The Official Checkmate thread

[TheCorpulent1]

Crossover of the century.

 

[Harlekin]

The Suicide Squad mini has made me absolutely hate Rick Flag and start to despise Bronze Tiger, but otherwise it's been good.

What, why? Something happen in the last issue? Haven't read it yet. Have been loving the old school Suicide Squad action. Rick Flag is a badass. Bronze Tiger more so.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Rick Flag is a morally bankrupt badass. I thought Bronze Tiger was the moral compass of the team, there to keep the Suicide Squad villains in line, but he's just as bad as the rest of them. Maybe I just mistook the Suicide Squad for something else, but I thought there were a few actual good people on there to balance out all the villains.

 

[Aristotle]

Usually, there were.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

It doesn't seem like there are anymore. Rick seems totally gung-ho about some major moral question marks, Bronze Tiger hasn't complained or really done anything besides go right along with everything Waller's doing, etc.

Plus, I'm finding Nightshade's presence on the Squad confusing because she's written entirely differently on Shadowpact simultaneously.

 

[Aristotle]

I haven't actually gotten around to reading the new Squad mini, but I have noticed that she's on it. Does she appear on any of the Squad's other appearances recently?

She really shouldn't be on the Squad. She's Shadowpact. Given the remarkably level of interplay between DCU titles of late, I really can't figure out why some of these continuity glitches keep happening.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Editors is my guess. The comics that seem to play well together are probably under the same editor or editors who are friends or something.

 

[Harlekin]

Rick Flag has always been a little morally ambiguous. Bronze Tiger not so much, but he has a definite dark side to him. He'd go to hell and back for Waller though. She really helped him out of his League of Assassins Bronze Tiger funk. I wouldn't say he's as bad as the others though. He was definitely the voice of reason in the old series, even leading the team after Flag went kablooey.

As for Nightshade: Forget Shadowpact. Really, Willingham has no idea how to write Nightshade. Nightshade used to be Captain Atom's girlfriend, a military girl, and has even gone so far into deep cover that she basically witnessed a massacre (first issue of Suicide Squad) and did nothing. The Nightshade shown ever since Day of Vengeance is nothing like the Nightshade from the Suicide Squad.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Okay, so basically Shadowpact Nightshade is all wrong and the Suicide Squad one is right, Rick Flag has always been as much of a dick as he is now, and Bronze Tiger just hasn't had enough time in the spotlight to establish what his character is like in this current Squad?

 

[Harlekin]

Basically, yes. Although I'll admit Flag used to have a stronger moral compass. Definitely always a dick though.

 

[trustyside-kick]

Oh...this is where the Checkmate thread was. I couldn't find it before, and was like "How does a title as good as this not have a thread?".

I bought the whole series (latest one) and it has been impressive. Then I tried to find a thread discussion for it and I couldn't find it. Now I found it.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Congrats. Glad to find a new convert.

 

[trustyside-kick]

Only thing I'm missing are the Outsider issues when there was that title crossover for that one arc. You guys know which Outsiders issues those were? I'm unable to check at the moment.

 

[Aristotle]

I disagree about Nightshade. Yes, she used to be a very different person, but so did Enchantress. So did Nightmaster. So did everyone in there, with the arguable exception of Detective Chimp. Willingham was using Shadowpact to redeem a lot of these sort of morally gray characters. And now Suicide Squad is saying NOPE! **** YOU!

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I didn't really see any redeeming in Shadowpact, though. They all seemed to be cut from pretty much the standard, no-killing-unless-in-extreme-situations, no-moral-ambiguity cloth for most of the series. They even issued that list of policies that was basically the standard superhero code of ethics for most of DC's heroes.

 

[Aristotle]

It wasn't done particularly well, no, but the implication, to me, was always that there was this great heroic need that they had to fill because no one else was left to fill it. Or perhaps it started in self-interest (preserve magic so we can still use it) but grew into a greater thing.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I haven't gotten that from Shadowpact at all. Different strokes, I guess.

 

[Aristotle]

I'm talking about the original Day of Vengeance mini, and its related Infinite Crisis events, in which the above redemption occurs, leading into the Shadowpact series.

 

[trustyside-kick]

I'm talking about the original Day of Vengeance mini, and its related Infinite Crisis events, in which the above redemption occurs, leading into the Shadowpact series.

That mini was awesome. My favorite IC-tie in probably.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I'm talking about the original Day of Vengeance mini, and its related Infinite Crisis events, in which the above redemption occurs, leading into the Shadowpact series.

What redemption, though? They banded together because they needed to stop the Spectre before he killed all of them, unless I'm forgetting some huge part of the mini.

 

[Aristotle]

Right, and in that banding together, they discovered a heroism they never knew they...

I'm sorry, I can't continue talking like that.

 

[Harlekin]

Yeah, there was no redemption to speak of. Willingham just ****ed over all of their characterizations. Ragman was a traumatized Vietnam veteran. Enchantress was a cracked out witch that used to be bonded to Nightshade, while Nightshade herself was a no-nonsense black ops operative. The only character he seemed to be getting right was Blue Devil.

If the story had been written with the premise of redemption, I might have bought it, but Willingham has just never read anything starring these characters before. I loved DoV originally, but since I've actually read up on the characters, it's really gone down a few pegs.

 

[Aristotle]

See, I had read Ragman (in Ragman's solo stuff), Enchantress (in a couple of dumb crossovers or something), and Nightshade (mo'fackin' Suicide Squad), and I just read Day of Vengeance as a group of low-rent magical ne'er-do-wells who were just the only line of defense left to stop an attack on magic. It started out VERY self-interested, but slowly blossomed into real redemption. And as I noted before, even though I believe it, I really can't talk about it for very long before I start punching my own teeth out, because it just sounds ******ed. Good miniseries, but not one to ever try and thematically summarize in a few sentences.

 

[Harlekin]

I can definitely see that. For anyone not familiar with the source material, so to speak, the theme of redemption is lost. Willingham obviously didn't intend it. The ultimate premise of the book was "D-listers save the world" rather than "the morally ambiguous do something heroic". I think DoV would've been great if they had actually carried that theme into it, with the characters really acting in their self-interest, maybe even doing something morally grey at one point. It was just straight-up superhero fare though.

I can see how the theme can be read into it, but it's not actually there.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Willingham has a habit of mischaracterizing established characters. I'm kind of hoping Sturges starts writing Shadowpact more often. At least he's funny.