Suicide Squad Most Wanted: El Diablo and Amanda Waller #6 Review and **SPOILERS**

But I Don’t Wanna Come Back to Life!

Cover Art: Mike Huddleston 

Cover Colors: Rico Renzi 

Cover Price: $4.99 

On Sale Date: January 18, 2017

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

You know, if I was a vicious psychopathic killer on Death Row for a series of grisly and shocking murders, and Amanda Waller asked me if I’d like to be in the Suicide Squad, I think I’d tell her no. Even if she outfitted me with a brain bomb against my will, I’d just run into the nearest crowd, start murdering randomly, and force Waller to pop my cork. I didn’t murder an entire orphanage of children in front of a dozen weeping nuns so I could work for “the Man,” okay? And while it might not seem like someone that forces himself sexually on a family dog, making the daughter watch until they slit her throat in ecstasy, has a code of ethics, we do. At least, I assume we would, if I was a psychopathic killer. Instead, I’m a run-of-the-mill comic book reviewer! And I prove it with my review of Suicide Squad Most Wanted: El Diablo and Amanda Waller #6, right now!

Explain It!

El Diablo, “Dead Again” 

Writer: Jai Nitz 

Art: Cliff Richards 

Colors: Hi-Fi 

Letters: Josh Reed

If you’ll recall, at the end of the last issue, El Diablo was mortally wounded by Deadshot. And not one of those “it will probably kill him” type wounds, but “two shots straight to an unprotected chest” type wounds. Now he lies in a pool of blood, his own spirit looming over his corpse with Lazarus Lane, a Gunfighter who is presumably dead and in Hell, and Chutriel, a fallen angel that we can just say is the Literal Devil. Chutriel is trying to goad El Diablo into coming back to life, but Diablo doesn’t want to because, let’s face it, the world sucks. Then Chutriel points out that Diablo’s homegirl, Azucar, is still fighting the other Suicide Squad and ¡Justicia! (who I described in detail in the last review), not to mention Dalesko absorbed Xolotl the White Martian’s powers so he’s like an unstoppable purple chunk of murderous Silly Putty about now. El Diablo relents and agrees to Chutriel’s unspoken but understood terms and conditions.

So it seems like Chutriel and El Diablo meld to become a horrifying fire demon, but Dalesko has already prepared for a blazing attack by absorbing the powers of everyone else in attendance and plus due to general wiliness. Then Chutriel busts out of El Diablo’s skin and takes Dalesko to Hell, which was pretty satisfying after he’d been talking so much shit for several pages. After the day is saved, Azucar wants nothing to do with El Diablo, but Waller offers him a place in the Suicide Squad again—no hard feelings against Deadshot, apparently. Business is business. It all ends with El Diablo playing chess with Uncle Sam, which is probably a callback to the first issue of this series, which I did not read.

I thought this was a pretty bad-ass ending, and liked seeing the Literal Devil bust out of El Dablo’s body to take out Dalesko. It was just a little longer than it needed to be, I think, which might be true of the whole miniseries. The artwork was a little rough in places, but nothing to sneer at. You could do worse than to read this story.

7/10

Amanda Waller, “Down the Rabbit Hole Part 2” 

Words By: Vita Ayala 

Art By: Mart Mernoff 

Colors By: Beth Sotelo 

Letters By: A Larger World

So Amanda Waller thinks she got the Suicide Squad killed on an ill-conceived mission, but she’s wrong on two fronts: one, the Suicide Squad aren’t dead, they were able to fake out their pursuers and they’re on track to complete their extraction. Two, Amanda Waller isn’t thinking anything, because she accidentally infected herself with Black Mirror, which makes her eyes bleed and puts her in some kind of coma where she has psychedelic flashbacks. In her dream, she faces her family—a husband and two kids—that we learn were neglected due to Waller’s workaholic schedule, and were eventually killed because of her hubris. Then she faces Agent Jeon, who also died due to Waller’s orders. Then she confronts her mean dream self and chokes her out, and snaps out of her funk just in time for the Suicide Squad to show up and deliver the guy they had to kidnap. All’s well that ends well! Except for the depressing story of Amanda Waller’s life.

I was glad to learn some more about the mysterious Amanda Waller’s back story, and I left out a lot of the character interactions that are the hallmark of this issue, but overall I’d say it was pretty dull. It served to humanize Waller a little bit, but it didn’t make her any less of a bitch—she’s not out of her near-death experience for ten seconds and she’s already breaking Captain Boomerang’s balls without missing a beat. The Suicide Squad hijinks were pretty funny, but it felt like there were no real stakes there. This isn’t a terrible story, but it doesn’t really add anything interesting to Amanda Waller’s personality.

6.5/10

Bits and Pieces:

A quirky but sparse El Diablo story and a interesting but plodding Amanda Waller story make for a pretty mediocre comic book. I'd still say it's a pretty good value for the cover price, but if you haven't been reading it up to now, then you will probably be okay if you just keep marching down that road and skip this entirely.

7/10