When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. For Amanda Waller, that hammer is called “Blackmail.” Your Major Spoilers review of Suicide Squad: Dream Team #1 from DC Comics awaits!

SUICIDE SQUAD: DREAM TEAM #1

Writer: Nicole Maines
Penciler: Eddy Barrows
Inker: Eber Ferreira
Colorist: Adriano Lucas
Letterer: Becca Carey
Editor: Paul Kaminski
Publisher: DC Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: March 13, 2024

Previously in Suicide Squad: Dream Team: It’s the story of Dreamer, the precog dream-walker who has run afoul of the most power-hungry villain in DCU history. With a super-powered hero who can see the future on her side, is Waller’s Suicide Squad finally unstoppable? Join Harley Quinn, Bizarro, Clock King, Black Alice, and Deadeye for the fight for the future!

THE SNEAKY WAY INTO GAMORRA

Aboard the battleship USS Collins, currently sailing through international waters, a group of super-villains awakens, all restrained to their chairs, as Amanda Waller announces that they have just been conscripted to serve as part of Task Force X. Harley Quinn rages that she didn’t even do anything illegal (this time), but Waller isn’t having it, as she, Bizarro, Black Alice, Clock King, and Deadeye are all criminals. As for the last member of their group, the alien refugee called Dreamer, she’s being blackmailed with the safety of her community, a city consisting of alien refugees hidden on Earth, unless Amanda Waller tells Peacemaker and her other agents where that stronghold is located. The plan is quite ingenious, really: Dreamer will teleport them into Gamorra, recently freed from the control of a would-be dictator, by taking all the villains through the Dream realm, then exiting the mind of an innocent dreamer. Trouble is, she’s not that adept with her powers yet, and Morpheus’ dimension is a treacherous one. Their exit leaves the sleeping Gamorran dead, but it’s Dreamer’s predictions of the bloodbath that will occur if Amanda Waller’s plan comes to fruition that is the real nightmare.

ART LIKE THE LATE GENE COLAN

Aside from the big logistic question of “How in the hell did Task Force X Capture Bizarro?”, this issue’s script covers it’s bases quite well. Writer Nicole Maines (the actress who helped create the Dreamer character on CW’s Supergirl TV show) gives more nuance to Amanda Waller’s Machiavellian tendencies than some more experienced writers have in recent years. There’s a moment where Dreamer snarls that she’s nothing like The Wall, only to have Amanda remark that she may need to be if she’s going to last as a superhuman. Her expression and tone are strangely maternal, the kind of thing that Amanda used to be known for before she was entirely a hard-nosed sociopathic manipulator. The art is moody and dark throughout the issue, reminding me of Gene Colan, especially in his latter years working on Nathaniel Dusk. The effect is well suited to a Suicide Squad story, but also to The Dreaming, where the middle portion of this issue takes place.

BOTTOM LINE: A LESS NIHILISTIC SUICIDE SQUAD

The upshot of Suicide Squad: Dream Team #1 is a more nuanced Squad then we’ve seen in a while, building on bits of Wildstorm Comics, CW TV, post-Crisis comics of the ’80s, and more, combining interesting artistic motifs with a talented young writer, making for a well-deserved 3.5 out of 5 stars overall. If this series can fully establish Dreamer as a player (as DC has done with the likes of Peacemaker or Damian Wayne), it will be well worth the time and effort for readers.

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