such an unexpected character to serve such a pivotal role in this series. Zod’s the kind of character you’d expect to show up and throw everything into chaos.
But Zod also has the potential to serve a role similar to Negan in The Walking Dead. He could own these people if he wanted to. It would take absolutely nothing for him to shatter their world and put them under his control. Of course, that’s the role that Amanda Waller already plays.
Then there’s a backup story focused on the Hack, illustrated by Stephen Byrne. It’s all right, but I don’t think it justified being there or being that long and the most frustrating thing about this series for me continues to be the awkward structure.
We’re five issues in and this still hasn’t worked itself out, I don’t think. Some backup stories are better than others, but almost all of them result in the main story not getting the room it needs in order to breathe, and I think that remains to be the biggest issue.
Still, there’s a lot going on in this character-focused issue. Jim Lee’s art continues to be a huge plus, even in issues like this where there is not a ton of dynamic, huge action for him to really shine. The interactions between the characters remain the major selling point, and that has not wavered.