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CHEEKS'CHOICE: "IF I RAN THE SUICIDE SQUAD..."
(PART THREE)

From Page Two of our article:

"... and, finally: the third and final Squad 'team'; the one whose existence isn't even known to those serving within said organization's other two branches.

These characters are the ones trotted out whenever someone (or -- more likely -- a great many someones) need to die very, VERY quickly, indeed.

They are the specifically selected ones who don't much mind doing that sort of heavy situational 'lifting,' in all naked honesty.

They are, in short, well and truly d-i-s-t-u-r-b-e-d.

Or mind-bogglingly evil.

Or (often as not) both.

Let's get right to it, then.

1.) CAPTAIN NAZI

It says something, in Unca's estimation, that the individual tied in the Least Fundamentally "Damaged" Or Deranged Competition, re: our projected "C"-team, is a freaking unreconstituted Nazi, f'cryin' out loud.

Just bear that thought decently in mind, if you would, as we trundle ourselves along this particular winding forest path.

The most physically powerful member of the Squad -- in any of our projected trio of rosters, I mean -- as well as one of the most chillingly ruthless and amoral: this long-time Captain Marvel nemesis is well into the triple (or maybe even quadruple) digits, strength- and invulnerability- wise...

... and, as the page reproduction provided above amply demonstrates: he'll do pretty much ANYdamnedthing, really, that pops into his pointed little head.

Murder. Rape. Arson. Whistling Celine Dion tunes, in public. Posting on comic book message boards, even.

Let's face it: the man's a soulless and unfeeling monster.

WHAT HE BRINGS TO THE PARTY: "I vas choost followink orders" is -- really and truly -- pretty blamed much the sort of mind-set you want in any projected member of our SQUAD "C"-team, obviously. Given the diseased and awful sort(s) of missions these reprobates are gonna find themselves being routinely assigned, I mean.

Mind, now: you'd have to do something about that bloody awful costume

2.) CRAZY JANE

Unca Cheeks' hands-down nominee for the single greatest Grant Morrison-created comics character ever ever ever.

No. You're all wrong, is all.

Shut up, now.

For those unfortunate few of you, out there, who never got a chance to groove to the aforementioned Mister Morrison's critically (and justly) acclaimed tenure on the late, lamented DOOM PATROL...

... the following diagnosis, courtesy of Kay [Crazy Jane] Challis' court-appointed guardian, Dr. Will Magnus:

"She was abused by her father, when she was a child... very badly abused. Her experiences resulted in what psychiatrists call disassociation. Basically, that means she's developed multiple personalities, to cope with the trauma.

"Her therapist tells me that, so far, they've identified sixty-four separate personalities; each with its own name and function.

"... and, following the effects of [the triggering of Jane's long-dormant "meta-gene"]... each with its own distinct meta-human ability."

Over the years, under Morrison's eclectic (and eccentric) auspices, Crazy Jane manifested such arresting and eye-popping "personalities" as the virulently sociopathic Black Annis [pictured, above]; Scarlet Harlot [a psychic whose mental prowess was fueled by sexual congress]; Flit [a perpetually terrified teleporter]; Mama Pentecost [a fundamentalist cryptographer and puzzle expert]; Baby Doll [a little girl manifesting violent and uncontrollable poltergeist phenomena]; and a prodigious, gape-inducing host of others, as well.

In the final issue of Morrison's DOOM PATROL, "Jane's" multiple personae were finally (re-)integrated with one another; leaving Kay Challis a whole, healthy and happy individual, once more.

Screw that noise.

WHAT SHE BRINGS TO THE PARTY: please go back and re-read the foregoing.

Twice, if necessary.

3.) DEADSHOT

Oh, come on. How could you conceivably have a halfway-decent SUICIDE SQUAD without this guy, f'cryin' out loud...?

More so than any other comics character, ever: the frankly (and unswervingly) suicidal Floyd [Deadshot] Lawton is the prototypical SQUAD member, made manifest.

Unca isn't even gonna waste his valuable time and energies bothering to explain this'un, campers'n'camperettes.

Pick up a freakin' back issue of John Ostrander's SUICIDE SQUAD and see for yourselves, if you harbor any doubts whatsoever.

Better yet: pick up two of 'em.

Or twenty, even.

WHAT HE BRINGS TO THE PARTY: Go. Away.

4.) MALICE

Now, this one, on the other hand, is juuuusssssssssssst obscure enough a selection to decently merit a little in the way of honest discussion.

Last seen (if Unca remembers aright) within the pages of Karl and Barbara Kesel's excellent (and sorely missed) HAWK AND DOVE series, the cruelly charming Malice Vundubarr -- just a sweet, simple, unassuming hometown sort o' gal, really; assuming your hometown is frickin' Apokolips, at any rate -- regularly employed the all-but- unbeatable M.O. of unceremoniously plopping herself down, somewhere nearby her assigned "target"; effecting big, dewey eyes and a tremulously quivering lower lip; and biding her time, practiced and patient, until said sucker wandered just a weeeeeee li'l bit too close, out of instinctive adult concern...

... and then, of course, her giant invisible friend would gnaw the flesh right off their bloody faces.

As amply demonstrated, over the years since the landmark publication of Jack "King" Kirby's initial "Fourth World" offerings, back in the early '70s: it's absurdly simple, really, to banish (or otherwise strand) some harried, hapless "New God" to the planet Earth.

Somebody give this here kid a home, for pity's sake...

... and the same goes for her little "dog," too.

WHAT SHE BRINGS TO THE PARTY: a wholly irresistible juxtaposition of appearance (cotton candy innocence) and savage, ageless reality (she's an immortal; she's been playing the grotesque gamin for centuries.) Sheerest storytelling gold, in other words.

5.) MIRROR MASTER

This is as good a place as any, really, to raise the potentially ugly subject of in-the-field leadership, during assigned team missions.

Team "A" is no problem, obviously: the Knight, Wildcat and (possibly) Hawkwoman all possess the requisite "chops," experience-wise, to safely shepherd a group from mission briefing to successful conclusion. And Team "B" has a natural leader, in Unca's opinion, in the unfailingly unruffled and practical Piper; so, that's all right, then...

... but: good golly! Who on earth with possession of even scantest modicum of their original assortment of marbles would trust any of the aforementioned creeps and cretins with so much as a burned-out match, really...?

Nazis. Sadists. Psychotics.

I mean... sure: that's all right if you're sitting on the board of directors for the WB, mebbe... [*rimshot*]

What's needed here, obviously, is someone whose absolute and unswerving commitment to keeping this gaggle of goombahs alive (and on a short, tight behavioral leash) is nothing less than adamantine.

Even if said steadfastness has to be paid for, ultimately.

Ladies and gentlemen...

... I give you: the Mirror Master.

The modern-day Mirror Master -- yet another fine Grant Morrison creation, by the by (DC Comics' creative debt to this man balloons and swells greater and more obviously by the storytelling day, really) -- is a scuzzy, smarmy mercenary, you see; a man whose "loyalties" remain admirably rock solid...

... just so long, that is, as those checks keep right on clearing, as scheduled.

[UNCA CHEEKS' ASIDE: the estimable Mister Morrison, in plain point of fact, did a simply marvelous "turn" with said character, in an issue of JLA a few years back; whereby Mirror Master's employer of the moment -- one Lex Luthor, by name -- found himself outbid and (as a result) betrayed by the mercenary MM. It's all about the Benjammins, bay- beeeeeeeeeee.]

Brass tacks, then: he's smart enough. He's sleazy enough.

... and -- for a price -- he can even be trustworthy enough.

WHAT HE BRINGS TO THE PARTY: ... oh, c'mon. You didn't honestly buy any of that, did you...?

The Mirror Master would sell his own grandchildren, for a better monthly cable package.

At today's over-inflated rates: that's good for several years worth of ongoing monthly dilemmas, right there.

6.) POISON IVY

Our second "veteran" of the Ostrander SUICIDE SQUAD era (along with Deadshot); and, quite possibly, the leading villainous femme fatale in all of recorded comics history.

Like so many of the other career malefactors referenced, hereabouts: the tantalizing (albeit toxic) Pamela Isley has "covert operations" all but scrawled across her perfect forehead, in great, looping, Crayola'd letters.

She's perfectly normal-looking (in a drop-dead gorgeous sort of way, I mean); her meta-human abilities are all but invisible, in application; and the lady is -- why start mincing words, at this late date? -- the sort who'd neither blush nor blanch at bringing about the mottled and gasping asphyxiation of an entire school bus load of children, if she believed for even one nano-second that doing so might advance her will or whimsy of the moment.

One appearance every two or three years simply isn't enough, really, for a verdant villainess of this coniferous caliber.

WHAT SHE BRINGS TO THE PARTY: ... can you spell s-e-x a-p-p-e-a-l, children...?

7.) THE SCARECROW

Lookit, troops: whoever it is/was who actually joins together this unsavory assemblage at the bloody hip can't be a complete and total moron, ultimately.

"C"-Team is too inherently unstable an outfit -- what with them all being hard-core psychos, and suchlike -- to long remain under the putative "control" of even so sly and manipulative a stone bastard as the Mirror Master, for very long; and their collective "charter" is too potentially explosive, ugly-headlines-in-tomorrow's-WASHINGTON POST-wise, to leave anything -- A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G -- to chance, should someone decide to go rogue and/or entrepreneur.

What's needed, ultimately, is someone who realistically could (and would, given the right incentive)... silence anyone who might get a little too dismayingly... noisy, or scrupled.

Whether from outside of "C"-Team... or within.

Jonathan [Scarecrow] Crane is a man who -- right where the crow meets the cornfield -- lives solely for the sheer, intellectual thrill of discovering (and cruelly exploiting) the fragile psychological underpinnings of others.

His only social or political "creed," really, might most succinctly be summed up as: "OOOOoooooh. This one lasted a full two, three minutes before swallowing their own tongue."

Imagine, if you will, The Not-So-Good Doctor quietly being taken aside, and commisioned with a separate, secret charter:

"Anyone talks...

"... anyone bolts...

"... anyone turns traitor...

"... yours to... play with, Professor Crane."

At least: that's what Unca would do, if'n it were up to him.

Why are you all... looking at Unca like that, anyway...?

... and: as for who to best ramrod this (admittedly) maddeningly complex super-subterfuge "Ponzi Scheme," overall...

... wellllllllllllll, now: Unca s'poses it'd pretty much have to be someone with the practiced, proven ability to convincingly "shmooze" with the movers and shakers within the superhero community...

... as well as calmly negotiate with (and win over) established "key" elements within the career super-criminal fraternity; both here, and elsewhere...

... and, too: such increasingly critical CEO-level abilities as being able to "think outside of the box"; "motivate individuals to strive and achieve as a team"; and see projects all the way through to successful fruition would not long go wanting in such a position, surely.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Now, who -- oh, who -- does Unca know with an organizational pedigree the rarefied likes of that, anyways...?

WHAT SHE BRINGS TO THE PARTY:

Lookit, chill'ins.

Kindly allow Unca to explain a wee li'l something to you, one and all.

Insofar as any bloody incarnation of THE SUICIDE SQUAD is concerned -- yesterday; today; or tomorrow --

... Amanda Waller IS the freakin' "party."

I'm just sayin', really. That's all.

CHEEKS'CHOICE: "IF I RAN THE SUICIDE SQUAD..." (Page One)

CHEEKS'CHOICE: "IF I RAN THE SUICIDE SQUAD..." (Page Two)

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