Future State: Suicide Squad #2

The payoff is somewhat underwhelming as it felt like Adams had to quickly cap the story just as it was building up to something special.Black Adams story salvages most of this issue, but I kind of wish Adams had more time to play in this destructive sandbox he created. Read Full Review

Managing to avoid feeling like a rehash of adventures past, yet still being somewhat authentic, this is a run that any fans of the titular team should try and pick up, if they can. Squad members come and go, but the quality remains the same. With Ms. Waller pulling the strings for our entertainment, would you expect anything less? Read Full Review

DC Comics'FUTURE STATE: SUICIDE SQUADwas mysterious and explosive.FUTURE STATE: BLACK ADAM was an epic that delivered on its promises. Both of these stories were fantastic examples of whyFuture State was ripe with potential. Read Full Review

There are so many twists and turns in the second chapter of Robbie Thompson's Suicide Squad story that it can be hard to keep track"not to mention there's more than one Suicide Squad. Read Full Review

The creative team for Future State: Suicide Squad is able to execute the stressful position that Task Force X brings onto the members. It's a traumatic job that forces the team to go beyond their comfort level all for the goal of someone who has them under control. Its an issue that will pull the heartstrings of those who have attachments for these unforgettable members. The Black Adam portion, this creative team shows us the sacrifices that heroes are willing to make in order to stop an evil force. Read Full Review

This issue is a mixed bag in that our initial Suicide Squad didn't live up to the hype that I had for it in that I didn't like the way it looked or the way the story played out but the Black Adam backup did all it needed to and much more. The art to Black Adam looked great and the story gives us a glimmer of hope that our heroes aren't condemned to the future we've seen over the last two months and that alone could elevate this story, but thankfully it was enjoyable throughout. Read Full Review

When all is said and done, Future State: Suicide Squad #2is a mixed bag at best. While there are some good story moments and solid art, the book tries to do too much for the time it has, and some of what it does never really makes sense. Read Full Review

If you are going to buy Future State: Suicide Squad #2 for the wonderful art in the Black Adam story then you will be satisfied. Unfortunately, both stories themselves are short on character development, and overwhelmingly plot heavy. It certainly feels like six or so issues have been condensed to accommodate the page space with only the basic plots remaining. Even if Conner Kent or Black Adam is your favorite character, this is not going to be a very satisfying read. Read Full Review

The entirety of Future State: Suicide Squad is quite a mess and while these two plots may be setting up something better in the future, they can't stand on their own storytelling legs. Read Full Review

I wish this whole issue was better but sadly, it just completely missed the mark. Read Full Review

DiRT

May 13, 2021

This review covers both Future State: Suicide Squad #1 and #2. I knew that Future State had to offer at least one book that was a bonafide good title worthy of your money in both story and art, from start to finish. I had hoped that I would find that praise-worthy title amongst the Superman and Batman titles that crowd the shelves. You can only imagine my surprise when I has finished the first issue of this Suicide Squad/Black Adam book and realized that I eagerly wanted to read more. Other titles in Future State had given me hope with a good back-up story after a terrible feature, but this title gave me a good feature and a good back-up, mixing good stories with good artwork, all while properly paying homage to the characters of the DCU and forging ahead with bold creative choices. The only downside to these stories is the “Elseworlds” effect – that feeling that what happens in these might not be as important they make themselves out to be, but the Black Adam back-up story actually seems to fix this issue with an ending that shows that it might be a key development in the character after all. Writer Robbie Thompson is no stranger to the world of comic books, so I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that this is why his story works so much better than many of the others that come from writers who have only ever worked in the worlds of television, movies, or novels. Thompson gives us a look at a world where the Suicide Squad is masquerading as the “Justice Squad” in a nod to the Dark Avengers era of the Marvel Universe. Amanda Waller has found several villains to take on the roles of the heroes we are more familiar with, though the exception being Conner Kent who is standing in as Superman. Waller has devised a plan to create a world safe from all otherworldly threats and has convinced Kent to join her. Our story opens with the team taking on Mongul, Sinestro, Cheetah, and Brainiac for a piece of tech that Waller needs for her plan, and lives are lost on both sides as the Squad eventually finds success. Of course, there’s more to Waller and her plans than meets the eye, but that’s the charm of Suicide Squad in any incarnation. This alone as a Suicide Squad story would be fine and dandy, but Thompson throws in an extra wrinkle. It seems that there’s another Squad working in secret to find Waller. This Earth is, in fact, Earth-3, home of the Crime Syndicate. The Syndicate is dead is Amanda Waller from Earth-1 has apparently escaped here because she’s found that this world is more willing to allow her to proceed with her plans. The problem is that Earth-1 is facing some dire problems and the leaders now realize that they need Amanda Waller to help keep things in check. Peacemaker has arrived with his Squad from Earth-1, but the time they spend on Earth-3 is slowly killing them, giving them a small window of opportunity to find Waller and bring her home. The artwork from Javier Fernandez and Alex Sinclair is dark and gritty when it needs to be and clean and futuristic when it’s called for, and looks great in the story. Each character from each world is recognizable when they need to be and even though the Earth-1 Squad is hidden in shadow for almost all of the first issue, they are recognizable once you know who you are looking at when you go back and revisit the story. While I’ve had my ups and downs with the Suicide Squad from incarnation to incarnation (the last series from Tom Taylor was unreadable and hopefully undone by these universe rebuilding shenanigans), this story was a massive load of fun and caused me to purchase the new series with the hope that it might be OK this time. The back-up story features a group known as the Justice Legion-A in the far future (making this story feel more like a Justice League or Legion of Super-Heroes story than a Suicide Squad tie-in) made of future version of Superman, Batman, Flash, and Wonder Woman, who exist in a universe where cities and nations now exist on individual planets while Earth sits in ruins. As a new evil known as The Unkind appears to destroy the universe with the help of the personified 7 Deadly Sins and the Lords of Chaos, worlds and heroes fall (including the original Superman who is still alive, but now living in a yellow sun and glowing like golden metal) and the fabric of reality appears to be dissolving. The future heroes of the Justice Legion-A are too inexperienced to handle this massive threat, but Wonder Woman knows of one man who might have the power to help them. Black Adam, the longtime arch-nemesis of Shazam (formerly known as Captain Marvel, but, well, you know…) has given up his former ways to be a man of peace and no longer rules his people but works as their ambassador. Apparently, he and Wonder Woman have secretly been having a relationship and Wonder Woman now finds herself pregnant, so she uses the news of Adam’s impending fatherhood to bring him out of his pacifist ways to help them in their battle with The Unkindness. As they battle and find themselves losing terribly and needing to regroup, they are met by Gold Beetle – the time traveling successor to Booster Gold and Blue Beetle, who appears in the nick of time to help them save all of reality, if she can remember how. Jeremy Adams’ story is admittingly frantic and full of references that might require the occasional comic reader to check Google from time to time, but it’s also a dream for long time comic book readers and fans of DC’s difficult continuity. Adams is mostly credited as a screenwriter who has worked on a number of properties, but among them are The Green Lantern animated series, the DC Comics Scribblenauts Unmasked video game, the Justice League Action animated series, and a bunch of the LEGO DC properties. I can’t help but get the feeling that he’s a huge DC Comics fan who happened to pursue screenwriting and now has the ability to write the comics he reads. Amazingly, this feels more like a Crisis event comic story set in the far future than a random “What If…” or “Elseworlds” story like most of the others we’ve gotten. Paired with the excellent Suicide Squad story, it makes these issues feel like a great collection of mini-series events that have nothing else to do with Future State, and that makes them even better. The artwork from Fernando Pasarin, Oclair Albert, and Jeromy Cox is highly detailed and stylishly colorful. The influences of artists like George Perez and Jerry Ordway can’t be overstated enough, and helps to give the story that feel of a classic “big event” comic from the 80’s and 90’s. With the time travel elements and the ending that makes it feel as if it is important to the ongoing story of Black Adam (and I’ll give them credit for finding a way to make it look like this story matters to current continuity), this looks to be like one of the must read stories of the DCU. If these two comics can do so much in just 2 issues, it’s a shame that characters like Batman and Superman felt so underserved by Future State. DC’s current editorial staff are too worried about checking the right boxes for the wrong reasons that they’ve forgotten that you’re supposed to tell a good story in each issue and pair it with good art that makes people want to spend money on it. The current crop of DC Comics coming out from the AT&T conglomerate are a pale imitation of the books that came before, but luckily, comics like these still manage to slip through the cracks when no one is paying attention. I’ll bet that most people never read these issues of Future State, but I wish everybody would. If all the comics from DC were as thoughtful and creative as these, they might just inspire people to read and buy comic books again. http://dirtmound.com http://ThePopC.Net more

Toonstrack

Feb 25, 2021

I enjoyed the main story a lot more than the backup. But they are both solid. The Suicide Squad story is exactly as intense and exhilarating as you'd expect from this team, with violence, doublecrosses and revelations and in the end, a hero is born anew. The art is fantastic and its am interesting setup for Conner Kent. The backup story is better than its first portion, and the art is ok, but it ends on a rather dark note and ultimately got swallowed up by its massive scale and scope. I didnt hate it though. Overall a 7.5 for this one. The first story again was rock solid, the second one a little less so.

mrDovydas

Mar 21, 2021

The Suicide Squad was alright, I didn't mind it and I'll probably pick up the book after the relaunch. However, the Black Adaman story, my god, what in the world was that. Easily one of the worst things I've read in a long, long time.

Swift Planet

Mar 30, 2021

Did anyone call Jim Zub? I know Tom Taylor is busy with other projects, but Zub's Suicide Squad was miles better than what's here and he made it sound like he's willing to answer.

Psycamorean

Feb 23, 2021

I honestly liked the Suicide Squad half for the most part (the ending was iffy, at best). The Black Adam story was just a drain in my soul. I hated it.

Nihilist

Feb 23, 2021

Creating a good mystery is one thing. Leading the narrative slowly unraveling it is something entirely different. Suicide Squad's bigger purpose revealed at the very end is a pretty solid twist, problem is path leading to it. It's a bumpy one, constantly switching POVs and trying to surprise us with typical "ha! I knew what you'd do so I did this!" twists. Such precise chess-like game can work if done right, but it is very easy to under or overdo it. Look at Death Note if you don't believe me - incredibly solid start followed by constant drops in quality due to the aforementioned chess-like twists, and ultimately it turned into a parody of itself. Waller's convoluted reasoning covered in this book works similarly, and is equally dysfunction al. As far as the additional Black Adam story goes, it's a non-entity to me. One that feels like an afterthought, something that is here just to add a little bit of volume to the book. And honestly it could use some more content. In form of better developed and longer titular story. Not the worst book from Future State, but one you could confidently skip, since even if you read it, I guarantee you you'll forget it in a week. more

F.T. Wolf

Feb 24, 2021

So that entire thing was purposeless, now wasn't it? In the end, the badguys won. The Suicide Squad under Peacemaker are all dead and the Justice Squad seems to be done for as well. Only Conner seems to have survived. Shame. I thought that the Flash AKA Bolt and the entire 'Dark Avengers' thing had loads of potential but, in my opinion, they didn't do anything interesting with it. That's, I feel, this issues greatest sin. In the end, nothing mattered and it didn't make a lot of sense to me either. The only enjoyable thing in the #BlackAdam story was Gold Beetle. The rest wasn't any good. Just not interesting and not well written. However, Black Adam timetravelling to the past gives me hope that Teen Titans Academy won't lead into Fu ture State, but will instead prevent what happend with the Titans and Raven. I hope. Don't recommend. more

Onomatopoeia

Feb 24, 2021

Television and cinema act like a double-edged sword for comic books. They offer a chance for the masses to gain interest in the characters/stories and also keep the publishers afloat with steady revenue. The downside is when the multimedia begins to influence the comic book instead of the other way around. Does anyone really think Peacemaker is an interesting character or is it because of John Cena? The same can be said for Black Adam and whatever was going on in the second half of this issue. The twist was interesting, I just wish I didn't have to deal with the rest of the story to get there. That said, this was one of the better stories involving Conner in a VERY long time. The 853rd Century story was a mess. Gold Beetle seemed lik e DC's sad attempt at making their version of Dead/Gwen-Pool and my god was she annoying. Also, why was Sinestro a member of the Quintessence (aka the Super Magic Friends)? Are we really going back to the days of Allan Scott and the Chinese gree magic lantern? more