Review: Suicide Squad Volume 4 - Discipline and Punish

After a disastrous rescue mission, the Suicide Squad return to Belle Reve battered and fractured. Little time is left for them to recover as they’re forced back into the field with a new, mysterious leader. If that weren’t enough, Amanda Waller finds herself inextricably allied with the sociopath James Gordon Jr.

Suicide Squad Volume 4: Discipline and Punish collects Suicide Squad #20-23, along with the Harley Quinn and Deadshot Villains Month tie-ins.

Discipline and Punish is a fast-paced action romp that pushes its characters to their limits. This collection is fairly short, with the bulk of its content being pulled from four issues of Suicide Squad. However, writer Ales Kot makes the most of it. Kot keeps the cast small and writes each character with a very distinct voice. The addition of Batgirl’s psychotic brother to the cast was completely unexpected and provides an interesting twist to the overall dynamic of the book. He functions as Amanda Waller’s devoted right-hand, which is both weird and fascinating all at the same time. Of course, there’s no denying Harley is still the star of the book. Her continued interactions with Deadshot, as well as a scene involving her dealing with a faux-Joker, serve as standouts for her character. Her dialogue is on point and there’s this persistent sense that she could betray the team at any given moment.

Another character I’ve grown to like in this series is King Shark. He started out as a one-dimensional aggressive tank in earlier collections, but Kot is finally exploring the inner psyche of this would-be villain. There’s a child-like innocence to him, as well as an intelligence that Waller prefers for him not to exhibit. On the flipside of this there’s Deadshot. Like King Shark, he’s been developed further and is still obviously intended to be one of the books mainstays. Unfortunately, I just can’t bring myself to care for this version of the character.

The Villains Month tie-ins for Harley and Deadshot that were collected in this volume are of an inferior quality to the main series. They function awkwardly as half-baked origin stories, supplemented with contextualization for where both characters are siding in the events of Forever Evil. Harley’s story is predictably the better of the two. We’re given a glimpse into her childhood, seeing that academics were the only way for her to escape from the dysfunction that surrounded her. In the cons column, the events of the issue do clash slightly with the origin we were given in the first volume of Suicide Squad and her mass murder of children seemed a little over-the-top even for her. Deadshot’s one-shot, meanwhile, was wholly unremarkable and lacked any developments that would endear the character to me.

I would cite this volume as being a turning point in my affection for the New 52’s Suicide Squad. Under previous writer Adam Glass’ pen, the series functioned as “Harley Quinn and a bunch of random D-list characters I could care less about.” However, the continued feverish pacing of the title and the eventual development of the rest of the main cast made it a must-read. It’s a fun book that never takes itself too seriously, like a big budget blockbuster that knows it’s absurd and unbelievable. 

RATING: B+