Harley Quinn and the Suicide Squad April Fools Special One-Shot

It's April 1st and I had been looking forward to a couple of holiday themed comics to celebrate April Fools. I hadn't bought anything for Easter, so I was thrilled to have this book to read. However, I had set it aside and forgot where I put it. After spending 2 straight days searching, I finally located it in time for a holiday read. But now that it's over, I really wish I didn't spend all that time looking for it.

Harley Quinn is invited to head up a support group for super-villains. A former psychiatrist and current villain in her own right, Harley is more than qualified for the job. Her first client is Man-Bat. Only, the former Kirk Langstrom doesn't know that. Harley's attempts to cure the villain in the middle of an assault on Gotham City is rather funny. It's only when Harley gives up on house calls and puts up her shingle does things go downhill and fast!

For one thing, the art changes from the hyper-realistic style of Jim Lee to an uber-cartoony look from Sean Galloway; AKA Cheeks. The story itself goes from funny to absurd to the point that the reader is never sure if Harley really is counseling some of the lower tiered villains of the DC Universe or if it's all in her head. In fact, when the artwork reverted back to Jim Lee's, even Harley is unsure as we find her undergoing some sort of mind control at the hands of that heartless b*tch, Amanda Waller.

The title of this 2016 one-shot is Harley Quinn and the Suicide Squad April Fools Special. For 90% of this book, I was wondering 'where is the Suicide Squad in all this?' Once I got my answer, I really wasn't happy. Poor Harleen Quinzel, alias Harley Quinn, has gone through such a gauntlet of crap in her life story. Abused as a child, mistreated and manipulated by the Joker and now tortured by Waller, man, things just keep getting worse for one of my all-time favorite characters. And it kept making me mad!

Really, this shouldn't have even been labeled an 'April Fools Special'. There is really nothing about the holiday in this book. During the Silver Age, DC would do these occasional April Fools stories where readers were encouraged to find all the erroneous stuff artists hid in the artwork. I was expecting the same with this book. Instead I got to see poor Harley get mistreated again and have to sit through an ending that was essentially a 4-page advertisement for a Suicide Squad series that I have very little interest in reading. 

I guess the joke was on me...

Not Worth Consuming!

Rating: 2 out of 10 stars.

Son of Ambush Bug #3 (of 6)

The arch-enemy of the Ambush Bug is a wrinkled up sock called “Arrr-Gyle.” In this issue, the insane sock looks to frame the Bug for a multitude of crimes by having a horde of ravenous laundry pile into an Ambush Bug costume and going on a crime spree.

In the meantime, The Bug continues to search for his missing son, Cheeks, who is now playing soldier in a rotating battlefield of war comic parodies. Along the way, AB also hopes to find the fiend who killed him and sent him to heck! But with a crazed bodysuit that looks a lot like our surreal hero, will the Bug’s killer succeed in killing off the title character again or just take it out on a not quite that innocent pile of dirty socks?

 

It’s not classic Ambush Bug hi-jinx, but it’s close. The art is still in need of help, but the addition of “Arr-gyle” was needed to put a semblance of order back into this mad cap comic.

 

Worth Consuming.

 

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Son of Ambush Bug #1 (of 6)

When I was about 10, I wanted to start selling comics at the flea market. The idea lasted long enough for me to order a hundred comics for like $25 from an ad in a comic book whose memory has long since been forgotten. I then went to the flea market, put all the books in a box for a $1 apiece and quickly got bored as nobody showed any interest. I didn’t even make it an entire weekend. By late Saturday, the get rich quick scheme was a pipe dream and I spent the rest of the weekend in my cousins’ pool. Needless to say the comics became a part of my collection.

It was because of that “grab bag” of books that I first came across Ambush Bug. I first thought that this comic was about the Son of Ambush Bug. Then I kept reading the word “Ambush” as Amish”- I still can’t figure out how or why. But, reading about the offspring of a retired (or dead) super hero who drove a buggy in Pennsylvania Dutch country just didn’t interest me and it sat buried in my collection until somebody came along and stole my collection.

Flash forward decades later and I’ve got Son of Ambush Bug in my collection again. Only this time, I meant for it to be there. I feel in love with the character thanks to my reading of 52 and the Countdown spin-off mini. I later got the first mini-series and the Stocking Stuffer and my love for the absurd and oh so surreal super-hero was cemented.

The title “Son of Ambush Bug” is supposed to be a rip on bands in the 60s that would title their follow-up albums as “Son of…” Though, I don’t think that answer, which is given in the letters page at the end of this issue, is all that accurate. In this series, a villain that has the ability to change the reality of comic book characters steals Ambush Bug’s beloved doll-child, Cheeks. The cherubic Cheeks is turned into a gritty parody of War comics and retitled Cheeks: Combat Medic.

The disappearance of Cheeks leads the Ambush Bug on a cosmic retooling session that would’ve left the Crisis on Infinite Earths spinning on its ear, if it had an ear. Along the way, Ambush Bug shifts realities becoming a Japanese Kaiju hunter, a PI, and the target of a secret organization that doesn’t like the fact that AB knows he’s a fictional character existing in a comic book universe.

The book has promise. It’s not a good as the first mini-series. However, I found myself laughing aloud often. The art is rough. It’s slightly early Keith Giffen and that doesn’t reflect his best work. But, I don’t read Ambush Bug for the art. Okay, maybe I do a little.

Worth Consuming.

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.