Musings From the Dark Side

By Keona Tang, @KeonaTang I wanted to try something a little bit different with this post, since this blog has dealt with a lot of the events of the past year and a half of my life. Rather than focusing on all of that stuff, I'd like to talk about one of my lifetime obsessions: comic books. More specifically, the cinematic adaptations of said comics, one of which has just opened this weekend amidst a cavalcade of relentless criticism. I am, of course, talking about writer/director David Ayer’s take on the classic DC Comics supervillain team called Task Force X, also known as the more provocatively named Suicide Squad . But wait, did I say supervillain team?!? Why, yes, I did, but there is more to the concept than meets the eye. The modern comic book incarnation of the team began in 1987, and was heavily inspired by the World War II drama, The Dirty Dozen. DC’s creative team on the book, led by such legendary talents as John Ostrander, Len Wein, and John Byrne, came up w...