Review by Frank Plowright

John Ostrander’s Suicide Squad was an era-defining comic, a surprise success and frequent delight, but for differing reasons the bulk of this second volume is the exception. Yet additions to the content of paperbacks The Janus Directive and Apokolips Now raise the quality slightly.

The Omnibus opens with a spotlight on Deadshot, a character Ostrander had taken from mid-level Batman villain to a fascinating conflicted and tormented personality with a probable death wish. He’s the only Suicide Squad member not greatly invested in saving his own skin. The consequent look into the background forming that man is co-written with Kim Yale, and one bleak slab of noir fiction as Deadshot hunts for the person who’s kidnapped his son. Luke McDonnell’s art lacks depth, but crucially not enough to impair the story.

If only the same could be said about John K. Snyder III. He starts with what seems an awkward and not very good channelling of Jack Kirby (sample art), before switching to a design-led style that pretty well sabotages Ostrander and Yale’s work on ‘Apokalips Now’, which under a more suitable artist might have been a series highlight. It’s the culmination to a long-running subplot involving the mystery behind a super-strong woman named Duchess, and the Squad are pulled well away from their comfort zone to the hellpit that is Apokalips and not all return. It’s a gut-wrencher, but Snyder’s style saps emotion and rarely supplies a focus for the pages.

Before then we have the confusion of ‘The Janus Directive’, which crosses between chapters of Suicide Squad and Checkmate with a few others thrown in. The problem here is Ostrander and Yale’s chapters supplying finely nuanced people, while those written by Paul Kupperberg have supposedly the same people shouting at each other when not explaining the plot to each other. And once again mediocre art is the order of the day, with Grant Miehm the best of a poor bunch by virtue of telling the story clearly.

A bunch of other stories not included in the paperbacks are present here by virtue of the Suicide Squad appearing, or sometimes, as is the case with a good Justice League story, just Amanda Waller. Ostrander and Rice’s Manhunter entertains as a hero whose identity is publicly known starring in character driven detective missions, and Mike Parobek’s art on Doctor Light’s origin story impresses. He’s treated here as comedy relief throughout, haunted by his predecessor.

It’s surprising how much of the first Firestorm story Ostrander devotes to Dr. LaGrieve from the Suicide Squad’s support staff, but its appearance here in what otherwise features Killer Frost facing off against Firehawk speaks to a commitment to completion. Firestorm himself is acting up, and a very different version turns up inn ‘The Janus Directive’. Tom Grindberg’s art impresses more on the replacement Firestorm than the original. You’ll also find early Todd McFarlane art on excerpts from Invasion, but storytelling was never his strongpoint.

Readers able to overlook art that never greatly rises above acceptable will find Ostrander and Yale on fine form supplying personality driven stories. Anyone else is advised to pick up the better looking first Omnibus for their dose of the 1980s Suicide Squad.