Suicide Squad (Prime Earth)

New 52 Origin

The Suicide Squad was formed by Amanda Waller to address the threat posed by Regulus, the terrorist leader of Basilisk and her former compatriot within Team 7.^[1] Amanda Waller set out to create a task force of expendable and deniable super-powered agents for the United States Government. She had her people kidnap 37 supercriminals on death row from Belle Reve prison, and then put them through severe training. They were also implanted with micro-bombs in order to insure their obedience. On what they thought was their first mission, the seven surviving members of the Suicide Squad were captured and tortured for information regarding their team and their employer. Of the seven, only Savant broke. After determining that the remaining six wouldn't talk, Amanda Waller revealed that the torture was all just another test, and that those six remaining would officially form the Suicide Squad.

Following the cosmic upheavals of the Rebirth period, this team's history was revised. While some of these events may have occurred in current continuity, there are a number of contradictions.

Current Origin

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The Suicide Squad was revived by Amanda Waller at Louisiana's Belle Reve Penitentiary as a group of metahumans promised incentives such as financial reward, reduced sentencing, or information to conduct covert missions for the United States Government, who could be disavowed as independent super-criminals if their actions were exposed. The first group, dubbed "Suicide Zero," included the villains Emerald Empress, Doctor Polaris, and Johnny Sorrow, the mercenary Lobo, Waller's trusted field leader Rustam, and Cyclotron, a convict with an explosive device embedded in his body to be used as a failsafe to take out the team if they went rogue. This Squad's inaugural mission was to wipe out the Jangsun Gods, the metahuman forces of the rogue nation of Jangsun, and the technology used to create them without sparking an international conflict. Inserted by air into the island nation, the Squad engaged the Gods and discovered that their lives were linked to those of Jangsun civilians, and that killing one would cause the death of the other. Waller called for the mission to be aborted, but the Squad refused, wiping out the Gods and inflicting massive civilian casualties. They took posession of the God-Engine, the device that had created Jangsun's Gods from the brainwaves of its people, and, despite Waller's orders to destroy it, followed Cyclotron's suggestion that they make use of it themselves. With neither their promised rewards nor Rustam's leadership able to keep the rest of the Squad in line, Waller offered Lobo a doubled fee to kill Cyclotron, triggering his explosive and leaving the surviving team members comatose. With all evidence of the mission destroyed in the blast, Waller had Suicide Zero imprisoned, including the loyal Rustam and cooperative Lobo.^[2]

Undeterred, Waller assembled a new Suicide Squad whose members would be kept in line by the use of lethal force as an ever-present threat rather than a last-resort failsafe. This team was composed of Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, Bronze Tiger, and the Enchantress,^[3] incarcerated super-villains offered a reduction in their prison sentences for their service^[4] and led in the field by Colonel Colonel Rick Flag. On an early mission for which this roster was joined by veteran Duchess and new member Battle-Taur, the Squad was set against Brainiac and tasked with recovering an item from a crypt accessed by aerial drop.^[5] Another member, Nightshade of the Land of Nightshades' royal family, joined the Squad to help her brother, but was ultimately the last of her line.^[6] Mark Shaw, a Manhunter agent who later became head of the Leviathan Organization, also served with the Squad,^[7] as did Vixen and Shade, the Changing Man.^[8] The Suicide Squad came into conflict with Jeffrey Franklin Burr's Kobra Cult,^[9] and its leadership passed to Bronze Tiger, during whose tenure the Squad was betrayed by and suffered the death of team member Florence Crawley to^[10] Duchess, who was in reality Lashina of the Female Furies.^[11]

New 52

Kicked in the Teeth

 Main article: Suicide Squad: Kicked in the Teeth

The Suicide Squad was deployed in a sports stadium and learn that their objective is to retrieve a package from a woman. They soon learn that all of the people in the stadium have been infected with a virus that turns them into mindless creatures who can only destroy and kill each other. The place was shut down by the national guard and the team members are joined by Voltaic. The team is then attacked by a group of the infected, but they manage to successfully fight them off. After a bit of fighting, they manage to find their way through to the target and they are surprised to discover that the target is pregnant. After fighting that target, who is just as mindless as the rest of the infected, they take the baby from the womb, because it is revealed that the baby is immune to the infection and thus, the only thing that "is worth saving". Voltaic is then shot by Deadshot, killing him instantly and left in the stadium to blame for the events that have transpired. Unfortunately for the team, there isn't enough cover for extraction and so they have to escape and 'lay low' for some time. Deadshot reminds Waller of the bombs they have implanted within their heads, but Waller states that they still have 3 hours to live.

Then, the team tries to 'lay low' for a bit, but eventually come under fire of a bounty hunter named Mad Dog. Before they dealt with Mad Dog, they were trying to lay low and buy food and fit into regular clothes. Harley then tries to seduce Deadshot, but is interrupted by a call from Waller. Diablo also sees that in the news, Voltaic is already being blamed for the murder of all of the people in the stadium. When they finally meet Mad Dog, they deal with him, but not before Black Spider is injured. Diablo tries to save him, but is unable to carry him due to exhaustion. Harley offers to help, with the condition that none of them mention that she ever helped Black Spider. When they get to the evacuation drop, Black Spider gets medical attention, they have their bombs reset and two new members are added to the crew: Captain Boomerang and Yo-Yo. Boomerang boasts that he is replacing Deadshot as the leader.

The team is sent to a secret organization called Basilisk to pick up Dr. Elisa Visyak. She poisons herself with cyanide, only for El Diablo to burn it out of her system. Yo-Yo shows his power to be that he can change his size and protects the team from a hail of gunfire. Deadshot and Boomerang then encounter a woman named Grey Lora. Deadshot says the name "Wong Fong Yay," a woman who both are apparently connected to and Boomerang killed. Deadshot shoots him in the hand and leaves him there with Basilisk. When they get back to Belle Reve, Harley Quinn's nanobomb is deactivated against Waller's orders.

Deadshot, Yo-Yo and El Diablo are tasked with dealing with all of Belle Reve's prisoners when their cells are all opened. Diablo is knocked out and Deadshot is thrown off of the guard tower when the virus causes his muscles to freeze up, while Black Spider (still in the infirmary) beats up several other inmates before collapsing on the floor. Yo-Yo makes himself extremely thin to retrieve King Shark so he can help, but Shark eats him. Diablo wakes up and scares all of the prisoners back into their cells by burning three. Waller allows Deadshot a visit with a girl named Suchin, cutting it short when she learns Harley Quinn was behind the prison break, and used it to escape.

Deadshot and King Shark, joined by Savant—whose betrayal had been a ruse of Waller's—and the fame-seeking villains Lime and Light, tracked Quinn through Gotham City only to be set upon by a group of henchmen dressed in her costume. After defeating them, the Squad interrogated a survivor and discovered that Quinn was trying to recover the face of her deceased former partner the Joker from the Gotham City Police Department, and had turned herself into them to do so.^[12] King Shark, disguised as Clayface by Lime and Light, provided a distraction while Deadshot and Savant stormed the precinct. Quinn, loose in the station, trapped the two and fitted the Joker's face over Deadshot's in attempt to speak to the dead man through him as a proxy. Lawton played along, drawing Quinn in until he could reach a gun concealed in his boot and shoot her through the stomach. Outside, Lime was arrested by the GCPD and attempted to expose to Squad's existence, forcing Waller to terminate her.^[13]

Basilisk Rising

 Main article: Suicide Squad: Basilisk Rising (Collected)

The Suicide Squad was recovered to Belle Reve, where Waller used a compound called LZRS-017 to heal Harley Quinn and Black Spider's injuries, and subjected King Shark to dehydration to manipulate his mind and keep him on the Squad after his term had been served. Deadshot, rattled by his experience with Quinn, suffered performance issues, while Savant was granted release for his collaboration with Waller.^[14] For their next mission, the Squad was joined by new member Iceberg and deployed to Metropolis to kill Mitch Shelley, a metahuman with the power of resurrection betrayed by his associate Kim Rebecki. Having done so, the Squad captured Rebecki fled to an extraction point with the body only to be attacked by the revived Shelley. With the Squad overwhelmed, Deadshot sacrificed Light and drowned Shelley to buy himself time to dismember his target and halt the resurrection process.^[15] However, he was interrupted by the Body Doubles, agents of a rival US government agency with the same target, allowing Shelley—newly-resurrected with the ability to transform into living metal—to encase and hijack Deadshot's body, using it to fight his way through the Squad to retrieve Rebecki. Using her as bait, Waller killed Shelley once again, severed his hand in hopes of exploiting his abilities, and turned him and Rebecki loose.^[16] During Black Spider's tenure with the Squad, they captured Grifter, a telekinetic intruder within Belle Reve who had gained access to Waller's files.^[17]

Reunited with Harley Quinn, the Suicide Squad infiltrated the Seattle headquarter of the Gendreon bio-tech company to abduct Basilisk operation Tyler Reese in the hope he could lead them to his leader Regulus. Though Reese was secured by the Squad, he was poisoned and killed by a Basilisk agent among their own number:^[18] the Black Spider. Captain Boomerang, whose abandonment by Deadshot and capture by Basilisk had been orchestrated by Waller to place him as amole within the organization,^[19] provided Regulus' location instead, and the Squad was sent to kill him with several new members as backup. However, en route, one recruit proved herself a Basilisk plant and detonated her own implanted explosive, sending the Squad's plane crashing down to Yucatan, Mexico. There, the survivors were found by an isolated Mayan tribe who attempted to kill them in a sacrificial ritual.^[20]

Instead, they were taken by Basilisk operatives led by Boomerang, brought to Regulus, and offered a position within his organization. Staging a fight with Deadshot, Boomerang surreptitiously freed his one-time teammate and with assistance from his fellow traitors within Regulus' compound led the Squad to their target. In turn, Black Spider revealed himself to be a Basilisk operative, and King Shark, El Diablo, and Iceberg to be sleeper agents activated by the codeword "Sasparillo."^[19] Deadshot identified Black Spider as an impostor and killed him, before working with Quinn to free their teammates from their conditioning. The Squad and Boomerang's traitors fought their way to Regulus only to be surprised by the activation of Harley Quinn as a further sleeper agent. While grappling with Deadshot, Regulus ordered Quinn to kill her teammate, but was instead seemingly killed himself when Lawton shot him through his own chest.^[21] Quinn, refusing to see Deadshot's body left behind, defeated Basilisk's Grey Lora and allowed the Squad to escape.^[22] Meanwhile, in Louisiana, Amanda Waller fought off an assassination attempt by Basilisk forces led by the genuine Black Spider.^[21]

Death is for Suckers

 Main article: Suicide Squad: Death is for Suckers (Collected)

Back at Belle Reve, the Suicide Squad held a funeral for Deadshot, from which Harley Quinn was abducted by the returned Joker.^[23] After escaping from his clutches, Quinn returned willingly to the Squad, while Captain Boomerang was released for his cooperation in Waller's scheme, and Deadshot was resurrected^[24] via experimentation with Mitch Shelley's hand.^[23] While Amanda Waller searched for Kurt Lance, an agent who had gone missing while surveilling the young superheroes of the Teen Titans, the Titans attacked Belle Reve under false pretenses from their leader Red Robin. The Suicide Squad fought with the heroes until both teams were ordered to stand down by mutual agreement of Waller and Red Robin.^[25]

Voltaic, resurrected as Deadshot had been, and Yo-yo, whose shape-changing powers had allowed him to survive inside King Shark's body, rejoined the Squad in the place of the out-of-commission El Diablo, Black Spider, and Iceberg for a mission to Chinatown to recover a package from the Chang Gang criminal organization and assassinate the Red Orchid, the gang's leader and Yo-yo's sister.^[22] Fighting their way through the gang, the Squad found Red Orchid in league with a still-living Regulus and in possession of the package:^[26] Kurt Lance, whose metahuman ability to inhibit the powers of others disabled Yo-yo and led the Squad to be captured by Red Orchid. However, Harley Quinn was able to render Lance unconscious, restoring Yo-yo's malleability. Yo-yo wrapped his body around his sister's, and had Deadshot fire on his implanted bomb,^[27] killing the siblings while Amanda Waller extracted the rest of the Squad.^[28]

After disabling the survivors' explosives, Waller recruited them for a personal mission to hunt down Regulus, who had escaped with Kurt Lance. Tracking him through the Gotham sewers, they were set upon by the Swamp Angels, metahuman outcasts who knocked Waller out in an attempt to deliver her to Regulus. Though they defeated the Swamp Angels, Deadshot encouraged his teammates to abandon Waller only to be shot by the Unknown Soldier, the Squad's new leader, who ensured that Waller was recovered.^[28]

Discipline and Punish

 Main article: Suicide Squad: Discipline and Punish (Collected)

Deadshot was brought back from the dead once again and Amanda Waller, aided by serial killer-turned analyst James Gordon, Jr. and the Unknown Soldier, strove to restore order within the Suicide Squad. Voltaic was killed by the Soldier in a violent act of discipline, and his subsequent attempted resurrection was unsuccessful.^[29] Meanwhile, Waller's one-time teammate John Lynch orchestrated a cyberattack on Belle Reve, which Harley Quinn exploited to hold Waller hostage and negotiate new terms for the Squad: their neck bombs would be removed and, after a further year of service, all team members—Quinn, Lawton, King Shark, and new recruit the Cheetah—would be released to serve as informants on the outside.^[30]

To detain renegade A.R.G.U.S. agent Vibe and extradimensional fugitive Gypsy, Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and King Shark were joined by Crowbar, armed with an eponymous weapon capable of of countering Vibe's powers. Though the new member vanished when his crowbar was overloaded with vibrational energy, the Squad rendered their targets unconscious and delivered them to Waller.^[31] Under the new deal, Waller deployed the Squad to Las Vegas to foil a plot by an operative of Lynch's known as the Mother:^[30] using hypnotic billboards to drive Vegas civilians into a berserker state while laying waste to the city with a golem built from the flesh of its dead. Though they failed to prevent the billboards' activation and capture the Mother, the Squad was able to topple and destroy the creature.^[32]

Tracing the Belle Reve hack and Vegas hypnosis to Lynch, Waller deduced that he was luring her into a confrontation which would serve as a demonstration of his superteam-for-hire to dictator Paris Mingowee III. In Mingowee's nation, the Squad neutralized Lynch's team while the Soldier infiltrated the dictator's bunker and assassinated him, and once her forces were clear for extraction, Waller called in a drone strike and killed her former teammate.^[30]

When diplomat Dr. Amadou Mambety was abducted by terrorists in Africa, Waller was lured into the field with Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark by her one-time teammate Dinah Drake, the wife of Kurt Lance who had been reunited with her presumed-dead husband. While Drake confronted Waller over keeping Lance's survival from her, the Squad did battle with Drake's team the Birds of Prey until they were forced to cooperate to protect Mambety from the terrorists. Resolving their conflict, Waller turned Mambety over to Drake and returned to the United States, where Lance willingly left his wife's side to work with Waller for the government.^[33]

Forever Evil

 Main article: Suicide Squad: Walled In (Collected)

Following the takeover of the villainous Crime Syndicate, control of Belle Reve was placed in the hands of its inmates led by the Thinker, who trapped Waller within the prison with an explosive collar. Aided by Gordon, Waller continued to run the Squad clandestinely, recruiting the freed Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and Captain Boomerang to retrieve the living weapon OMAC from a facility in the Rocky Mountains.^[34] At the same time, however, the Thinker impersonated Waller to recruit a team of heroes—Power Girl, Steel, Warrant, and leader the Unknown Soldier—and sent them to retrieve the weapon for the Syndicate. After a brief conflict, the two teams uncovered the ruse, only to find that Quinn had stolen the OMAC for the Thinker. Once activated, OMAC brought down the mountain in which he had been held, trapping his pursuers before leaving for Belle Reve with Quinn.^[35]

At the prison, Waller gained King Shark's allegiance by freeing his father, the Hawaiian deity Kamo, and Gordon fitted the traitorous Quinn with an explosive collar, pitting them against the Thinker, who had transferred his mind into the powerful body of OMAC.^[36] Freeing themselves from the rubble,^[37] Deadshot, Boomerang, and the heroes joined the battle, while Waller, her enemy distracted, prepared to send him through an extradimensional portal concealed under Belle Reve. However, she was contacted through the prison computer by Kevin Kho, the original mind within OMAC, who sought to regain control of his body. To buy time, Waller had Deadshot shoot his teammates and himself with "magic bullets" granting enhanced strength and speed,^[38] and as a back-up plan, sent OMAC through the prison's floor to the dimensional gate, through which the Shark fell in a failed attempt to take OMAC down with him. Struggling with the Thinker, Kho took control of the OMAC just as Boomerang knocked him through the open portal. With Belle Reve back in her hands, Waller revealed that the "magic bullets" had contained new nano-bombs, reasserting her control over the Suicide Squad.^[39]

New Suicide Squad

Pure Insanity

 Main article: New Suicide Squad: Pure Insanity (Collected)

In the wake of the Crime Syndicate's invasion, Amanda Waller was publicly blamed for the US government's lack of preparation, though she maintained her direction of the Suicide Squad—with increased oversight, an international mandate, and a renewed emphasis on covert operations—from a rebuilt Belle Reve, an underground detention facility disguised from above as a US Postal Service distribution center.^[40] At the new Belle Reve, active Squad members were held in A-block, and granted greater freedom than the general population of D-block.^[41] Waller was made subordinate to former Treasury agent Vic Sage, who recruited non-inmates Deathstroke and the Joker's Daughter to join Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and Black Manta for an investigation of a secret Russian project in Moscow. Waller chafed with Sage, as did Deadshot and Quinn with their seemingly redundant new teammates,^[42] and the mission collapsed when the Squad came under attack by their target, giant robots called "Rocket Reds." The mercenary Deathstroke joined the Russians when promised higher pay,^[43] while Deadshot was severely injured and captured, and the Joker's Daughter was beaten unconscious by Quinn.^[44] She and Black Manta freed Deadshot, who shot Deathstroke, and returned with their injured teammates to Belle Reve, where Waller was able to secure a degree of autonomy to Sage's consternation.^[45]

With Deathstroke and the Joker's Daughter removed from the roster and Deadshot in recovery, Captain Boomerang, the speedster Reverse-Flash, and a trio of Man-Bat Commandos were added to the Squad for their next mission, the destruction of a Chinese metahuman development facility. Quinn alerted the facility's subjects,^[46] and though they succeeded in destroying it—at the cost of the lives of two Man-Bats and the knee of the Reverse-Flash—the team was pursued by the program's sole surviving superhuman^[47] and his military handlers. The Chinese metahuman defeated the final Man-Bat, whose bomb Waller detonating in a mercy killing, but broke from his orders,^[48] saving Harley Quinn and coming under attack from his erstwhile allies while the Squad escaped to their extraction point.^[49] Quinn, Manta, and Boomerang were tasked with searching for the location of hidden Rocket Reds, and in Ukraine, came under attack from one of the robots, which Boomerang brought down with a stolen tank.^[50] With the Reverse-Flash and Deadshot, they were sent to Smallville, Kansas to detain the fugitive Superman. Though the Squad was handily defeated by him and Wonder Woman, Deadshot's custom bullets were able to break the weakened Superman's skin.^[51]

Monsters

 Main article: New Suicide Squad: Monsters (Collected)

Deadshot, Manta, and Boomerang were next tasked with infiltrating a hardline faction of the League of Assassins to investigate their supply of supervillain-derived weaponry.^[52] The Squad members initiated into the League were assigned to a raid on a British Lazarus Pit refinery, and to prevent the destruction of an allied facility without forfeiting the mission, a second team of Harley Quinn, the Reverse-Flash, and the power-absorbing Parasite was deployed to foil the attack. They were unsuccessful, however; Quinn and the Parasite were taken prisoner while the Reverse-Flash was left for dead.^[53] Meanwhile, Manta had been converted to the League's dogma and Boomerang sentenced to death for flouting its rules. The Reverse-Flash, however, was able to rejoin the Squad and free his captive teammates, while Manta lost faith when asked to sacrifice his life in detonating the League's greatest weapon, a bomb capable of sending all in its radius back in time. With the bomb primed, the Squad reunited and fled, though the Reverse-Flash, refusing to be responsible for the loss of all the League's members, removed it from their vicinity, sacrificing his own life to save them.^[54] When Deathstroke, in search of his daughter Rose Wilson, breached Belle Reve's walls and disabled its defenses via electro-magnetic pulse, the Squad's members joined their fellow inmates in rioting. While Deadshot and Black Manta fought against Deathstroke for his prior betrayal, Harley Quinn claimed to know his daughter's whereabouts in a bid to have him kill Amanda Waller.^[55]

Freedom

 Main article: New Suicide Squad: Freedom (Collected)

Waller was forced by Sage into the role of a field agent, joining the Squad for a mission investigating superpower-granting drugs in Rio de Janeiro which she reoriented from a simple raid to an undercover operation. When their ruse was exposed, Waller killed the drug's distributor,^[56] and discovered that one company, the Calvary Corporation, was responsible through shell companies for many of their prior targets, and employed Vic Sage. She went rogue, breaking communication with Belle Reve and disabling the Squad's explosive implants, while claiming that they had been linked to her own life to secure their cooperation. Promising them release at the mission's conclusion,^[57] she led the Squad to the Calvary Building in Dallas, Texas, where she interrogated Calvary CEO Miss Pesta, who readily volunteered that the Rocket Reds, Chinese metahumans, and Lazarus pit refinery had been part of a now-abandoned plan to created a Calvary-controlled team of superhumans, and that Sage planned to destroy Task Force X on their behalf by leaking the Squad's existence through Black Manta. Claiming that Waller—and the United States of America—were powerless in the face of corporate interests, Pesta offered Waller evidence that would pin the scheme entirely on Sage.^[58]

Returning to Belle Reve with backup from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Waller and the Squad caught Sage and Manta as they attempted to flee. Manta, however, was able to outfight the Squad and was kept from killing Waller only by a bullet to the wrist from Deadshot, overcoming performance issues stemming from his prior injury. Reneging on her offer of freedom, Waller had the Squad members reincarcerated at Belle Reve, over which she once again had full control, while Deadshot asserted that she was no more able to leave the Squad than they were.^[59]

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Kill Anything

 Main article: New Suicide Squad: Kill Anything (Collected)

While Captain Boomerang was removed from active duty for brawling with—and losing to—Deadshot in the Belle Reve cafeteria, the Squad was rejoined by past members El Diablo and Cheetah, and Harley Quinn was contacted by Horus International, a human rights organization ostensibly seeking to liberate the Suicide Squad members. Quinn brought her teammates in on a plan to escape:^[60] while protecting pro-West Hong Kong politician Chen Ho from assassination by the Ghost Dragons, a triad-affiliated gang,^[41] the Squad's apparent deaths were arranged at the hands of the Mercs, killers in Horus' employ, and they were ferried by Horus head Adam Reed to Schloss Blutstein, a castle in Germany where their explosive implants could be removed. Agreeing to join Horus' pursuit of justice, both for altruistic reasons and to strike against Amanda Waller, the Squad struck up a camaraderie with the Mercs, admirers of their work, only to find that they had been betrayed: Reed was in reality a member of the murderous cult the Fist of Cain, and both they and the Mercs had been lured there to die.^[60]

As the Mercs fell to the cultists, their leader Deathtrap, a metahuman with the ability to create firearms from any material, allied himself with the Suicide Squad to survive. Back in the United States, the survival and location of the Squad was leaked to Amanda Waller, who forcibly recruited Boomerang and Dorian Ashemore—a British Intelligence agent who was in reality the supervillain the Hunky Punk—to recover her team^[61] and save face for their loss, unwittingly springing a trap baited for her by Reed. While Deathtrap and the Squad, working together, fared well against the Fist of Cain, they discovered that Rose Tattoo, the deadly Spirit of Murder, had been drawn to them by the bloodshed. When the Hunky Punk came to their aid, he was quickly slain by her, just as Waller was incapacitated by Reed,^[62] who planned to use her death to claim leadership of the cult. He seemingly goaded Deathtrap into shooting Deadshot, though unbeknownst to Reed the shot was intentionally non-lethal, before turning on and mortally wounding the Merc. With Deadshot and Deathtrap breaking his control of the situation, Reed attempted to detonate the Squad's explosive implants, only to lose his hand to one of Harkness' boomerangs. With Rose Tattoo forced back to her own realm by El Diablo's flames—with El Diablo himself in tow—the Squad made their escape, leaving Deathtrap to wipe out the remains of the Fist of Cain with a gun made from the castle itself.^[63]

DC Rebirth

 Main article: Suicide Squad Vol 5

While under threat of dissolution by US president Barack Obama, the Suicide Squad was deployed to Mongolia and tasked with retrieving geneticist Mark Ljungberg from the terrorist organization the Dogra War. Ljungberg's creation, the metagene bomb, had been used to grant the terrorists superpowers, forcing the overwhelmed Squad to kill the geneticist to recover the bomb and keep him out of the Dogra War's hands. After triggering the weapon once again and removing the enemy's powers, the Squad was extracted by Colonel Rick Flag, now a disgraced Navy SEAL recruited to lend the team legitimacy and accountability as its field leader.^[64]

Flag led the Squad, joined by past member El Diablo and bounty hunter Mad Dog, on a covert mission to retrieve former US Secretary of Defense and Black Mountain Security head George Foster Carmody, abducted by the vigilante group Strikeforce Europa to be prosecuted for war crimes at the Hague. Tasked with freeing Carmody while in transit from detention to trial, Flag and Deadshot infiltrated and hijacked his security detail while the rest of the Squad drew out Strikeforce Europa with a feint at the court. The Squad withdrew once their plan was unveiled, save Mad Dog, left for dead by Captain Boomerang, whose explosive implant was detonated by Waller to conceal their involvement. Flag and Lawton, in turn, lost custody of Carmody to Shado, a mercenary sent by Black Mountain, but were able to reunite with the Squad, intercept Shado, and retrieve their target. They fled by boat to England, pursuit impeded by a fire set by El Diablo and a storm over the English Channel, and from there flew to the United States. With Carmody back on American soil and an international incident defused, Waller executed him for his crimes.^[65]

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Bad Blood

 Main article: Suicide Squad Vol 6

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Infinite Frontier

 Main article: Suicide Squad: Give Peace a Chance (Collected)

Prior to Harley Quinn's release from the Suicide Squad,^[66] she, Peacemaker, the Weasel, and Ambush Bug defended Belle Reve from a break-in by former inmates King Shark and Defacer. The two intruders secured a pardon for Defacer in return for King Shark's return to the Squad.^[67] Quinn, the Shark, Peacemaker, and the Weasel were joined by Katana for a protection detail on Santiago Gallo, son of a Corto Maltesian general and US collaborator. Going undercover as staff members at Gallo's high school in the Swiss Alps, the Squad defended him from attacks by the Legion of the Steer, only to discover that Gallo was in fact a demonic sorcerer with plans to plunge the world into eternal darkness. He dominated the Squad members' minds, incapacitating them all save for the Weasel, who, being insufficiently intelligent to fall under Gallo's sway, devoured him, saving the world at the cost of their mission.^[68]

Operating under her own initiative without government sanction, Waller conceived of a plan to create her own Justice League and abandon her own Earth to invade another.^[5] When Rick Flag objected and attempted to interfere, Waller detained him and replaced him with "Superboy"^[4]—in reality a clone known as Match conditioned to believe he was Connor Kent.^[5] Waller also involved herself in Task Force Z, a team of undead supervillains resurrected with Lazarus Resin and led by Harvey Dent, providing the program with Clifford DeVoe whose brain scans would allow the corpses of the Task Force to assumed their former identities.^[69]

Squad member Bolt teleported himself and his teammates Peacemaker, Film Freak, and Shrike into Arkham Asylum to recover the Talon William Cobb. However, Bolt was killed by the seemingly insane Cobb, and Film Freak and Shrike fell victim to a Joker gas attack,^[4] leading Peacemaker to call in reinforcements: "Superboy," with the super-strong Culebra, vampiric Nocturna, telepathic Mindwarp, and portal-creating Exit. Though the Squad was delayed by "Superboy's" desire to save the asylum staff and lost Mindwarp and Exit to the gas, the survivors were able to return to Belle Reve with Talon through a portal created before the teleporter's death.^[70]

Joined by Talon, the phytokinetic Branch, and new team teleporter Keymaster, the Suicide Squad was next tasked with capturing a speedster student of Titans Academy, Bolt, while she was away from the safety of Titans Tower, but the attempted escape and subsequent death of Keymaster, with "Superboy's" opposition to the mission, allowed her to escape. Rather than return empty handed,^[71] the Squad infiltrated the tower with the aid of Red X, a member of the academy who Waller saw as a potential recruit. Drawn to mementoes of Conner Kent's history with the Titans, "Superboy" set off the academy's alarms before the team could escape with Bolt in tow. Set upon by the students and betrayed by Red X, the Squad abandoned Bolt and were extracted by Warp, another teleporter, taking their would-be ally captive instead.^[72] While Peacemaker fomented dissent against Amanda Waller within the Suicide Squad, Red X was able to trigger a prison break in Belle Reve and escaped in the chaos. At the same time, the imprisoned Rick Flag was freed^[73] by Talon,^[5] whose insanity was merely an act.^[73] Waller deployed a pair of Task Force X operatives to the underwater kingdom of Atlantis to investigate the Genesis Fragment, an alien power source. Breaking from their orders, they attempted to steal the fragment only to be caught by Atlantean forces, creating an international incident between the kingdom and the United States.^[74]

Bloodsport, an operative sent to collect assets and intelligence from alternate Earths, was captured by Ultraman of the Crime Syndicate while hunting Black Siren on Earth-3, a world Waller deemed to be amenable to her control. To rescue him, the Suicide Squad—now equipped with a mechanical teleporter—captured the metahuman criminal Night Terror and used her vibration-based abilities to travel to Earth-3. While the Squad recovered Bloodsport and Black Siren, "Superboy" engaged Ultraman only to be destabilized by his anger in battle, forcing Waller to divert the team to a Russian facility.^[75] There, they were confronted by the genuine Superboy, who had learned of the Squad's impostor from the Titans and was attacked by Match, who discovered his true nature as his body and speech broke down. With her machinations uncovered, Waller broke contact with the Squad to evacuate Belle Reve, leaving the team to venture the facility, a cloning laboratory formerly operated by Match's creators the Agenda, where they discovered further Superboy clones and the chemical used to preserve their clone's false identity. With the Justice League en route and Checkmate at the abandoned Belle Reve, the Squad was teleported by Waller to the remote Task Force X Island, their new headquarters as fugitives.^[5]

While the rest of the Suicide Squad was sent to Earth-3, Waller gave Peacemaker command of a splinter Squad, simultaneously testing his loyalties and tasking him with the capture of the Swamp Thing.^[75] Releasing a Prescot Industries bio-agent in India's Kaziranga Forest to draw their target's attention, the new members—Nightmare Nurse, Heat Wave, Parasite, and Chemo—were each defeated in turn, leaving Peacemaker alone against their quarry. Questioning his opponent's motivations, the Swamp Thing removed Waller's explosives from Peacemaker's body and freed him from her control.^[76]

Ambushed!

 Main article: Suicide Squad: Ambushed! (Collected)

The Suicide Squad was joined by Ambush Bug and given simulated training for a mission to Hell, to which they were teleported to retrieve a sample of the shield protecting the Rock of Eternity, sought by Waller to defend Earth 3. There, they were attacked by the Hell Squad, a group of deceased Suicide Squad members gathered by Waller in an initiative to put undead revived via Lazarus Resin into her service, while Ambush Bug secured their objective. Though Culebra was killed in action, her spirit immediately appeared in Hell, and Waller deployed Major Force, armed with a device capable of containing the spirits of the fallen Squad members. With the spirits subdued and target secured, Waller recalled the Squad and resurrected Culebra for their next mission.^[77]

Aboard a Kryptonian spaceship from an alternate Earth, the Suicide Squad traveled to a Green Lantern Corps prison, or Sciencell, on the planet Oa to rescue a prisoner dubbed "Yorick" by Ambush Bug, who modified their ship^[78] to operate under his remote control. Though the Squad was imprisoned in a Sciencell by Green Lantern Sojourner Mullein, Major Force had "Yorick" summon the ship to free them, while Culebra, dead again without further Lazarus Resin, freed fellow prisoner Black Hand while in her intangible spirit form.^[79]

Tying up loose ends, Waller withdrew her support for Task Force Z and sent a Squad composed of Copperhead, Madame Crow, Solomon Grundy, KGBeast, and Victor Zsasz to seize the Lazarus Resin supply, destroy the facility in which it was produced, and recover Deadshot, who had been resurrected to serve with the Task Force. Though they initially met with success, Lawton's corpse was seemingly destroyed by KGBeast against Waller's orders.^[80]

In preparation for her strike at Earth-3, Waller put "Yorick's" technical skills to work, deployed Bloodsport on a final recovery mission, and pitted the rest of the Suicide Squad against the Retaliators and Lightning Strikes of Earth-8 to prove their value to her future operations.^[81] Major Force, the only team member showing the ruthlessness Waller sought, was killed by Black Siren, prompting Waller to trigger her explosive only to find it disabled: Doctor Rodriguez, a mole for Flag within her operations had disabled her systems in advance of an attack on Task Force X Island by his rebel Suicide Squad comprised of former members including Peacemaker and Bloodsport. Retrieving Talon, Match, and Black Siren, for whom she had further use, abandoning the rest, and luring Flag's Squad into the clutches of Clayface via hologram, Waller fled with her forces to Earth-3.^[82]

War for Earth-3

Waller's Suicide Squad seized control of the Metropolis of Earth-3, seeking to bait Ultraman into a confrontation. Instead, he sent his fellow Crime Syndicate members: first Emerald Knight, who was defeated by Black Hand, and then Owlman, who fell to Black Siren and Match. Finally goaded into action, Ultraman attacked with Superwoman. However, while Match fought Superwoman, Waller convinced Ultraman to turn over the burden of governing the world he ruled to her, winning his allegiance and that of the Crime Syndicate just as Flag's Squad—and the abandoned members of her own—arrived on Earth-3.^[83]

Overwhelming Flag's group, Waller's forces killed Culebra, captured Rodriguez and Nocturna, and forced the rest to flee. Waller then sent Johnny Quick of the Crime Syndicate to seize a Phantom Zone Projector from Ultraman's Fortress of Solitude^[84] and the Cosmic Treadmill from the Flash Museum,^[85] components of a device designed by "Yorick" to trap Ultraman and seal Earth-3 off from the Multiverse. Flag's Squad returned reinforced by the Titans, unwittingly bringing with them a group of Titans Academy students who Waller forces were able to capture. Recruiting Nocturna into her Justice League with Match, threatening the lives of Bloodsport's brothers across the Multiverse, killing Talon, and leveraging the captured students against the Titans, Waller eroded Flag's support, claiming victory only to be set upon by Ultraman, motivated by Flag into reneging on his agreement. As Waller prepared to send Ultraman into the Phantom Zone, Flag, overcome by rage and distrust, destroyed the projector. As Waller made moves to flee and Superwoman distracted Ultraman, Flag's Squad had "Yorick" create a replacement projector with Emerald Knight's Ring of Volthoom. Though they successfully trapped Ultraman, they were sent back to their own Earth by Waller, who proceeded to activate "Yorick's" device, sealing off Earth-3 under the control of her and her Justice League.^[86]

Dawn of DC

Once again working for Amanda Waller,^[87] Peacemaker leads a reformed Task Force X based in Belle Reve, providing espionage operative Velvet to US General Blanche as a mole within the metahuman rescue team the Doom Patrol.^[88]

Waller assembled another Squad—Black Alice, Clock King, Jeannette, Ravager, Sportsmaster, and Catwoman, a volunteer—in Cairo, Egypt to steal the beard of Hatshepsut, an ancient Egyptian artifact, from Kahndaq while posing as common thieves. Though the power-absorbing Black Alice was able to use the godly speed of Kahndaq's ruler Black Adam to steal the beard, and the teleportation ability of Doctor Fate in neighboring Egypt to escape with it and her team, Waller's involvement was exposed. With the rest of the Squad back in their cells, Waller, blaming Catwoman for the breach, detonated her explosive implant and killed her, only for Catwoman to be magically revived and teleported away.^[89]

For a covert mission to infiltrate the heavily fortified but unstable island nation of Gamorra, lower its defenses, and turn that defensive technology over to US allies, Alice and Clock King were joined by Squad veteran Harley Quinn, Waller's nephew and team leader Deadeye, Superman clone Bizarro, and the blackmailed hero Dreamer, whose power to travel through the dream realm would allow the Squad to enter Gamorra undetected through the mind of a sleeping citizen. With the assistance of Clock King, Dreamer was able to navigate the dream realm to their destination, though the sleeper whose mind through which they traveled was killed in the process. Though Waller regarded the death as an object lesson on the limitations of Dreamer's powers, it stoked tensions within the team, leading Bizarro to storm out and threaten the Squad's covert status. Dreamer received a vision of coming bloodshed at Bizarro's hands, for which she believed Waller to be responsible^[90] and concluded that she planned to take over Gamorra herself. While the rest of the Squad followed Bizarro to the island's defensive control center, Dreamer and Quinn turned on Waller, joined with the Gamorran military, and launched an assault on their one-time teammates. Clock King succeeded, however, in lowering the defenses, while Dreamer escaped into the dream realm after being rendered unconscious by Bizarro. With the island exposed, Waller launched an invasion force, sending Bizarro to kill Gamorran president Sara Nakamura and setting up a hunt for her son, while sedating the rest of the Suicide Squad.^[91]

The Squad was next deployed to capture Dreamer in her hometown of Parthas, an alien refuge newly revealed to the world and under siege by anti-alien violence. Arriving to find their communications jammed and the protestors falling asleep one-by-one, the Squad called on Dreamer to turn herself over to Waller. Despite the team's sympathy for their target's plight and that of Parthas, the confrontation escalated into violence until Dreamer fled through the Dream Realm to Parthas Elementary School, set ablaze by anti-alien bigots. Coming onto the scene, the Squad found Dreamer fighting off the arsonists and citing the violence in Parthas as part of broader campaign by Amanda Waller to stoke public fear of aliens and metahumans with the aim of seizing absolute power for herself. While Deadeye proposed that Dreamer surrender herself as a means to get close enough to strike at Waller, Black Alice stole her dream powers and put her to sleep.^[92] With Dreamer in their custody, the Suicide Squad made their way back to Gamorra by jet. Upon regaining consciousness, however, she revealed that she had blasted Bizarro's explosive implant out of his body in their conflict, and prevailed on him to use his freedom to fulfill his aspirations of heroism. He freed Dreamer, who took back her powers and breached the hull of the jet, sucking the rest of the Squad out into the vacuum. Directing Bizarro to save his teammates, she set the jet on course to crash into a newly-completed—and thus still empty—super-prison before bailing out herself. She, too, was caught in mid-air by Bizarro, before he was shot through the head by the resurrected Deadshot, once again in Waller's service. Dreamer made her way to Waller, refusing to accept the latter's claims that her methods were necessary to create a better world, but upon discovering that Waller had set explosives implanted in her family to explode in the event of her death, backed down and agreed to return to the Suicide Squad.^[93]

Dreamer and Deadeye later returned to Gamorra to capture the fugitive Jay Nakamura, where Dreamer used her precognition to guide her teammate's shots to incapacitate their target. Though he greeted Dreamer as a friend, Nakamura was put to sleep, and, speaking with Dreamer in captivity, blamed her for the death of his mother.^[94] From Gamorra, Clock King helped Waller coordinate an assault on Wayne Manor in Gotham, drawing the attention of the robotic Batman Failsafe.^[95] When Failsafe was disabled, Waller used the "rewinding" power of the Time Commander's Hourglass to resurrect its deceased owner for the Suicide Squad, offering him renewed life to modify his device to restore the Batman android. After quickly completing the modification, the Time Commander stalled for time, learning Waller's goal of ultimate metahuman subjugation, and attempted to flee into the Timestream only to find himself trapped by chronal routers at the day of his resurrection. Forced to complete Failsafe's restoration, the Time Commander was then tasked with doing the same for six other androids of similar design.^[94] With the Squad stationed at the Hall of Order, headquarters of Amanda Waller's Bureau of Sovereignty, Clock King served as a guide to Failsafe's test subjects, such as the electrokinetic Haywire, while Dreamer was hounded by Waller for information on the future of her campaign.^[96]

After deploying Task Force VII—Failsafe and android counterparts to the rest of the Justice League—to steal the powers of the superheroes of the world, Waller drafted Rudy Jones, the Parasite, back into the Squad. Stripped of his hunger-suppressing armband, the Parasite's appetite for power allowed him to lead Task Force VII's Superman analogue, Last Son, to the strongest remaining heroes, whereupon he—suffering from his hunger and no longer of use—was executed by the android.^[97] Waller tasked Dreamer with infiltrating the fugitive heroes' sanctuary, the Fortress of Solitude, with the Task Force's Martian Manhunter-like Global Guardian in tow, entering through the mind of Wonder Girl, rendered unconscious in a diversionary attack by the Bureau's Brainiac Queen and her puppet Jon Kent, Superman. The sight of Kent in this state was too much for Dreamer, however, and she turned on Waller's other operatives, buying time for the heroes to escape as the fortress self-destructed around her.^[98]

Waller deployed the rest of the Suicide Squad—bolstered by Bizarro, rebuilt with Brainiac technology—to Okinawa, Japan to guard a base hidden in its jungle, the site of a Boom Tube to a vault on the planet Czarnia. While using her magic to locate its entrance, Black Alice discovered that they had been tailed by Catwoman. The Squad attacked, but were held back by her partner Batman while she broke into the base. Though they were reinforced by the arrival of Bizarro, Batman exploited his reversed logic to slip away and followed Catwoman through the Boom Tube. The Squad pursued, and confronted the intruders on Czarnia with Gunsmith, another of Waller's operatives.^[99] While her allies engaged Batman, Alice pursued Catwoman, but had her focus—and therefore magic—disrupted by a tripwire and was dispatched by the thief. Catwoman set off the vault's security measures, collapsing it, while Batman disabled its protective force field, leaving the combatants vulnerable to Czarnia's carnivorous flying scorpions. Leaving Gunsmith and the intruders behind, the Suicide Squad fled through the Boom Tube to Earth.^[100] They returned to the ship O.S.S. Reve, where Jay Nakamura and the Time Commander were held captive, only to face an attack by the fugitive heroes: Aquaman entrapped Bizarro in a Black Mercy hallucination and Alice was knocked unconscious by Wonder Girl, while Deadeye scored a headshot on the android Red Tornado but failed to keep the heroes from escaping with their prisoners.^[101]

See Also

• 256 Appearances of Suicide Squad (Prime Earth)
• 181 Images that include Suicide Squad (Prime Earth)
• Team Gallery: Suicide Squad (Prime Earth)

Links and References

Footnotes