Suicide Squad: Blaze #1 Review: A Return to "Glory" for the Suicide Squad
The core cast in Suicide Squad comics consists of a consistent mixture of familiar faces. Readers know who to expect and it's very rare to see any of these bunch kick the bucket, although not unheard of given Deadshot's recent departure in 2020. Suicide Squad: Blaze presents the crew on its cover with three stars of recent HBO Max hits The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker and Captain Boomerang – a recurring team member for 35 years. Based on the pitch, it's easy to anticipate another story much like the current Suicide Squad ongoing series, but those expectations are far too low for Simon Spurrier and Aaron Campbell, especially after their run on John Constantine: Hellblazer. Their premise for Suicide Squad: Blaze and its delivery in the first of this three-part series marks one of the most engaged and engaging Suicide Squad comics in recent memory; an absolute thrill to read.
Boomerbutt, alongside Harley Quinn, Peacemaker, and King Shark, are very much present in Suicide Squad: Blaze, but they're framed as being part of the institution with which they're so familiar. They stand as guards to the newest recruits tasked with the gifts and curse of Blaze, an alien substance that provides immense power at the cost of a radically reduced lifespan. A handful of regular prisoners are reimagined as new Squad members and their rushed introduction to Squad life delivers an abundance of visceral thrills.
Campbell's style is a perfect fit for this tone and subject matter. He depicts characters as recognizable human beings, not statuesque demigods. It makes Harley's psychopathy much more frightening coming from a face one might actually expect to see. Much more importantly, it serves to infuse the five new characters introduced at the center of Blaze with humanity. While Spurrier's script carves out every opportunity to have them present with some complexity, space is limited in this miniseries. They always appear human, whether or not they possess glowing eyeballs or shimmering forms, and this serves to round out their characters and ground the series.
This also makes the action sequences all the more startling as violence occurs with surprising suddenness on the page and the watery meat-sacks called the human form are often devastated. It can be a thrill to see through Campbell's gritty sensibilities, but he ensures you'll cringe as bodies splatter across the floor.
Much of the characterization surrounding the newest Squad members are centered around mysteries. The series' protagonist narrates across multiple introductions and suggests that the story is moving to reach his "present" state. His future perspective allows for plenty of foreshadowing and to-be-discovered ironies to be sprinkled across the captions. While on the page there are an abundance of specific mysteries, including the nature of Blaze, the identity of the Squad's target, a seeming conspiracy linking them all together, and the motivations of all five new members. It can be fun to track the intrigue, but it also relies heavily on there being satisfying answers forthcoming in the next two issues.
As a start, Suicide Squad: Blaze packs all the promise Squad readers could want, whether they're being diverted from HBO Max or longtime fans of the original series. It focuses on its exceptionally damaged (and damaging) cast of characters as they're let loose on a world filled with terrors. This delivers plenty of visceral thrills in addition to some not-so-subtle commentary on American prisons and other topics. The individuals charting their way through that chaos make for the heart of the story, still, and that makes Suicide Squad: Blaze seem like it's bound to be a classic.
Published by DC Comics
On February 8, 2022
Written by Simon Spurrier
Art by Aaron Campbell
Colors by Jordie Bellaire
Letters by Aditya Bidikar
Cover by Aaron Campbell