Warning: contains preview pages for Suicide Squad #9!
The Suicide Squad has many dangerous members, and in a preview for Suicide Squad #9, on sale November 16 in print and digital, readers learn that Rick Flag may be the team’s deadliest member. Over the last several months, tensions between Rick Flag and Suicide Squad leader Amanda Waller have been growing, and matters come to a head in this special preview.
Rick Flag has a deep connection to the Suicide Squad, perhaps even deeper than Waller’s—Flag’s father, Rick Flag Sr., helped found the original incarnation of the team, then called Task Force X. Flag Jr. joined the new incarnation of the Suicide Squad, and has been a member ever since, oftentimes serving as the group’s leader. Recently, Amanda Waller has increased the scope of her operations, seeking to seal Earth-3 off from the rest of the multiverse, and then place her own superhero team on it—thus “saving” a world no one thought could be saved. Waller has dispatched teams to Earth-3 while simultaneously pursuing the new Swamp Thing, with the intent of creating a plant-based surveillance system. Concerned that Waller is overstepping her bounds, coupled with the arrival of the unstable Peacemaker, has seriously damaged Waller and Flag’s reputation—and now Flag has openly revolted and in the process showed why he is the team’s deadliest member. The issue is written by Robbie Thompson, with art by Eduardo Pansica, Julio Ferreira, and Dexter Soy, with colors by Marcelo Maiolo and letters by Wes Abbott.
The preview opens at the Squad’s island headquarters. Various black site prisons around the country are being raided, their prisoners freed. Amanda Waller and Doctor Rodriguez discuss the situation, and Rodriguez reveals that the latest raid freed Mirror Master, Cheetah, Lor-Zod, and a Parademon. Rodriguez and Waller both know who is behind the attack: Rick Flag. As the Squad mobilizes, the scene cuts away to Flag, under the ocean in a submarine, his crew consisting of the prisoners he has liberated. The crew is unsure of Flag’s plan, but he tells them to trust him and that’s “[he’s] got this.”
Rick Flag was probably the last Suicide Squad member Amanda Waller expected to betray her, but her questionable (even by her standards) actions over the past year have driven a wedge between them. Flag’s connection to the Squad runs deeper than Waller’s. The Peacemaker, a recent recruit to the Squad, has exacerbated matters. Unfortunately for Waller, Rick Flag is the last person she would want to betray her—Flag has a deep understanding of the Squad and its strengths and weaknesses. The preview also shows Flag’s resourcefulness and drive—something that he will need if he takes on Amanda Waller.
The Suicide Squad is replete with some of the planet’s most dangerous criminals, but Rick Flag, perhaps the team’s only non-criminal member, maybe its deadliest.