MattBrady
11-28-2002, 09:16 AM
It was a concept that fit perfectly with the times.
From 1987 through 1992 John Ostrander wrote DC's Suicide Squad, a series about DC's Dirty Dozen - a team of super-villains (with a few down on their luck heroes) that did the dirty work dirt cheap for the US government. Conspiracies, messy deals, assassinations, politically touchy rescues and the like were the team's normal business.
For the bulk of its run, the series was hot, it's characters teaming with other "hot" teams of the time - the Justice League and Doom Patrol. While the series lost its readership as other titles and heroes came into vogue in the early '90s, it still remains a cult hit among fans, something that still warms Ostrander's heart.
Suicide Beginnings
While the concept of a "Suicide Squad" had been seen before in the DC Universe through Squadron S, the Suicide Squadron and the man known only as Argent, who oversaw many covert Cold War era missions, Ostrander and editor Bob Greenberger started hammering away at the idea again to make it work in the late '80s.
As time wore on, and the concept began to get legs, an opening for the team's debut became apparent - Legends, a miniseries which Ostrander was also writing. "I was in negotiations about the Squad when Legends came up," Ostrander said. "Once I was involved in both, Mike Gold made the clever suggestion that we use Legends as a platform to launch the Squad, since DC would also be re-launching both the Flash and the Justice League from Legends as well.
"What originally happened was that I had struck up conversation with Bob Greenberger who was, at the time, an editor at DC. The Challengers of the Unknown is what I really wanted, but that was evidentially locked up and Bobby tossed me Suicide Squad instead as an idea. At first, I was really disappointed and I thought 'Suicide Squad' was a dumb name, to be honest. Who would want to be a part of anything that called itself a 'suicide squad?' That very question became the kernel of the Squad concept - who would want to belong to the Suicide Squad? Someone who had no other choice. Who wouldn't have any other choice? I thought about the movie The Dirty Dozen. Convicts. Supervillains. It would explain, in part, why they got out of prison so often. More importantly, it would show the villains as dangerous individuals in their own right. The more competent the villains actually were portrayed, the more heroic our superheroes would be for overcoming them. And the villains would be seen as competent in the Squad; they would be dangerous."
A team of villains - Ostrander hit the mother lode that writers dream about. "Villains are fun to write, often more so than the hero," Ostrander said. "Ask almost any writer. And I had a whole team of them! Also, we dealt from a 'real' world perspective, adding international situations often drawn or inspired by actual real world events. So it was part spy caper at the same time. And nothing could be taken for granted about these characters; it wasn't guaranteed that any of them would come back from a given mission. And, of course, there was 'the Wall' as well."
"The Wall" was Amanda Waller, the solid, take-sh**-from-no one black woman who strongarmed President Reagan to allow the creation of the Squad. Together with Rick Flag, son of the leader of the 1950s version of Task Force X, Waller successfully lobbied Reagan to signing off on the project in Secret Origins #14.
Yeah, lobbying the president for permission to run a covert team of super-powered operatives was par for the course for Suicide Squad. This wasn't a flashy superhero team. Given that it was steeped in politics from its birth, at the very best, the team's missions were morally ambiguous. At worst, they were cover-ups or the dirty work that never gets reported on the nightly news.
Of all of the mainstream DC books at the time, Suicide Squad remained firmly in the "real" world. Sure, big time superheroes appeared now and then, but the guest appearances were the anomalies. Most often, the Squad found themselves wandering through the jungle, trying to survive a desert trek, sneaking into the Kremlin, or winding their ways through the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. Subplots involved straight on espionage, undercover work during city riots, handling violent factions both within and without the US' borders, and even the assassination of a presidential candidate by a Squad member. Being on the team wasn't fun, it wasn't glamorous, and the team's headquarters was a dank federal prison in the middle of the Louisiana bayou.
But under Ostrander, the settings and missions worked well - since the Suicide Squad was a team that no one (without serious internal issues) really wanted to be on, the characters of those had to be fully explored to explain to readers why they were there in the first place.
For Ostrander, this 'keeping it real' was the way to go. "I've always felt that the best fantasy is one that has one foot squarely grounded in reality," Ostrander said. "Of course, we did send the team to Apokolips once although many say that was our least successful arc."
That said though, Ostrander does have favorite Squad storylines, for example issues #5-#8, when the Squad went to Russia to recover a dissident. "Everything went wrong for them and the ending was heartbreaking," Ostrander said. "The Personal Files stories always went down well too. Also, Waller vs. Batman was tres cool."
While the overall concept for the Suicide Squad seemed a little farfetched at the time Ostrander was developing it, events circa 1986 and '87 inadvertently added credibility to the idea. "When we proposed the series, the idea of the government funding a covert operation group seemed to some a little farfetched," Ostrander said. "Then 'Irangate' broke out before we published and made us look like pikers. Our constant problem was trying to be as strange as the real world. I had one person I know call me up and ask me where we were sending the Squad in six months because they were trying to plan their vacation and wanted to know where not to go. It got a li'l spooky at times."
While artists came and went during the five year run of Suicide Squad, penciler Luke McDonnell and inker Karl Kesel really set the tone for the series first year of issues. Together, their style was both gritty and realistic, not overly stylized, and perfect for the real world edge the series needed to maintain credibility with its readers.
A Collection of Scoundrels
A place where even the good guys were bad…or at least morally ambiguous.
Ostrander stayed true to his mission from the beginning - the team was mostly populated with villains whom he showed to be cunning and evil either while on a mission or while on some R&R at the Squad's headquarters in Belle Reeve Federal Penitentiary. Squad members played each other, plotted against one another, and formed alliances to their own benefit. Yeah, there were some Survivor riffs in there, now that you mention it.
On the down and out hero side, Suicide Squad featured the likes of Bronze Tiger, who was there because he needed help recovering lost memories, as well as Nightshade, because she needed the team's help in saving her family. Along the way, the series saw the likes of Vixen, Shade the Changing Man (pre-Vertigo), Black Orchid, Nemesis, Manhunter, Oracle, the new Atom, and, of course, the team's erstwhile, but deeply flawed leader, Rick Flag, who ultimately completed his tragic character arc, from noble leader to a man who could not escape from his past.
From the start of the series, Ostrander didn't realize Flag's story was going to end the way it did, but knew enough not to change when he saw the ultimate conclusion coming. "After a certain point, it made sense," Ostrander said. "He lost everything over the years. Most importantly, in ending his story the way we did, we served notice that we were serious about anyone on the team dying. The readers really couldn't take anything for granted after that."
Meanwhile, the villain component was populated by the likes of Deadshot, who was the team's psycho, with a boatload of issues, crises, and death wishes. The Enchantress was a captive of sorts; her alter ego June Moone was a willing member of the team, while her powerful persona tried to run free at every opportunity. Mindboggler bought it early on, Captain Cold, Javelin, Plastique, Punch and Jewlee, Captain Light and others made appearances as well.
Many readers had the same reactions to both the heroic and villainous components of the team - while it was hard to like, really like any one character and say they were your favorite character in comics, Ostrander's writing made them compelling and real. Despite their faults, you couldn't look away.
And of course, there was Captain Boomerang - seemingly always around, and always a pain in the can.
"Boomerbutt, as we sometimes called him, was about our favorite character," Ostrander said. "Completely a rogue. Every time you thought he went as low as he could go, he would find a notch lower. The guy never disappointed. Sort of like the Native American coyote character; big plans but he always got caught in them. No redeeming qualities and cheerfully a cad. That's his secret. He didn't want to be better than he was; he liked being what he was. No angst. No self hate. He's a happy creep. No, we couldn't let him go; didn't want to let him go - he was way too much fun to write."
Death and Dying DC Style
Dozens of characters dies over the five years of the series - some new, created to be cannon fodder, some old, who'd had good runs in the DCU, and some, well, some were just evidence of the excesses of trendy character creation of the '80s. While the Squad had missions in the fictional DCU, Ostrander and the rest of the team had their mission as well - and their tool was death.
"As I recall, we were given a pretty free hand with killing characters," Ostrander said. "We would tell the editor connected with a certain character that we planned to off them and they were given the freedom to tell us we couldn't but, in general, our job was to clear out some dead wood in the DCU, which is what set us apart. Characters died for real with us."
Squad members met their ends from bullets, energy blasts, knives, and dozens of other grisly methods. "I think we got the ones I thought could use a good killing," Ostrander said.
All Missions End
As the series went on, and cast members rotated in and out, Ostrander kept the intrigue going - the Squad's existence was discovered by a Senate Subcommittee, Waller was replaced by a puppet bureaucrat who led the team, all metahuman agencies under the government went through reorganization, Waller was discovered to still be leading the Squad from behind the scenes, the team was disbanded, reformed, and ultimately went up against their opposite numbers, The Cabal, in one final mission.
Keeping the team and the concept new was the toughest challenge for Ostrander. "We needed to keep re-inventing the series as we went on," Ostrander said. "How to keep it fresh, how to keep it from being predictable. And we didn't want the twists to be for their own sake; they had to come out of character somehow."
But ultimately, it wasn't enough. It was the early '90s, Image had come up and changed the look and feel of comics, and, despite it's loyal following, Suicide Squad became an anachronism. "Any book loses numbers as it goes," Ostrander said. "We lost artistic identity as we went, as well. I think someone with a 'hotter' look coming in later could've made the book really go again. Our mistake was taking the characters out of costume - it made sense at the time but I think that's when we lost a lot of readers. That said, we were doing numbers at the time we were cancelled that most books would kill for now."
The series' end came up pretty quickly for the team, and thus, things had to be wrapped up at the end of the arc they were on. "But there was always a backdoor, proved by the number of people who used the Suicide Squad after me," Ostrander said. "While Father Craemer from the Squad worked well in The Spectre, it wouldn't have been an appropriate place for any of the others. Also, Tom Mandrake wasn't interested in drawing that many costumed characters."
Living On….and on…and on….
While the series ended, some of the characters lived on – Amanda Waller is now part of President Lex Luthor’s White House, Oracle is a fixture in the Bat-universe, Deadshot is coming up in Ed Brubaker’s Batman run, and Rick Flag, well there’s a nice, green patch of grass near a stone with his name on it. Many of the other heroes have made appearances over the years, many of the villains have returned to their villainous ways, and some of the underused characters lovingly fleshed out by Ostrander have returned to limbo. Along with the characters going on in some form or another, there’s always been an undercurrent among loyal fans that the Squad never really went away – it’s always been in action in the DCU since the “documented” breakup, working just behind the scenes.
These fans of the Squad have kept the hope of a revival alive in their hearts for years – turning a 15 year-old series into a veritable cult hit. Some of the series’ original fans have ultimately turned into pros themselves, and a “Suicide Squad Revival Project” has been in the portfolio of more than one hopeful new writer.
“It was a good series and there was nothing else quite like it out there, before or since,” Ostrander said. “The characters were compelling and the readers wanted to see them again. My guess that characterization would be the key to the longevity of the series in the hearts of the fans.”
While Ostrander has said in the past that he’d pitched a Suicide Squad project or two to DC, he chose not to comment on his proposed Squad revivals for this article, and said simply that he wished the creative team on the new Suicide Squad series the best.
While having a series cancelled, and then not being able to drum up sufficient inertest in the property was rough, the pluses of working on the series – and co-writing much of the latter issues with his late wife Kim Yale, outweighed them all.
On the surreal plus side, Ostrander recalled one Squad-related meeting that, if it had proven productive, would’ve given DC fans something to hang their heads in shame at years before Batman and Robin. Thank your lucky stars the Suicide Squad television series never came to pass in the form it was pitched.
“Oog,” Ostrander said, remembering. “That was a conference call between the writers, Jenette Kahn, the editor, and me. I'd been given a copy of the projected pilot script to read. I was trying to be positive and find ways to make suggestions to improve what was a pile of crap, in my opinion. If I'd walked into the DC offices with something like that, I'd be flushing my career away. Of course, I couldn't say that so I just pointed out little 'inconsistencies" and made suggestions which the writers lapped up. Well, they paid me so it wasn't a complete waste of my time. How bad was it? The pilot they shot for a JLA live action series was light years better, and that wasn't very good.”
All in all, Ostrander is happy he could give readers stories that they liked. “I'm honored that Suicide Squad is held in such high regard, I truly am,” Ostrander said. “The Squad represented many happy times for me, including especially the issues that were co-written between myself and Kim. For the fans, thank you all for your good wishes, kind words, and your support over the years.”
While DC has never released any Suicide Squad trade paperbacks, the back issues are relatively cheap, and worth the dive into the bins. Definitely check out the first twelve to twenty four issues, along with the Secret Origins issue.
From 1987 through 1992 John Ostrander wrote DC's Suicide Squad, a series about DC's Dirty Dozen - a team of super-villains (with a few down on their luck heroes) that did the dirty work dirt cheap for the US government. Conspiracies, messy deals, assassinations, politically touchy rescues and the like were the team's normal business.
For the bulk of its run, the series was hot, it's characters teaming with other "hot" teams of the time - the Justice League and Doom Patrol. While the series lost its readership as other titles and heroes came into vogue in the early '90s, it still remains a cult hit among fans, something that still warms Ostrander's heart.
Suicide Beginnings
While the concept of a "Suicide Squad" had been seen before in the DC Universe through Squadron S, the Suicide Squadron and the man known only as Argent, who oversaw many covert Cold War era missions, Ostrander and editor Bob Greenberger started hammering away at the idea again to make it work in the late '80s.
As time wore on, and the concept began to get legs, an opening for the team's debut became apparent - Legends, a miniseries which Ostrander was also writing. "I was in negotiations about the Squad when Legends came up," Ostrander said. "Once I was involved in both, Mike Gold made the clever suggestion that we use Legends as a platform to launch the Squad, since DC would also be re-launching both the Flash and the Justice League from Legends as well.
"What originally happened was that I had struck up conversation with Bob Greenberger who was, at the time, an editor at DC. The Challengers of the Unknown is what I really wanted, but that was evidentially locked up and Bobby tossed me Suicide Squad instead as an idea. At first, I was really disappointed and I thought 'Suicide Squad' was a dumb name, to be honest. Who would want to be a part of anything that called itself a 'suicide squad?' That very question became the kernel of the Squad concept - who would want to belong to the Suicide Squad? Someone who had no other choice. Who wouldn't have any other choice? I thought about the movie The Dirty Dozen. Convicts. Supervillains. It would explain, in part, why they got out of prison so often. More importantly, it would show the villains as dangerous individuals in their own right. The more competent the villains actually were portrayed, the more heroic our superheroes would be for overcoming them. And the villains would be seen as competent in the Squad; they would be dangerous."
A team of villains - Ostrander hit the mother lode that writers dream about. "Villains are fun to write, often more so than the hero," Ostrander said. "Ask almost any writer. And I had a whole team of them! Also, we dealt from a 'real' world perspective, adding international situations often drawn or inspired by actual real world events. So it was part spy caper at the same time. And nothing could be taken for granted about these characters; it wasn't guaranteed that any of them would come back from a given mission. And, of course, there was 'the Wall' as well."
"The Wall" was Amanda Waller, the solid, take-sh**-from-no one black woman who strongarmed President Reagan to allow the creation of the Squad. Together with Rick Flag, son of the leader of the 1950s version of Task Force X, Waller successfully lobbied Reagan to signing off on the project in Secret Origins #14.
Yeah, lobbying the president for permission to run a covert team of super-powered operatives was par for the course for Suicide Squad. This wasn't a flashy superhero team. Given that it was steeped in politics from its birth, at the very best, the team's missions were morally ambiguous. At worst, they were cover-ups or the dirty work that never gets reported on the nightly news.
Of all of the mainstream DC books at the time, Suicide Squad remained firmly in the "real" world. Sure, big time superheroes appeared now and then, but the guest appearances were the anomalies. Most often, the Squad found themselves wandering through the jungle, trying to survive a desert trek, sneaking into the Kremlin, or winding their ways through the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. Subplots involved straight on espionage, undercover work during city riots, handling violent factions both within and without the US' borders, and even the assassination of a presidential candidate by a Squad member. Being on the team wasn't fun, it wasn't glamorous, and the team's headquarters was a dank federal prison in the middle of the Louisiana bayou.
But under Ostrander, the settings and missions worked well - since the Suicide Squad was a team that no one (without serious internal issues) really wanted to be on, the characters of those had to be fully explored to explain to readers why they were there in the first place.
For Ostrander, this 'keeping it real' was the way to go. "I've always felt that the best fantasy is one that has one foot squarely grounded in reality," Ostrander said. "Of course, we did send the team to Apokolips once although many say that was our least successful arc."
That said though, Ostrander does have favorite Squad storylines, for example issues #5-#8, when the Squad went to Russia to recover a dissident. "Everything went wrong for them and the ending was heartbreaking," Ostrander said. "The Personal Files stories always went down well too. Also, Waller vs. Batman was tres cool."
While the overall concept for the Suicide Squad seemed a little farfetched at the time Ostrander was developing it, events circa 1986 and '87 inadvertently added credibility to the idea. "When we proposed the series, the idea of the government funding a covert operation group seemed to some a little farfetched," Ostrander said. "Then 'Irangate' broke out before we published and made us look like pikers. Our constant problem was trying to be as strange as the real world. I had one person I know call me up and ask me where we were sending the Squad in six months because they were trying to plan their vacation and wanted to know where not to go. It got a li'l spooky at times."
While artists came and went during the five year run of Suicide Squad, penciler Luke McDonnell and inker Karl Kesel really set the tone for the series first year of issues. Together, their style was both gritty and realistic, not overly stylized, and perfect for the real world edge the series needed to maintain credibility with its readers.
A Collection of Scoundrels
A place where even the good guys were bad…or at least morally ambiguous.
Ostrander stayed true to his mission from the beginning - the team was mostly populated with villains whom he showed to be cunning and evil either while on a mission or while on some R&R at the Squad's headquarters in Belle Reeve Federal Penitentiary. Squad members played each other, plotted against one another, and formed alliances to their own benefit. Yeah, there were some Survivor riffs in there, now that you mention it.
On the down and out hero side, Suicide Squad featured the likes of Bronze Tiger, who was there because he needed help recovering lost memories, as well as Nightshade, because she needed the team's help in saving her family. Along the way, the series saw the likes of Vixen, Shade the Changing Man (pre-Vertigo), Black Orchid, Nemesis, Manhunter, Oracle, the new Atom, and, of course, the team's erstwhile, but deeply flawed leader, Rick Flag, who ultimately completed his tragic character arc, from noble leader to a man who could not escape from his past.
From the start of the series, Ostrander didn't realize Flag's story was going to end the way it did, but knew enough not to change when he saw the ultimate conclusion coming. "After a certain point, it made sense," Ostrander said. "He lost everything over the years. Most importantly, in ending his story the way we did, we served notice that we were serious about anyone on the team dying. The readers really couldn't take anything for granted after that."
Meanwhile, the villain component was populated by the likes of Deadshot, who was the team's psycho, with a boatload of issues, crises, and death wishes. The Enchantress was a captive of sorts; her alter ego June Moone was a willing member of the team, while her powerful persona tried to run free at every opportunity. Mindboggler bought it early on, Captain Cold, Javelin, Plastique, Punch and Jewlee, Captain Light and others made appearances as well.
Many readers had the same reactions to both the heroic and villainous components of the team - while it was hard to like, really like any one character and say they were your favorite character in comics, Ostrander's writing made them compelling and real. Despite their faults, you couldn't look away.
And of course, there was Captain Boomerang - seemingly always around, and always a pain in the can.
"Boomerbutt, as we sometimes called him, was about our favorite character," Ostrander said. "Completely a rogue. Every time you thought he went as low as he could go, he would find a notch lower. The guy never disappointed. Sort of like the Native American coyote character; big plans but he always got caught in them. No redeeming qualities and cheerfully a cad. That's his secret. He didn't want to be better than he was; he liked being what he was. No angst. No self hate. He's a happy creep. No, we couldn't let him go; didn't want to let him go - he was way too much fun to write."
Death and Dying DC Style
Dozens of characters dies over the five years of the series - some new, created to be cannon fodder, some old, who'd had good runs in the DCU, and some, well, some were just evidence of the excesses of trendy character creation of the '80s. While the Squad had missions in the fictional DCU, Ostrander and the rest of the team had their mission as well - and their tool was death.
"As I recall, we were given a pretty free hand with killing characters," Ostrander said. "We would tell the editor connected with a certain character that we planned to off them and they were given the freedom to tell us we couldn't but, in general, our job was to clear out some dead wood in the DCU, which is what set us apart. Characters died for real with us."
Squad members met their ends from bullets, energy blasts, knives, and dozens of other grisly methods. "I think we got the ones I thought could use a good killing," Ostrander said.
All Missions End
As the series went on, and cast members rotated in and out, Ostrander kept the intrigue going - the Squad's existence was discovered by a Senate Subcommittee, Waller was replaced by a puppet bureaucrat who led the team, all metahuman agencies under the government went through reorganization, Waller was discovered to still be leading the Squad from behind the scenes, the team was disbanded, reformed, and ultimately went up against their opposite numbers, The Cabal, in one final mission.
Keeping the team and the concept new was the toughest challenge for Ostrander. "We needed to keep re-inventing the series as we went on," Ostrander said. "How to keep it fresh, how to keep it from being predictable. And we didn't want the twists to be for their own sake; they had to come out of character somehow."
But ultimately, it wasn't enough. It was the early '90s, Image had come up and changed the look and feel of comics, and, despite it's loyal following, Suicide Squad became an anachronism. "Any book loses numbers as it goes," Ostrander said. "We lost artistic identity as we went, as well. I think someone with a 'hotter' look coming in later could've made the book really go again. Our mistake was taking the characters out of costume - it made sense at the time but I think that's when we lost a lot of readers. That said, we were doing numbers at the time we were cancelled that most books would kill for now."
The series' end came up pretty quickly for the team, and thus, things had to be wrapped up at the end of the arc they were on. "But there was always a backdoor, proved by the number of people who used the Suicide Squad after me," Ostrander said. "While Father Craemer from the Squad worked well in The Spectre, it wouldn't have been an appropriate place for any of the others. Also, Tom Mandrake wasn't interested in drawing that many costumed characters."
Living On….and on…and on….
While the series ended, some of the characters lived on – Amanda Waller is now part of President Lex Luthor’s White House, Oracle is a fixture in the Bat-universe, Deadshot is coming up in Ed Brubaker’s Batman run, and Rick Flag, well there’s a nice, green patch of grass near a stone with his name on it. Many of the other heroes have made appearances over the years, many of the villains have returned to their villainous ways, and some of the underused characters lovingly fleshed out by Ostrander have returned to limbo. Along with the characters going on in some form or another, there’s always been an undercurrent among loyal fans that the Squad never really went away – it’s always been in action in the DCU since the “documented” breakup, working just behind the scenes.
These fans of the Squad have kept the hope of a revival alive in their hearts for years – turning a 15 year-old series into a veritable cult hit. Some of the series’ original fans have ultimately turned into pros themselves, and a “Suicide Squad Revival Project” has been in the portfolio of more than one hopeful new writer.
“It was a good series and there was nothing else quite like it out there, before or since,” Ostrander said. “The characters were compelling and the readers wanted to see them again. My guess that characterization would be the key to the longevity of the series in the hearts of the fans.”
While Ostrander has said in the past that he’d pitched a Suicide Squad project or two to DC, he chose not to comment on his proposed Squad revivals for this article, and said simply that he wished the creative team on the new Suicide Squad series the best.
While having a series cancelled, and then not being able to drum up sufficient inertest in the property was rough, the pluses of working on the series – and co-writing much of the latter issues with his late wife Kim Yale, outweighed them all.
On the surreal plus side, Ostrander recalled one Squad-related meeting that, if it had proven productive, would’ve given DC fans something to hang their heads in shame at years before Batman and Robin. Thank your lucky stars the Suicide Squad television series never came to pass in the form it was pitched.
“Oog,” Ostrander said, remembering. “That was a conference call between the writers, Jenette Kahn, the editor, and me. I'd been given a copy of the projected pilot script to read. I was trying to be positive and find ways to make suggestions to improve what was a pile of crap, in my opinion. If I'd walked into the DC offices with something like that, I'd be flushing my career away. Of course, I couldn't say that so I just pointed out little 'inconsistencies" and made suggestions which the writers lapped up. Well, they paid me so it wasn't a complete waste of my time. How bad was it? The pilot they shot for a JLA live action series was light years better, and that wasn't very good.”
All in all, Ostrander is happy he could give readers stories that they liked. “I'm honored that Suicide Squad is held in such high regard, I truly am,” Ostrander said. “The Squad represented many happy times for me, including especially the issues that were co-written between myself and Kim. For the fans, thank you all for your good wishes, kind words, and your support over the years.”
While DC has never released any Suicide Squad trade paperbacks, the back issues are relatively cheap, and worth the dive into the bins. Definitely check out the first twelve to twenty four issues, along with the Secret Origins issue.