Suicide Squad Gets a New Logo -- So Here's a History Lesson On the Original

It was 1987 when Suicide Squad was called into existence as part of John Ostrander, Len Wein, and John Byrne's Legends miniseries, DC's first event comic following Crisis on Infinite Earths.

That miniseries' inker, Karl Kesel, was such a fan of the Squad that he fought to be a part of the team when Ostrander brought them to their own spinoff solo comic.

Almost thirty years after the start of Legends, viewers will get their first big-screen look at Suicide Squad as the film premieres tonight, and audiences will have their chance to weigh in this weekend. Before the film's evening screenings roll out on Thursday, though, there's a new comic book set to hit the stands.

Suicide Squad: Rebirth comes from writer Rob Williams, who knocked it out of the park on Martian Manhunter and Vertigo's Unfollow recently. Williams is joined on art in the issue by Philip Tan, although it's likely more significant that the twice-monthly book will platoon Tan with Jim Lee, the DC Comics co-publisher who remains one of the most sought-after and best-selling artists in the industry.

It isn't Lee's artwork you see on the cover of Wenesday's issue, though: it's Tan's. And a new logo that's nothing like previous iterations of the Suicide Squad title treatment.

While the current title features red graffiti -- or is that blood? -- spelling out "Suicide" and a stamped-on "Squad," previous incarnations of the Suicide Squad logo have all been variations on the same theme -- one, apparently, designed by Kesel.

Kesel has posted a few "Suicide (Squad) Notes" to his Facebook page in celebration of the movie's forthcoming release, and serendipitously, the first of them was a note on the genesis of the logo.

Not this new one, mind you, but the '80s original. Here's what he had to say:

"I inked Legends — the mini-series that introduced the Squad. This was back in the day when lettering was right on the original art, making me the first person to read that story essentially as it was meant to be read. It also made me the Squad's FIRST TRUE FAN (or so I'd like to think). I lobbied hard to ink the Squad's monthly book, and Robert Greenberger eventually gave in," Keserl wrote to Facebook earlier today. "I was so pumped about this comic that I even designed it's logo! Did anyone ask me to do this? No. Am I a letterer? No. Did I have any idea what I was doing? None! But that didn't stop me. I'll say that the end result— redrawn and cleaned-up considerably by lettering-god Todd Klein— is at least easy to read— a basic test MANY logos fail. I'd like to say I had some Big Idea in mind— some reason I chose these particular letterforms— but the real answer is this logo started by trying to answer the simple question: what to do with the Q's tail? It usually stuck out at an angle, which my anal-retenive mind saw as disruptive, not as a chance to add visual variety. Once I hit on the idea of it going straight down, that pretty much cemented a more solid, square approach to the letters. The small flourish I gave to the S, C, and E's was simply because I had a 30/60 triangle at hand! (Or is it 15º from the Ames lettering guide? Whatever: it's what was within reach!) My idea was that the two words could be set flush left, right, or centered, depending on the cover's composition— exactly like the original Fantastic Four logo— but I think it almost always ran centered. It's one saving grace is, I still think, the bullet holes, which simply, effectively, and visually help get across the book's core idea. 13 holes, BTW. That number's not an accident."

His lucky number, apparently!

Suicide Squad: Rebirth #1 is due in stores on Wednesday. You can read our conversation with Rob Williams about it here.

Suicide Squad is in theaters this weekend.