Yep, but if you want to do some training, I could wait until after that, too. Your call, but you can't upgrade/recruit both before and after a training mission.

i'll pass on training this time.

Well, based on this issue you know you lost Killer Frost. So those points go back in your bank. Aside from that I'll roll it up.

I wanted to ask you, though - would it be alright if I assembled your Squad for the Annual? For story-purposes, it'd be nice if you went into it with a pleasant surprise, and you'll for sure get at least one of the guys you've wanted for a while, but the regular Squad won't reform until AFTER the annual. You could keep who you wanted, or we roll for disbandment, your choice.

Basically, I roll the Parole dice and see who leaves, then replace them myself (with an eye toward the team I know you like, and previous things you've said about who you'd want) and that's the team you take into the Annual. After that, we can roll again for paroles, or you can reshuffle the whole squad yourself. Whatever happens, your team isn't set in stone until the issue after the Annuals.

I'd like to keep Deadshot and have him promoted to E. As for everyone else, feel free to make whatever changes you want for the annual. Get rid of everyone else, keep everyone else add new people... really whatever you want to do I'm cool with. Story above all else I say.

Fear not - Deadshot is the man, and the core of this team. I'd like to keep him around as much as you would. Still, I think you'll like what I've got cooked up

I use the last two bullets on the guards at the door, then ricochet the gun off a desk to bash into the third guy’s nose and drive his septum through his brain. Something in my head tells me to dive, so I kissed the linoleum. The bullets impacting the wall above me tell me I did right. A peanut rolls into my hand, and I bounce it off the door-controls, closing it on the Checkmate goons trying to rush me. A good slam with my foot and the controls burst. Looks locked to me.

I make it through the last door and down the long hall, just far enough to taste freedom on my tongue. When I hit the door, I can’t get the key in fast enough for my liking, but it slides open just the same. That whoosh of air, cloying with the stink of sewage and waste – this particular outpost being located underneath some major city or another. I run all-out, and every splash of my feet into that s***-filled water and brine is like Satchmo in my ears, playing his trumpet on some wild trilling solo. The arpeggios matching my heartbeat, and I decide the first place I’m going when I’m out is to a blues club in the Easy. Someplace dark and muggy, where people nobody’s heard of play the cr@p out of songs that make your heart go south and your groin head north.

But I don’t wanna get myself lost, so I make for a ladder and climb up to the manhole cover. A good shove and it’s loose; another two and I’m out. I’ve got just enough time to look up at the stars and the night sky; just enough time to take a good breath that isn’t thick and heavy with s*** and fowlness. Just enough, and then a hand as big as my head grabs my throat from behind. I grab at it, as if it would do something, but I wasn’t ready to quit just yet. There were bigger challenges than this place I had to deal with, and at least one big, black, helmet-wearing fish I had to skin alive.

“Nice moves,” the guy says. His hand – it’s like cold steel. I can’t find a glove; is he a cyborg? A robot? What? “You got yourself out just in time. Your country needs you, Lawton.”

He lets go and I drop to the ground. Checking my neck for lesions, I spin around and come face-to-groin with a mountain of shining metal man. It’s dark out, but the moon shines off his reflective surfaces. I can see myself in his package, and the joke isn’t lost on me. I just don’t think it’s funny. I look up into burning eyes peering out of a purple, metal face, his smile revealing steel teeth. D@mn. I’m out of peanuts.

“Time to get back to work, meatbag.”

“Whatever you say…Major.”

Who is the Metal Man who greets Deadshot on his exit from Heck?!? And what work will he be brought back to? And just what the dickens is happening with the Suicide Squad?!?!? All these answers and more are unraveled in the DC Annuals – The Identity Crisis! Stay tuned!