The Justice League and Suicide Squad Go to War Next Year

The modern superhero comic industry revolves around company-wide events that round up a bunch of major characters and embroil them in a big battle the publisher claims will alter the universe in a major way. These big events are designed to get new readers interested by drumming up publicity and keep old readers sticking around to see how everything resolves. Right now, for instance, DC has its Rebirth kind-of-relaunch going on, and Marvel is in the middle of Civil War II.

And now we know what DC has next up its sleeve: Justice League vs. Suicide Squad will feature the two titular teams going head-to-head before being forced to work together when a larger evil is discovered.

The full summary, courtesy of DC, is as follows:

The day that Amanda Waller has long dreaded has finally come to pass: the Justice League has discovered the existence of Task Force X! America’s paragons of truth and justice won’t take well to a government-sponsored team of black ops super-villains (with bombs implanted in their heads), but before the Justice League can shut down the Suicide Squad, a bigger problem looms: another deadly strike team is lurking in the shadows, one that could expose dark secrets throughout the DC Universe, with ties to the hidden truths of Rebirth. Longtime enemies such as Batman and Deadshot, the Flash and Boomerang, and Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn will have to put aside their differences when an evil threat once thought lost to the DC Universe makes their return.

The event will cross over into the respective Justice League and Suicide Squad books, as well as releasing six issues of its own title to be written by Joshua Williamson (Flash) and Tim Seeley (Grayson), and with art by Jason Fabok and Tony S. Daniel.

Right now, the Suicide Squad is the hottest ticket the DC movie universe has managed to produce after Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, so it’s no surprise that DC wants to capitalize on that popularity by linking it to its next tentpole blockbuster.

The cover, which you can find in full below, is from the excellent Jason Fabok. It shows Batman and Harley Quinn, seemingly the only two DC extended universe characters people care about, standing amongst their fallen comrades, leaning against each other and ready for another fight—presumably against whatever big bad that forces the two teams to join forces. Interestingly, they’re also equipped with the opposite team’s weapons, with Harley sporting Wonder Woman’s tiara and lasso, as well as Green Lantern’s ring, and Batman with Deadshot’s eyepiece and Katana’s katana.

Though we find it somewhat disappointing that the creators decided to go with the typical “first they fight and then they’re friends” story to frame the event (see Batman v. Superman), DC has been doing well recently, with Rebirth a mostly successful righting of the DC ship. Fabok’s art will almost certainly be worth the price of admission, and it’ll be great to get some answers to all those niggling questions raised by Rebirth.

Justice League vs. Suicide Squad will release in January of 2017. You can see Fabok’s full cover below.