Here comes Peacemaker!

[iamrman]

Doot-doo-doo-doo!

Checkmate #16, written by Paul Kupperberg and pencilled by Rick Hoburg.

Suicide Squad #28, written by John Ostrander and Kim Yale. Pencilled by John K. Snyder III.

Checkmate #17, written by Paul Kupperberg and pencilled by Steve Erwin.

Don’t ask me what is going on or who is supposed to be on whose side. It’s something to do with various intelligence agencies going to war with each other. Amanda Waller supposedly uncovers a conspiracy against Task Force X, the Janus Directive. It all turns out to be fake as it was all part of Waller's convoluted plan to bring all the different intelligence agencies under her control. Also, Kobra was there.

Comments

[dan_ingram]

Err, minor correction.

The Janus Directive wasn't a plan by Waller to bring the various agencies under her control.

Rather, it was a plan by Kobra to pit the various US intelligence agencies against one another, so that they couldn't stop his plan to decimate the world.

Part of his plan involved using duplicates, one of which he sent after Waller. The real Waller killed her duplicate, and played along with Kobra to keep tabs on what he was doing/smoke out Kobra.

In the end, Waller was actually demoted, because she never informed the president of what her plan was. She lost control of Checkmate, and was on thin ice when commanding the Suicide Squad.

Though these days, we'd have a shitty writer have Waller remark 'All according to plan' and the crappy "See the next crossover!" followup.

[scorntx]

Actually, these days it'd be more like Waller would learn about the plan and try hijacking it to kill all the superheroes because something something did what she had to do.

And then we'd get the "See the next crossover!" followup.

[iamrman]

Whoops. I guess I got that completely wrong then.

[dan_ingram]

Yeah, Waller still had depth at the time.

I think she went off the deep end around Nu52, really.

[iamrman]

The same could be said for the entire DC Universe during the New 52.

[panthyr]

Wow. That dialogue.
Definitely a step up when Ostrander's writing. But Kupperberg...

FOOLS!

[beyondthefringe]

Peacemaker was full-on Loony Toons at this point. Yikes.

I always loved the look of Checkmate’s knights during this era. Such a neat design.

[dan_ingram]

I always liked the concept of Peacemaker as a Punisher for war criminals and such, a guy who targeted the worst of the worst.

I don't know why they thought "Hey, the Comedian is based on Peacemaker, so lets have Peacemaker out-crazy the Comedian!" was a good idea.