The first movie was a lot of people’s first experience with the team, but fortunately, the best Suicide Squad comics have much better stories to tell. If you’re into the darker side of DC, these are the comics for you. The Suicide Squad has historically taken on the jobs too hard or too dirty for other DC heroes to touch, which makes their story some of the grittiest in the franchise.
Best Suicide Squad comics as of 2025
While the best-known Suicide Squad member at this point is Harley Quinn, she’s only recently been associated with the team. The original incarnation of the Suicide Squad made its debut all the way back in September 1959 in The Brave and the Bold #25. Since then, the squad has been formed, reformed, retconned, reimagined, and relaunched, and has featured a big chunk of DC’s roster of anti-heroes at one time or another. The stories below give a decent rundown of the Suicide Squad’s various eras and will serve as a jumping off point for further adventures
Suicide Squad: Bad Blood
Task Force X faces its most brutal assignment yet with a roster of deadly new recruits. When the Squad is sent to eliminate the Revolutionaries, a dangerous cell of international super-terrorists, the mission takes a twisted turn. The survivors are added to their ranks. Now Harley Quinn and Deadshot must navigate a team where yesterday’s targets are today’s teammates. Full of mistrust and violence, this is an 11-issue series penned by Tom Taylor and illustrated by Bruno Redondo.
Introducing an entirely new cast of characters plus the usual Squad and a depraved conclusion, Taylor sets the standard high for himself and surpasses it. He brings in an air of mystery to the story, too. There’s more going on than supervillains sent on impossible missions. Taylor’s dialog is snappy and witty, which always make reading more entertaining. The art is fantastic with vibrant fights and great facial expressions for the characters. This run is interesting, funny, and also, maybe surprisingly, emotional. This series can be read as a standalone, as many of the characters are new. If you have a basic understanding of the Squad and Harley Quinn, it should be easy enough to follow along. Well, until that one part that will gut you. This book is a lot of fun and everything you’d expect from a SS run, but still brings the emotion. Tom Taylor’s talent lies in making you care for characters. He also writes Harley as more balanced than usual, and doesn’t sway too insane or too heroic. Published in 2021, pick this one up if you’re looking for a fresh Suicide Squad story with lots of new faces.
The Janus Directive
Amanda Waller’s hidden agenda comes to light as she deploys Task Force X on operations tied to the mysterious “Janus Directive.” Her secretive schemes ignite inter-agency warfare, pitting the Suicide Squad against rival metahuman teams and government black ops units. As paranoia spreads and alliances fall, a shadow war erupts across America’s covert operations network, threatening to expose, or maybe destroy, everyone involved. This collection of stories is by John Ostrander, Paul Kupperberg, Kim Yale, John K. Snyder III, Steve Erwin, and more.
This crossover event explores the world of government black ops and intelligence agencies turning against each other. It features multiple covert organizations, like Task Force X, Checkmate, and more, being manipulated into conflict. This run brings alot of the behind the scenes action into the forefront. The storyline showcases Waller’s tactical brilliance and moral ambiguity as she navigates a web of governmental conspiracy. Her character is central to unraveling the truth behind the inter-agency warfare. True to Ostrander’s usual MO, characters actually die and face lasting repercussions. The story taps into Cold War-era paranoia about government agencies and asks big questions about who watches the watchers. This is a great one to pick up if you’re looking for all the stories about the Janus Directive in one place.
Suicide Squad: Kicked in the Teeth
Captured and beaten, the Suicide Squad faces their interrogators in chains. Harley Quinn, King Shark, Deadshot, and the rest of Task Force X must endure brutal questioning while protecting the identity of their handlers. In a deadly game of silence, loyalty becomes survival. Pushed to their breaking point, which one will betray the mission to save themselves? Written by Adam Glass and illustrated by Federico Delocchio and Clayton Henry.
Adam Glass wrote Suicide Squad during DC’s New 52 relaunch. His run reimagines the team for the new continuity. The art is fun, the writing crisp and the cast is a mix of folks who’d probably fight each just as much as their opponents. Of course the book is edgy, but it is also violent, brutal and twisted, fit for the Suicide Squad. The first mission involves a stadium of civilians infected with a virus. The Squad is tasked with cleaning up the situation by killing everyone…yep, everyone. No regular superhero would be willing to undertake this deadly mission. Characters die, the plot twists and turns without warning. You’re in for a ride — a bloody, unpredictable one. Harley is definitely the star despite this being a team series. This series makes the reader sympathize with the violent criminals, which is a hallmark of great Suicide Squad comics. It takes the time to showcase the relationships between the characters, while delivering a gory and unpredictable comic from start to finish.
Suicide Squad: The Three Waves of Doom
A dangerous heat wave threatens the coast, and the military can’t stop it with normal methods. As a last resort, they call in a new experimental team: the Suicide Squad. The Three Waves of Doom is the debut mission of the original Suicide Squad in The Brave and the Bold #25 (1959), created by Robert Kanigher and Ross Andru.
This was the first issue of The Brave and the Bold as a tryout comic. The idea was to test new ideas and concepts to find a hit that could generate enough popularity to end up with its own title. This story holds a special place in comics history as it establishes the foundational concept that would eventually evolve into what we know as Task Force X. The original Suicide Squad was quite different from later interpretations. It features military personnel and scientists on dangerous missions rather than supervillains. The concept itself was groundbreaking for its time: a team specifically designed for missions so dangerous they were essentially suicide runs was new. The name “Suicide Squad” immediately expresses the high stakes and expendable nature of the team. While the 1959 version focuses on conventional military threats rather than the morally complex later versions, it created the basic framework of expendable operatives tackling impossible odds.
Suicide Squad: Legerdemain
The Trinity’s suspicions fall on Amanda Waller following Ray Palmer’s death. When Batman, Superman, and Aquaman arrive to interrogate the Squad, they encounter unexpected opposition from both the Jihad and Hayoth forces. In a collision of worlds, Task Force X’s expendable rogues face off against three of the Justice League’s heaviest hitters in a battle that will test whether cunning and desperation can win over raw power. Issues 59 thru 62 of the Suicide Squad, written by John Ostrander and Kim Yale.
This was published during the peak period of Ostrander and Yale’s collaboration on the Suicide Squad series. This was when they were doing some of their most sophisticated work with the Squad. The comic series’ most lasting impression will be the creation and development of Amanda Waller. Waller is the real protagonist throughout the series and she is the tough decision-maker. She is a character that defies almost every stereotype of the era. She is a short, overweight, educated black woman with little power who is not afraid to speak her mind. Waller confronts diplomats, military leaders, superheroes, the President of the United States, and holds her own. She understands her team’s mission and how necessary they are to keep the world running smoothly. She’s nuanced and adds to the morally ambiguous themes ubiquitous in Suicide Squad comics. Plot-wise, loose ends are tied up and left open for future runs. If you’re looking for more action and less character development for the Squad in particular, pick up this series.
How we chose the best Suicide Squad comics
Is it weird to say that the best comics make you question your own morals, kill off a character you love, and display deeply disturbing situations? Not in the case of the Suicide Squad. Designed to carry out missions too ethically ambiguous for typical superheroes, Task Force X gets messy, and with glee. We fall in love with villains and question the government that uses them as weapons. Who’s moral? Who’s corrupt? And who’s the real hero? Is mortality on the table? The best Suicide Squad comics raise all these questions, keep us laughing, and sometimes make us avert our eyes. What do you think the best Suicide Squad comics are?
