Suicide Squad by John Ostrander Omnibus Vol. 1-2

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.

John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake took on The Spectre in 1992, after acclaimed runs on Suicide Squad and Batman, and made it DC's most serious book about judgement. Ostrander writes theology rather than superheroics: the Spectre has unlimited power and no idea how to use it well, and the run is largely about the difference between vengeance and justice. Mandrake's art is genuinely frightening, and the book is far stranger than anything DC was publishing under its main line.

Darkseid cannot beat Earth's heroes, so he sets out to make the public stop believing in them instead. Legends is the first event DC ran after Crisis on Infinite Earths, and the fallout created the Suicide Squad, the Justice League International and the Flash everyone knows today.

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.

The Spectre by Ostrander & Mandrake, collected as a pack of 2 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake took on The Spectre in 1992, after acclaimed runs on Suicide Squad and Batman, and made it DC's most serious book about judgement. Ostrander writes theology rather than superheroics: the Spectre has unlimited power and no idea how to use it well, and the run is largely about the difference between vengeance and justice. Mandrake's art is genuinely frightening, and the book is far stranger than anything DC was publishing under its main line. The second Spectre omnibus completes Ostrander and Mandrake's run, one of the longest and least compromising books DC published in the nineties. The back half is where Ostrander stops asking whether the Spectre is right and starts asking whether Jim Corrigan deserves to exist at all. The original series proposal is a genuinely interesting document, it shows how much of the run was planned from the start.

The second Spectre omnibus completes Ostrander and Mandrake's run, one of the longest and least compromising books DC published in the nineties. The back half is where Ostrander stops asking whether the Spectre is right and starts asking whether Jim Corrigan deserves to exist at all. The original series proposal is a genuinely interesting document, it shows how much of the run was planned from the start.