4. Suicide Squad by John Ostrander

(Suicide Squad)

With the movie on the horizon, I went out last summer and tracked down the first six issues of the original Suicide Squad series by John Ostrander (as well as a handful of issues from the rest of the run). And holy hell were they great. The Suicide Squad, officially codenamed Task Force X, is a team of imprisoned super criminals working off their prison sentences via covert ops. And true to their name, not all of the squad come back alive after their missions.

The team, including Bronze Tiger, Rick Flag, Enchantress, Captain Boomerang, and breakout star Deadshot, is joined by an assorted band of villains as they tackle different missions. In the first six issues alone, we get the death of a squad member, a battle with the minions of Darkseid, a fight against greatest-name-for-a-character-ever William Hell, and a trip into Soviet Russia accompanied by the Penguin. There is a reason Suicide Squad is getting a movie made before we get a Shazam movie: Suicide Squad is shockingly good.