“Suicide Squad: Kill Arkhan Asylum” #4

Take one stone-cold killer, four crim­i­nal mind con­trollers, and add a com­e­dy relief vil­lain in a com­ic with­out com­e­dy, and the sum is mur­der and mayhem.

“Sui­cide Squad: Kill Arkham Asy­lum” is a pre­quel com­ic series to the “Sui­cide Squad: Kill the Jus­tice League” video game. The pre­quel series shows how mem­bers of the Sui­cide Squad are recruit­ed by Aman­da Waller and Colonel Rick Flag, Junior, to form the team which is meant to save the world by tak­ing down the Jus­tice League, DC Comic’s pre­miere super­hero team. This series and the video game takes place out­side the reg­u­lar DC con­ti­nu­ity. This par­tic­u­lar issue involves the recruit­ing of George ‘Dig­ger’ Hark­ness, a.k.a. Cap­tain Boomerang, a strong B‑class vil­lain in the Flash’s Rogues Gallery. Cap­tain Boomerang is an expert, not only with throw­ing boomerangs, but craft­ing spe­cial­ized boomerangs. He is also an expe­ri­enced bur­glar, tac­ti­cian, and engineer.

In this series, Aman­da Waller and Rick Flag shut down the secu­ri­ty in Arkham Asy­lum, the largest prison of super-crim­i­nals in the nation, and released the inmates. They use the chaos to find the most dan­ger­ous pris­on­ers in order to recruit them into the next incar­na­tion of the Sui­cide Squad. Cap­tain Boomerang finds him­self in the com­pa­ny of four mind con­trollers: Jervis Tetch, a.k.a. The Mad Hat­ter, a B‑level Bat­man vil­lain; Crazy Quilt, a C‑level Bat­man vil­lain; and Hyp­not­ic and Spell­binder, two var­ied takes on estab­lished DC vil­lains. They use their mind con­trol­ling abil­i­ties to urge Cap­tain Boomerang into help­ing them escape. Along the way, the Condi­ment King, a D‑level Bat­man vil­lain, joins the group because he thinks they know how to escape.

How­ev­er, Aman­da Waller saw Cap­tain Boomerang as an unwant­ed addi­tion to the mix, so she locked all six into a room, and only the last man stand­ing would leave. Cap­tain Boomerang and the Condi­ment King were slow­er to real­ize the dan­ger, as all four mind con­trollers began men­tal­ly assault­ing them both, and each other.

How­ev­er, Cap­tain Boomerang’s skill with a long range weapon like the boomerang meant he did­n’t actu­al­ly have to see what he was attack­ing, and he was mur­der­ous­ly effi­cient. It did­n’t hurt that the mind con­trollers were also busy attack­ing each oth­er, as well. He was the only sur­vivor: he walked out of Arkham Asy­lum a free man, to live a very long life.

But it was an illu­sion. Tetch, the last sur­viv­ing mind con­troller, gave Cap­tain Boomerang the illu­sion of win­ning and liv­ing a long and suc­cess­ful life as a dis­trac­tion, as Tetch stalked a part­ly con­scious Cap­tain Boomerang. How­ev­er, Cap­tain Boomerang real­ized that it was just anoth­er illu­sion: he was­n’t going to live that long, in fact, he did­n’t believe he’ll live to see the next year. That’s how and why he knew to kill Tetch. In the end, Cap­tain Boomerang walked out of Arkham Asy­lum, only to be recruit­ed by Waller into the Sui­cide Squad. While she want­ed a mind con­troller for her team, she want­ed a killer and a sur­vivor even more.

Exter­nal Links

• Sui­cide Squad: Kill Arkham Asy­lum #4 (1)
• Sui­cide Squad: Kill Arkham Asy­lum #4 (2)