Warning: Spoilers for Suicide Squad #1-6!
In the world of DC Comics, the ongoing Suicide Squad series is an important title that fans need to be reading right now, and for more reasons than one. Consisting of only a handful of issues thus far, the Suicide Squad comic has been linked to many other books in DC’s Infinite Frontier-led initiative as of late, ranging from Batman titles to Superman stories, to new mysteries that stretch throughout the known multiverse and beyond, making it a surprisingly connected — and highly consequential — series that deserves more readers' attention.
Relaunched in part to no doubt piggy-back off of the recently released and critically acclaimed The Suicide Squad movie, the comic book version of the Suicide Squad have made their presence known across the DC Universe in more places than expected. Kicking things off at the beginning of their series, the Squad — dispatched and coordinated as always by the notorious Amanda Waller — are seen breaking into Gotham City’s infamous Arkham Asylum to recruit Talon, a member of one of Batman’s most evil villain groups, The Court of Owls, linking them intimately with The Dark Knight’s ongoing effort to quell the Court’s influence on his city.
Further ingraining themselves in the comings and goings of other DC books, the Squad then goes on to directly deal with the current Teen Titans Academy mystery of who the new Red X is in comics, all the while trying to forcibly recruit an Academy student named Bolt to Waller’s cause. Red X is subsequently taken captive by Waller, leading to X’s eventual escape as well as the mysterious release of Rick Flag, a staple Squad character that Waller had behind bars, immediately making it seem like Waller and her team are poised to be part of something bigger than their own stories extremely soon.
Continuing with this trend, this new version of Task Force X also holds space for the clone version of Superboy on their team, directly tying their title into all current Superman stories as well. Made even more apparent after a different version of Superboy seen in the recent Young Justice title appears at the end of their latest issue, and the Squad is suddenly all over DC Comics in the best way possible.
But perhaps one of the most compelling reasons as to why the Suicide Squad comic is the most interesting book on stands is the fact that Amanda Waller has explicitly stated that gathering intel on the multiverse is a huge priority for her and her team. Equipping the now movie-famous character, Bloodsport, with a film-accurate costume to help protect him during his travels to other Earths, this "one-man Suicide Squad” brings his team into direct confrontation with the evil Justice League of Earth-3, the Crime Syndicate, in what is no doubt the first hurdle in a long line of them as Waller expands her recon to other parallel worlds, further solidifying this series as one that’s integral to the future of DC Comics.
More important than it initially seems and far more essential than ever suspected, DC’s Suicide Squad is a book that connects and ties into other titles across DC’s current publishing catalog in ways that readers might not readily expect. And while there’re a lot of fantastic options to choose from in DC Comics’ Infinite Frontier-related landscape of titles, Suicide Squad is slowly becoming a more and more essential read the longer it goes on, and fans need to take note.