Secret Six #17

I missed the first part of this storyline (I'll be picking it up though) so I started off a bit lost, but Gail Simone and John Ostrander are pros, so I found myself caught up right away.

It seems Amanda Waller is aiming her Suicide Squad at the Secret Six, and this is giving us some great fights. Nightshade & Count Vertigo vs. Bane & Black Alice. Scandal Savage vs. Multiplex (sort of). Rick Flagg vs. Deadshot. And the fight I want to see more of, the one featured on the cover; Bronze Tiger vs. Catman. Simone and Ostrander do a fantastic job giving us a quick, dirty fight between these two master fighters. And since there is no clear winner, both guys get to save face and neither loses any status in the DCU.

The Black Lanterns are almost a distraction here, I'd be totally fine with a Six/Squad battle. But having the Lanterns show up does complicate things nicely, because these two teams have killed an awful lot of people. Another great bit is Deadshot's emotional color: black. He has his emotions so rigidly controlled that he only has cracks of red and green showing through.

Jim Calafiore does a decent job with the art, but I do really miss Nicola Scott. Calafiore's pencils are rather generic after Scott's distinctive takes on the core cast.

Good