Giant Size Suicide Squad Special #1-2

Giant Size Suicide Squad Special #1

(The Giant Size Suicide Squad Specials are a series of edited reprints that retell events that transpired between the end of the old Suicide Squad series and present continuity. In this issue, amid a retelling of the events that returned Rick Flag Jr. to the Suicide Squad three years ago after his apparent death, we see a couple of other storylines progressing as well, especially the introduction of Descent (Grigori Moore).)

In Canada, a teenaged orphan, Greg Moore, celebrates his 18th birthday with friends in a large park. In the shadows of the nearby trees, we see two mysterious figures speaking, unnoticed.

The first, a pale figure whose skin we catch only glimpses of in the light filtering through the branches, says, “Then we have an agreement? The boy will have three more years. Until his 21st birthday, he will be allowed to live as a normal human being, no different than any other. In exchange, I will grant you the favor you have long requested of me.”

The second, a much darker, completely shadowed figure, replies: “A favor you have been loath to grant for many years. Of what great value can the boy be to you that he is worth the granting of such a boon?”

“He is family,” the pale figure replies, watching the young man blow out candles on a birthday cake. “That is enough.”

Meanwhile, the events of the Suicide Squad: Raise the Flag miniseries continue to be retold, as General Wade Eiling (now in the invulnerable body of the Shaggy Man) sells the team out and reveals that Rick Flag Jr. is not actually the son of Rick Flag Sr., but is a soldier brainwashed by Eiling into believing he was Flag's son. After defeating the General, the false Flag is given the chance to give up his presumed identity and return home, but refuses, deciding that the Suicide Squad needs a Flag—he will continue to live as Rick Flag, despite knowing the truth.

Giant Size Suicide Squad Special #2

Continuity Note: The events of this issue take place 3 years after Giant Size Suicide Squad Special #1.

(In this issue, amid a retelling of the Suicide Squad/Secret Six crossover during Blackest Night, a bit more of the mystery of Grigori Moore and his mysterious benefactor (from Giant Size Suicide Squad Special #1) is explored.)

AT THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY: The pale figure from the previous issue walks through a graveyard with a raven toward a house at the end of the cemetery. We still cannot see the pale figure’s face, but he tells the raven the boy Grigori Moore is now a man, and he has done all he can for him. Soon, he will turn 21, and he will have to "face his nature." At the front door of the house, the pale figure knocks, and is let in by two brothers who live in this house, the House of Mystery. Apparently, the two brothers have been having trouble getting along, and the younger one, a stammering child-like man, asks if it would be better for him to return to living in his own house, the House of Secrets on the other side of the graveyard. The pale figure says no, that there is a plan, and that right now, the current inhabitants of the House of Secrets are destined to remain.

ACROSS THE GRAVEYARD, AT THE HOUSE OF SECRETS: The House of Secrets is now the home of the Secret Six, including former Suicide Squad members Deadshot and Bane. Hired to break a drug dealer out of Belle Reve prison, the Squad leaves its leader, Scandal Savage, alone at the House for safety—but they’ve been duped. While the Squad walks into an ambush by the Suicide Squad, the House is attacked by Amanda Waller and her operative, the multiplying menace called Multiplex. Waller tells Scandal that she is sick of Floyd (Deadshot) being with them, and that her team has been allowed to run free too long. She also explains that the Secret Six are walking into an ambush. When Scandal refuses to surrender, Waller then orders Multiplex to burn the House down… with Scandal in it.

AT BELLE REVE: As the two teams square off in Belle Reve, Deadshot makes it to the drug dealer’s cell, and finds that instead of their target, Rick Flag is there, telling him Waller wants him for a mission. Deadshot, as ever a simple man, simply shoots him and walks off, only to face another Squad member, the markswoman Yasemin Soze. After Deadshot kill Soze, Flag—having been protected by his armored uniform—then clocks the distracted Deadshot in the head and knocks him out.

At this point however, the events of Blackest Night have begun, and several reanimated Black Lantern Suicide Squad members, calling themselves “the Homicide Squad," show up at Belle Reve, out for blood!