Suicide Squad

Suicide Squad by John Ostrander, collected as a pack of 2 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. Suicide Squad by John Ostrander Omnibus Vol. 1 collects the run that invented everything the concept is known for: Amanda Waller, the bomb in the neck, and the certainty that some of the team will not come back. Ostrander writes it as a Cold War espionage book that happens to use supervillains, and it remains far sharper than any adaptation of it. Amanda Waller keeps sending convicts on missions the government will deny, and in the second omnibus the bill starts arriving: congressional hearings, defections, and a body count among characters readers had come to like. Ostrander wrote the political thriller everyone else has been copying since.

Suicide Squad relaunched for the New 52 with the premise intact: convicts sent on missions they are not expected to survive, with bombs in their necks. The Amanda Waller one-shot is the best thing here, a full issue explaining how she became the person who runs the programme, and why the government lets her. This is also the run where Harley Quinn's New 52 redesign appeared, which became the version the films used and made her a franchise.

Suicide Squad by John Ostrander Omnibus Vol. 1 collects the run that invented everything the concept is known for: Amanda Waller, the bomb in the neck, and the certainty that some of the team will not come back. Ostrander writes it as a Cold War espionage book that happens to use supervillains, and it remains far sharper than any adaptation of it.

Amanda Waller keeps sending convicts on missions the government will deny, and in the second omnibus the bill starts arriving: congressional hearings, defections, and a body count among characters readers had come to like. Ostrander wrote the political thriller everyone else has been copying since.