Yes, and introduce the modern Suicide Squad, too.
[SPOILERS AHOY]
What this reminded me of, when all was said and done, was the Legends series DC published back in the mid-1980s, where the ultimate result of the series was to introduce the new Justice League (to some measure of success), or even DC’s Millennium, published a little later that decade, where the endgame was to introduce the New Guardians (to slightly lesser success).
Which, you know, is fine. That’s the goal of every comic book crossover…to get you to buy more comic books. They do it either by trying to turn you on to characters you didn’t normally read but were exposed to in the event, or they spin off new titles from the event that they hope you’ll be intrigued enough to sample. In this case it’s Justice League Incarnate, a team comprised of superheroes from across the multiverse, attempting to prevent Darkseid from breaking into the Omniverse and bothering Mark Gruenwald, presumably. And a handy footnote in Infinite Frontier directs you to said series, Coming Soon to a Newsdealer Near You.
Again, this is all fine. It’s just how comics are. And I like the idea of Justice League Incarnate and think the idea of jumping around the multiverse sounds like fun. But…DC’s spent the better part of three decades trying to roll back Crisis on Infinite Earths after realizing that maybe putting a whole bunch of restrictions on a world of imaginative fantasy was perhaps not a great publishing strategy. I enjoyed at the time the weird frisson of Crisis, where for perhaps the one time in superhero comics history you really did have the feeling that perhaps nothing and nobody was safe. But the price we paid was DC putting out an event series every once in a while that tried to get those worms all back in the tin, or at least get those worms to line up neatly and consistently so they could say “this is how things work now, for sure this time.”
The result is a pastiche of a memory of a time that the creators responsible are likely not even old enough to have experienced firsthand. All the terms and ideas are there, the Earths with numerial designations, all that jazz, but it doesn’t feel quite the same. This is a Me Problem, not perhaps a Those of You Who Are Younger Than Me Problem, as I did experience the old DC Multiverse firsthand in the funnybooks I got off the newsstands and I compare my memories of what was to whatever attempts are going on now to recreate it, and…I’m just gonna have to tear down that nostalgia wall in my brain and get used to what’s happening now, because unless Marv Wolfman steps in and knocks the entirely of DC continuity back to the 1980s, “nothing will ever be the same,” to borrow a phrase.
Anyway, Infinite Frontier #6 also promises the return of an old friend in 2022, so okay, they got me on the hook with that. Jerks.
The return of Ambush Bug to whatever passes as mainline DC continuity, in what I presume is a small attempt at Deadpool-izing him by having a fourth-wall aware hero interacting with what would generally be considered a straightforward superhero adventure book. Of course, my awareness of Deadpool comes mostly from the movies and his appearances in one of the Marvel Lego video games, having only read one actual Deadpool comic in my lifetime, so I could be misunderstanding something here. Also, I though Harley Quinn and DC’s Deadpool, a character not necessarily bound by whatever demands are put upon stories by current continuity.
Anyway, Ambush Bug beat ’em all to the punch, being set aside from the regular DCU to do his own metacommentary thing (despite being introduced in regular continuity as, well, a murderer, and making the occasional appearance there, like this oddball thing). He retains his awareness that he’s a comic book character for Suicide Squad, which is treated by the other characters as being a sign that his bean is off-kilter…except he repeatedly demonstrates (at least for the reader) that he is correctly aware of his comic book existence. We’re in late 1980s Animal Man territory here, my friends…maybe he can team up with Grant Morrison.
