REVIEW: Suicide Squad - Get Joker No.3

In between writing the latest volume of Faithless, somehow Azzarello was able to pen the best Suicide Squad book to hit the shelves in a hot minute. This third book of the Get Joker series is the capstone, and it delivers. Nearly every panel is filled with a rain of bullets and profanities. Jason Todd and The Joker end up sharing a mirror in more sequences than I would have expected, and it’s a wonder that Peacemaker, Deathstroke, and Deadshot could work together so well on one team without their egos getting in the way, but that’s just the magic of Azzarello’s pen (and no, not the eggplant that he places so crudely in his twitter bio).

Maleev is a variant cover star, and every panel could easily become one such cover. From the gas bomb sequence at the strip club, to the sunny ending on the beach that shares an oxymoronic kinship to one of Bruce Wayne’s darkest nights under the inks of Brian Bolland; Maleev and Hollingsworth make a prestige pair for this prestige title. With Harley Quinn snapping necks in her knickers, human grenades being thrown at cars, children armies being sent to war, and Jason Todd getting as grimy as a Black Label book could allow the Boy Wonder, “Get Joker” Book Three is a phenomenal bookend to a penultimate Suicide Squad tale.

For all the books on the Suicide that have dropped since Dave Ayer first threw them on the big screen, “Get Joker” is one of the most craziest Suicide Squad stories to ride the wave of the Suicide Squad craze. Between this notch in Azzarello and Maleev’s bibliographies and Spurrier’s work on the on-going “Blaze” series, for those looking for an entry way into great Suicide Squad stories if they were over(or under)whelmed by their appearances in other popular forms of media, they can’t go wrong with Black Label Suicide Squad, an imprint that “Get Joker” No.3 puts on it’s back as the limits are pushed farther than what anyone would have expected after closing the first issue.

Score : 5/5

(W) Brian Azzarello (A/CA) Alex Maleev