By Cat Wyatt

Issue #30 picks up right where the last one left off; with half of the Suicide Squad team stuck on the moon base fighting Red Wave, and the other half off in Nevada (specific location unknown) recovering from their own fight. Needless to say, things aren’t looking so hot for our beloved heroes and anti-heroes.

Karen Grace (Rick Flag’s lover) is willingly trapped on the Argent Space Station. Her being trapped there saved Rick’s life (the reason as to why to be revealed). She’s hopelessly devoted to Rick, to the point where she’s not only completely at peace with being trapped there, but convinced that Rick will come back and free her shortly (well, her and one other being on board).

Meanwhile, at the moon base, things aren’t going so well, and that’s putting things pretty lightly. The Red Wave Monster has fully taken over Rick’s body; which is pretty disturbing in its own right, but then add the revelation that the Red Wave is a parasitic entity? Ew, no thank you. This whole mess does lead to a couple of interesting turns of events; like Harley trying to stop Rick/Wave and promptly being shocked (apparently there’s enough of Rick left to remember how to control the brain bombs), leaving Harley vulnerable to parasitic invasion.

There’s no need to worry though, Boomerangs here to save the day…with some poorly planned quips (as per usual). Since he’s the paranoid type, he kept his helmet on, keeping him safe from the parasite (and yes, he did throw gratitude towards Ridley for that one). Unfortunately, there’s still the bomb in his neck that can send some lovely shocks. So there’s that. But hey, "A" for effort, right?

This pretty much leaves Katana and Croc as the only members of the team on the moon base that are still standing. Obviously, Croc has the same issue as Harley and Boomerang (the whole bomb thing again), but Katana is a different story. While I’m not sure how effective their team-up will be in the long run, they at least do some damage and successfully distract Rick/Wave from Harley long enough for her to get away.

I know what the Nevada team (aka Waller, Dead Shot, Enchantress, and Diablo) and is doing is likely very important to the plot, but if I’m being honest, it swamps in comparison to what is happening on the moon base. Whatever Waller sees in the book they saved from the last issue makes her want to go back to the airfield again (even though that sort of seems like a suicide mission…I know I know, Suicide Squad). So we’ll have to see how that whole thing pans out I suppose.

So if you’re anything like me, you’ve probably been wondering how on earth (no pun intended) Rick even got connected to the Red Wave Monster, to begin with. Apparently, he was one of the agents originally assigned to bring Red Wave to the moon base and lock it up. This cost two of his teammates their lives, and nearly cost him his. If Karen hadn’t run to the Argent Space Station and nursed him back to life, that may have been the end of the story. But love, while beautiful, is also selfish. Karen kept Rick alive, even though she knew he was infected with the Red Wave, and that even as she acted to save his life, it was corrupting the both of them. It’s because of the Red Wave they’re both still alive (and presumably so young looking) even now. Karen’s hubris is potentially the cause of this whole mess (though one could argue that more supervision or a stronger team could have been used, to begin with).

Like the last few issues, a piece of Faraday’s Journal is included at the end. The writing and art styles change here, which is good and bad. On the one hand, I appreciate that they’re immediately distinct from the rest of the issue, on the other I don’t like the art style quite as much (it’s duller and washed out). Faraday’s story fills in a lot of the missing pieces to the story we’ve already been told, so it’s one part new information and one part retelling.

This plot is a bit more of a cliffhanger than previous ones. We’re left uncertain of the fate of most of the team. While I don’t mind cliffhangers, I feel that in this case it could have been used more sparingly. Perhaps instead of taking the time to show us the team in Nevada (which was only once and relatively brief) we instead could have spent more time on the moon base and Argent Station, figuring out what’s going on there. This really is a complaint about the order for the way things were revealed than anything. There was a bit more humor in this issue (mostly at Boomerang’s expense, which if I’m being honest is my favorite type), which is appreciated. I always expect Suicide Squad not to take itself too seriously, so it gets a bit odd when it does.

As for the artwork in the main part of the issue, on the whole, I really enjoyed it. I always love the crisp lines and bright colors that tend to appear in Suicide Squad. Though some of the facial expressions are humorous at times – lots of grimacing and shocked faces, things like that. The artist used some cross-hatching to help define lighter shadows but was unafraid to nearly black out parts to imply deeper shadows in areas (even if that resulted in hiding a character’s face). I have to say I absolutely love the way Red Wave has been designed, he’s a blend between demonic and dragon-like, and I just find him (it?) really well rendered.

Score: 3/5

Suicide Squad #30
Publisher: DC Comics