Warning: Spoilers for Let Them Live!: Unpublished Tales from the DC Vault #1
The Suicide Squad was just given a very rude wake-up call on their way to a new mission. The digital-first DC comic Let Them Live!: Unpublished Tales from the DC Vault #1 takes The Suicide Squad and drops them into a mess that will make them question a situation they have no way out of. A circumstance they would prefer to avoid.
DC's villain team, The Suicide Squad, is known for being thrown into impossible missions with absurd tasks. Their reward can be several years off their jail sentences or excruciating death, depending on how their missions go. They can't refuse missions, can't run away, and can't fail. If they try to run or fail, there's a good chance they will be blown up as a result of nanite bombs placed in their necks before missions, or they'll be killed in action. Such are the lives of some of the worst scoundrels in the DC universe.
Let Them Live!: Unpublished Tales from the DC Vault #1 begins a digital-first DC comic series available on DC Universe Infinite. It brings back the character of Ambush Bug in the role of narrator and curator of previously unshared stories. The first issue brings together Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Cinderstare, and Sledge to take out a target for Amanda Waller. The mission is to kill Dima Kondrev, a man Waller says is a geneticist, engineer, and a madman. Before the mission even begins, in standard Suicide Squad fashion, a couple of operatives are taken out. In the 2016 film, Suicide Squad, Slipknot's nanite bomb is detonated when he tries to run away. In the 2014 animated feature film, Batman: Assault on Arkham, KGBeast doesn't believe Amanda Waller when she says they will be blown up if they don't go along with what she says. He makes the choice to walk away which ends explosively. Usually, this seems to be a proving point to the other team members that the threat is real and each time, Amanda Waller is behind the detonation. This time, things are different.
While strapped into a helicopter en route to their drop zone, Cinderstare and Sledge are eliminated. A high-pitched sound is heard and then an explosion follows. Deadshot and Harley drop early due to the destruction of their ride and Waller seems to have no clue what happened. When Deadshot and Harley locate Kondrev, they discover that their target is the person responsible for creating the nanite bombs in the first place. He tries to convince them that he can help them by pointing out Amanda Waller's worst points and tactics of manipulation. Kondrev claims to be trying to locate a frequency on their bombs that will allow the bombs to be ejected and thereby free the Suicide Squad. A sound is continually heard, which seems very similar to the one they heard just before their teammates met their early ends. This means that for once, Amanda Waller was not necessarily the one responsible for exploding Suicide Squad members. Instead, the creator of the bombs took matters into his own hands to protect himself.
Although the same method of getting rid of Suicide Squad members has been employed many times, this circumstance twists the trope. Instead of being at the mercy of the government, Deadshot and Harley are nearly victims of the person who is responsible for making them governmental puppets to begin with. This shows that Waller isn't the only one that the Suicide Squad members need to be wary of. They could also be at the mercy of anyone who knows how to tune in to the right frequencies to get a reaction. This idea of enforced pressure is one that the Suicide Squad keeps finding themselves up against.