How important was it to add political elements into the book? I'm referring, of course, to the insurrection bit of dialogue - but also the fact that there are Russians involved.īrian Azzarello: I like to keep things contemporary. There's been some times there's been some rawness that we had to cook a little. No one told me to put Harley in it, but that's kind of like, 'You gotta put Harley in.' I didn't want to answer the question, 'Why isn't Harley in it?' But they've been pretty cool. There was a lot of editorial input for the regular DCU. It was a very different lineup, though, of characters. The mission was going to eventually get to where we are in this book, with them going after Joker. What was the origin story of this book? How much of it was editorial saying, 'Do you want to do this,' and how much of it was you saying, 'Here's what it is?'īrian Azzarello: The origin of this book is that I was going to do Suicide Squad for the regular DCU a few years ago. You mentioned the editorial marching order to put Harley in it, but you also mentioned that you decided it was a Joker mission. Just because he kills bad guys doesn't mean killing's okay. Why was Jason Todd chosen as the anchor and leader of this theme?īrian Azzarello: Once I decided that the mission was going to be a Joker-centric mission, I thought having him in charge of the group would be a good thing.

Because you know they're not going to die, and the point of this book is that they could die. If you throw some characters that you're more familiar with into the story, I think there's no tension there. So's the film, so tonally, it's going to be the same, or similar.īut like I said, I wanted to use characters that hadn't been around a while, that I could actually do something with it. Again, this book's rated R, which is different for a lot of DC characters, property-wise. Tonally, I would say it's pretty similar. Did the upcoming Suicide Squad film have any impact or factor into any of your decision-making about the team or this story?īrian Azzarello: I didn't want to use any of the characters in that team, for one thing. There are a lot of new characters or less familiar characters. Some of these guys, nobody's done anything with them for years.

's a new character, but there's Wild Dog and Firefly. Then there were a lot of characters no one's used for years. And then to actually give her a really good reason and some tension, the mission is to go after Joker. Pretty much my only marching order was: Harley had to be in it. What went into creating the lineup on this team? It seems to be one of the more intriguing elements, in that you haven't seen these characters join forces before.īrian Azzarello: That was one of the reasons to do it. RELATED: Batman Damned: The Story DC Took TEN YEARS To Tell

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