Best Shots review - Future State: Suicide Squad #1's spectacle of it all is the draw here

Future State: Suicide Squad #1
(Image credit: DC)

The Justice Squad and the Justice Legion reflect the cruel and unfamiliar worlds on show in Future State: Suicide Squad #1

Future State: Suicide Squad #1 credits

Written by Robbie Thompson and Javier Fernandez
Art by Javier Fernandez, Alex Sinclair, Fernando Pasarin, Jeromy Cox, and Oclair Albert
Lettering by Wes Abbott
Published by DC
'Rama Rating: 7 out of 10

More concerned with delivering funhouse mirror reflections of the Justice League than anything we traditionally associate with Suicide Squad; writer Robbie Thompson offers up a disjointed team of monsters cowed by a downright malicious Amanda Waller. Artist Javier Fernandez draws a truly hideous Clayface and captures the mad glint in Talon's eyes. An entire issue’s worth of misdirection, Thompson waits until the final splash page to finally reveal Future State's real Suicide Squad, placing the entire tale in the thoroughly unpleasant Earth-3. And yes, somebody’s head explodes.

(Image credit: DC)

Following the Squad, Jeremy Adams' Black Adam story takes us to the year where the Justice Legion-A struggles against the Unkindness and the Seven Deadly Sins. Whereas Future State's Shazam! is turning evil, Black Adam finds the goodness inside himself in this far future. Adams writes a wild battle between unfathomable cosmic forces, drawn in all their epic glory by Fernando Pasarin and Oclair Albert.

Future State: Suicide Squad #1 highlights some unique and obscure characters, cloaking them in very famous disguises whilst offering a peek at the state of the omniverse at the very end of time. The spectacle of it all is the draw here, and there’s not much beneath that shallow surface. Weird and gross, it's a fresher take on a concept that had become tired in recent years.

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Oscar Maltby

Oscar Maltby has been writing about comics since 2015. He has also written comic book scripts for the British small press and short fiction for Ahoy Comics. He resides on the South Coast of England but lives in the longbox.