DUCHESS versus BLUE BEETLE

Battle Lines (DC)
Where: Suicide Squad #13 When: May 1988
Why: John Ostrander How: Luke McDonnell

The Story So Far...
A covert operation in the Soviet Union makes enemies of The Suicide Squad when they're discovered attempting to liberate a famous author imprisoned as a dissident.

The arrest of Thomas Tresser, aka; Nemesis, becomes a world headline when the Soviet government attempts to bait the Squad into a return mission by publicly accusing him of an unprovoked attempted kidnap.

Its bait field-leader Rick Flag is all too happy to take -- igniting internal conflict with Task Force X head Amanda Waller! Faced with the prospect of exposure and a further international incident, she has no choice but to advise the President to commission the Justice League International to stop the rogue invaders!

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Lashina 5 (Super-Human)
Intelligence: Blue Beetle 5 (Professor)
Speed: Lashina 3 (Athlete)
Stamina: Lashina 5 (Marathoner)
Agility: Blue Beetle 2 (Average)
Fighting: Lashina 6 (Warrior)
Energy: Blue Beetle 4 (Arsenal)
Total: Lashina 27 (Metahuman)

The inevitable faceoff between Justice League International and the Suicide Squad goes off not with a bang, but rather a series of precision key matchups.

Duchess gets the fight started when she recognizes JLI's Mister Miracle. She does this because she is in fact Lashina: former field leader of Darkseid's loyal Female Furies. She was betrayed by one of her teammates while on mission to capture Mister Miracle, leaving her stranded on Earth, and in the care of Task Force X.

As Duchess she doesn't have access to her trademark steel whips, instead relying on high-powered customized weaponry like the cannon used against Major Force in a later battle. She also possesses natural attributes of super-strength and durability as a New God raised on Apokolips under Granny Goodness.

These attributes put her in a class above Blue Beetle, but you can never entirely count the resourceful hero!

Ted Kord is the second Blue Beetle, carrying on the legacy of Dan Garrett by using a natural acumen for science and inventing. With the resources of his father's company, Kord Industries, he created The Bug airship, and an arsenal of non-lethal weaponry, including his trademark compressed air gun, and bug drones.

On the surface it looks like Blue Beetle is fighting way above of his weight class, but like Batman or Green Arrow, he's a non-powered hero capable of causing an upset. JLI are some of his sillier days, but will he do it? Let's find out...

The Tape: Duchess Ranking: Duchess (#194)

What Went Down...
Duchess points a finger of confused, accusing recognition at Mister Miracle when Blue Beetle approaches to pacify the situation with a stern warning: "You take on one member of the JLI and you take on them all."

The erstwhile Lashina is all too happy to accept the challenge, but finds Blue Beetle more capable than he first appears. While unsuccessfully petitioning Mister Miracle for help -- he handles the situation with with an improvised arm drag.

Booster Gold finds great amusement in his friends' 'great touch with the ladies' and earns the ire of the slighted New God in the process.

In a fury she rips a door from a nearby prison cell and launches it at the chuckling hero. His futuristic power suit takes care of it though, protecting him from the steel bars while reducing them to tiny pieces of broken and bent steel.

The attack proves to be the inciting blow.

Batman coldly orders his team to pick a foe and watch out for shrapnel. They all peel off with a fight partner, but Blue Beetle's opponent has already chosen him. 

Duchess charges furiously, but the Beetle nimbly vaults over her and insists he doesn't like hitting women. "... And I'm not sure hitting you would do any good!"

He resorts to his gun, holding it to Duchess' head as the melee erupts all around them.

The super-humanly strong Duchess manages to keep Beetle off his feet with a single extended arm, but the pistol packing hero regains his footing and squares off with his target.

He unleashes the full force of his patented non-lethal arsenal -- a high-powered burst of compressed air finds it mark with Duchess' imposing torso, but fails to have any effect on the powerful New God!

A quick switch in tactics unleashes Beetle's secondary dazzle light at point blank range!

The blistering white flash succeeds in temporarily blinding Duchess.

With his opponent staggered and fuming mad -- Blue Beetle closes in to strike with a "patented" karate chop to the neck.

Robbed of her sight -- the New God doesn't even realise her mortal opponent has struck!

Blue Beetle clutches his wrist with sounds of agony suggesting the blow did far more to hurt him than its intended victim!

Duchess quickly turns the tables, grabbing Beetle by the leg to lift him off his feet. He bumps his head on the ceiling before crashing down onto his keister -- still in the grip of a very angry Duchess!

It's only the diplomatic intervention of Martian Manhunter that saves the Beetle from being squashed! He lets out a relieved sigh at the news a truce has been brokered between team leaders, ending the conflict - for now.

The Hammer...

For all intents and purposes it looked as if Duchess was about to take control and finish the fight, but we'll never know for certain. Blue Beetle survives an inconclusive result, with a little help from his friend Booster Gold early on.

The conflict is part of a hotly anticipated confrontation between the Justice League and Suicide Squad: Two teams that were positioned as pillars of the post-Crisis DCU coming out of the reconstruction phase of Legends.

The internationally minded League and their black-ops counterparts were steeped in global political intrigue, but behind their differing approaches to diplomacy with Russia, and other world actors, lies a good old fashioned conflict over morality, superhero ethics, and a general disdain for each others methods.

By nature of The League's operations, Batman was drawn a little closer to the light, but his role as a tactician keeps him to a privileged periphery, exposing him to as few people as possible, while he gathers intelligence, and maintains the mystique of an urban myth bubbling up from Gotham City's shadowy underbelly.

It was from the shadows that the inter-team conflict was set-up when Batman went undercover in Bell Reve Prison to investigate the rumored existence of the villain-based squad. His infiltration ultimately laid bare Amanda Waller and Task Force X personnel, giving us a taste of things to come when The Squad was sent to stop him, and he duked it out with Rick Flag and others.

Batman was already eager to get closer to the situation involving his former ally Thomas Tresser when President Reagan approached the UN sanctioned league, but once it's clear the rogue "American villains" they're working to intercept are the Suicide Squad he's even more motivated to throw them to the dogs.

Face-to-face in a Soviet gulag, the two teams break off into pairs, giving us a rematch between Batman and Rick Flag, and the first fight to breakout from the ensuing skirmish - which is also our featured fight for today.

I would be remiss to overlook our featured players, but what you see is mostly what you get. If you know anything about the JLI era, it's probably Blue Beetle's role as cackling comedy relief. It's evident in his obvious mismatch against the raging Duchess, but I do appreciate that he and his arsenal are still shown to be fairly credible in a fight. There's levity, but this isn't wholesale mockery.

Even so, fans of contemporary DC Entertainment, or the upcoming Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League video game, might not find what they're looking for in this iconic battle between the brands. For one thing: this is a mostly bloodless affair, lacking the apparent contempt DC has developed for its own iconic properties. I can't help but think positioning the heroes as figures for contempt while the players control villains is horribly tone deaf on multiple levels, but I digress...

The original match-up contains the battle within a pleasingly straight-forward single issue, while Justice League International #13 offers an enhancement tie-in that sets up the specifics of the collision with optional relevance. That said, there's also a lot of intrigue accumulated from the details of previous issues of Suicide Squad and JLI, informing a nuanced conflict steeped in concepts and character motivations.

Four of the combatants don't even actually engage in violence! Martian Manhunter and Vixen revisit their recent history together and resolve their opposition with a meaningful embrace, while Captain Atom and Nightshade keep their romantic ties on the down low by faking a mock struggle somewhere off to the side. Tickling is quickly nixed by the squirming Nightshade, but that's all the analysis we have.

You might expect a fight-monger like myself to deride this kind of thing, but I'd take a good story with intuitive use of characters over a lazy fight any day of the week. I actually quite like these characters and don't want to see them murdered in the name of fleeting thrills, or some psychopath's idea of "realism".

This remains a fantastic period of DC Comics with surprisingly enduring relevance and better balance of the things that make superhero comics enjoyable than a lot of more recent examples, or adaptations that are built on this foundation.

I will almost certainly be returning for more individual match-ups, but if you'd like to get ahead of the reading you can find JLI #13 and Suicide Squad #13 both collected in Justice League International Book One: Born Again or Suicide Squad Vol. 2: The Nightshade Odyssey. Use Amazon purchase links provided below and you'll not only get yourself a good deal -- you'll help support the site at no cost!

You can find more related materials to these characters and stories by following links throughout this post, or by infiltrating the Secret Archive for a complete index of every featured fight in order of publisher, series, and issue number.

Secret Wars on Infinite Earths has featured well over 650 battles and ranked in excess of 1,000 characters! If you'd like to help me continue creating more entries consider becoming a patron on Patreon. As a thank you you'll unlock extra updates, content, and options to sponsor your favourite topics in future articles.

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Winner: Inconclusive
#162 (+32) Lashina
#480 (new) Blue Beetle (Ted Kord)
#650 (+237) Booster Gold [+1 assist]

SUICIDE SQUAD versus PEACEMAKER versus MAJOR FORCE

"Death Game" (DC)
Where: Suicide Squad #28 When: May 1989 Why: Kim Yale & John Ostrander How: John K Snyder & Karl Kesel

The Story So Far...
A conspiracy known as "The Janus Directive" has ignited a secret war between rival covert military departments: Task Force X, Project: Atom, and Force of July.

Each suspects the other of plotting the attack, but the first shots were fired by Amanda Waller, whose pre-emptive counterstrike decimated The Force of July at the hands of her Suicide Squad. An act that arouses the suspicions of her allies in Checkmate.

The intelligence agency deploys Peacemaker to intervene in an assassination plot to safely detain Dr. Heinrich Megala of Project: Atom. Now their headquarters in the Koning Industries building is ground zero for a meta-human frontal assault as Project Atom's Major Force and the Suicide Squad launch separate attacks!

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Major Force 6 (Invincible)
Intelligence: Lashina 4 (Tactician)
Speed: Vixen 4 (Olympian)
Stamina: Major Force 6 (Generator)
Agility: Vixen 5 (Cat-Like)
Fighting: Lashina 6 (Warrior)
Energy: Major Force 7 (Cosmic Power)
Total: Major Force 32 (Super)

Usually battle lines can be drawn between two sides, and indeed this fight does start as a one-on-one encounter, but the intrusion of a definitive third-party has led to a Secret Wars on Infinite Earths first -- a three-way conflict!

The Suicide Squad are: Vixen, Duchess, Shade the Changing Man, and Count Vertigo. They're charging into the middle of a violent showdown between Project: Peacemaker's top man, and the sadistic military powerhouse of Project Atom.

Peacemaker is a bit of an ironic moniker. Christopher Smith was imprisoned for war crimes when he was directed by erroneous military intelligence to massacre a village of innocents. He was paroled on the condition he join Project: Peacemaker - an elite, secret anti-terrorism police force.

The son of an Austrian Nazi war criminal; Smith is haunted by visions of his father that compel him towards extreme acts of personal success. He channeled this into atoning for he and his father's crimes, using his family fortune for philanthropic charity work, and to fund his activities as the extreme soldier Peacemaker. He's working as a freelance agent of Checkmate at the time of today's battle.

Major Force is another cast-off of the military-industrial complex. US Air Force Sergeant Clifford Zmeck was court-martialed and convicted of murder & rape, but found a reprieve from a life sentence via Project: Atom. After their failures coating another test subject in alien metal and exposing him to a nuclear blast, they gave Zmeck a triple layer and attempted the experiment again.

Zmeck also appeared to perish in the blast, but was actually caught in the same Quantum Field that claimed Nathaniel Adam, thrusting them both into the future whilst fusing their bodies with the alien metal, granting them flight, super-human strength, speed, durability, and quantum energy blasts.

The Suicide Squad should be able to pin down the gun-toting, jet-packing Peacemaker, but Major Force represents a major challenge for all parties involved.

Duchess, who is in actual fact the New God Lashina, might be able to withstand his strength and power blasts. Vixen can also add extra muscle by channeling the strength of an elephant & rhino like she did when defeating the Russian super-spy Stalnoivolk in Suicide Squad #43.

Shade the Changing Man and Count Vertigo attack perceptions by projecting a vision of fear, and disorienting sonic pulse, respectively. Peacemaker's helmet might be able to repeat Batman's method for blocking out Vertigo's powers, but Shade's M-Vest could prey upon his visions. We'll just have to see how either interacts with the quantum powered Major Force!...

The Tape: Suicide Squad Ranking: Vixen (#74)

What Went Down...

In the wreckage of the Koning Industries building, Major Force gleefully awaits the attack of Peacemaker. He's coming in hot -- jet-packing through the sky with high-powered blaster at the ready!

Peacemaker hones in like a heat-seeking missile -- blasting Major Force through the air with gun blazing!

Major Force rolls with the blow, regaining his footing with a sadistic smile as he charges both hands with dark quantum energy and delights at the prospect of a new "playmate".

He slams his hands together, sending bursting shocks blasts into the sky, but Peacemaker manages to rocket above the danger and remain focused!

Before Peacemaker can make good on his threat to kill Major Force -- the Suicide Squad arrives to pacify the conflict with extreme prejudice!

Vixen orders Count Vertigo and Shade the Changing Man to target Peacemaker, who doesn't immediately open fire on the unknown assailants.

He quickly gets an answer to their status when Vertigo engulfs him in a disorienting field that causes him to lose his bearings and head into a downward spiral!

Shade keeps the pressure on Peacemaker as he crash lands into the wrecked Koning building. His strange M-Vest projects a warped vision of Wolfgang Schmidt in SS uniform -- the imaginary picture of his father that haunts Peacemaker!

Rattled by the sight, Peacemaker is defenseless as Shade swoops around him and extends a massive projected fist from the cackling Nazi!

Duchess follows Vixen's direction to target Major Force, keeping him distracted by stepping up with a powerful hand cannon of her own devious design.

The Major welcomes the weapon, confident his alien metal shell can withstand the blast.

Force absorbs the almost point blank blasts straight to the torso, laughing as each of three rounds does almost nothing to impact him.

He takes great delight in taking his "shot", first punching Duchess in the face with a straight right, then delivering a side kick to the stomach, and finishing the combo with a close range uppercut!

Duchess wipes her mouth with a forearm and tosses away her gun. She tells her teammates to proceed with their mission while she takes care of her "meat".

"Hah! I finally found someone who won't break the first time I hit him! Okay worm -- let's match fists!"

A wild right hook checks Major Force across the jaw with a KRAK!

Lashina follows with a high kick -- maybe a roundhouse -- unaware that across the battlefield Peacemaker is watching.

Crawling through the wreckage, he imagines his father's chastising. It spurs him onward, first to his knees and then back toward his gun. He'll prove his isn't a weakling by lining up both his enemies and making the shot!

A massive explosion erupts a blaze around the battlefield as it blasts through the crumbling Koning building and topples Duchess, Major Force, and even the weakened gunman -- but was Peacemaker really responsible?!

His two awesomely powerful targets are first to stir. Major Force tries to get off the ground, cracking wise: "Oof! What was in that last punch, baby?"

Duchess doesn't take credit for the blast, but finishes him off with a rabbit punch!

Vixen and Shade emerge from the raging inferno carrying a badly wounded Count Vertigo. Turns out he caught a face full of explosion when the Squad's true target -- the diabolical Doctor Heinrich Megala -- blew up. A suicide-doppelganger!

The forcefield of Shade's M-Vest kept Vertigo from being fatally wounded, and allows the rest of the team to walk away having won the battle, if not the war.

The Hammer...

The Suicide Squad clearly emerges victorious -- even if their ultimate objective to detain Doctor Megala wasn't achieved.

Per the standard format we could have reviewed this as the Suicide Squad against mutually hostile targets Peacemaker & Major Force.

I generally prefer to keep the battelines drawn down two sides, but in this one it just felt a bit more interesting and honest to acknowledge a three-way conflict. Peacemaker and Major Force never even inadvertently collude, with the former lining up his shots against MF and Duchess right until the end.

It's actually a key plot point that everyone's at each other's throats: The Janus Directive is an 11 issue crossover weaving through the pages of Suicide Squad, Checkmate, Manhunter, Firestorm, and Captain Atom. It's a paranoid superhero-thriller that turns DC's various military and intelligence agencies against one another in a private war.

If you're acting under the misapprehension that any era of comics was apolitical, the post-Crisis DCU will be a particularly rude awakening. These comics were rife with political intrigue and commentary, and there were plenty of politically motivated and analogous agencies to get involved in The Janus Directive!

The first shots are fired when Amanda Waller fingers either The Atom Project or The Force of July for planning a violent power play against their departmental rivals at Task Force X: overseer of the Suicide Squad.

She doesn't know which agency it will be, and seeks to recruit Checkmate and Project: Peacemaker as part of a pre-emptive counterstrike led by the Squad.

"The Wall" refuses to reveal the source of her information, and the extreme nature of her actions arouses suspicion from Checkmate, turning them against her as the conflict escalates -- and with good reason, too! She's actually enacting plans revealed by a doppelganger who was supposed to have replaced her!

Waller initiates the Janus Directive to avoid alerting the conspirators that she's thwarted their replacement attempt, while also using covert resources, such as Manhunter, to uncover the mastermind behind it all: Kobra!

It might sound a little complicated, but it's a testament to the complimentary relationship between the various DC series involved, many written by John Ostrander, and the value packed into each issue at the time. This is a certainly crossover that enhanced each series it overlaps with, injecting colour and extra excitement into sometimes more sedate worlds.

Suicide Squad is and was a jewel in the crown of the time, and I find myself coming back to it regularly with greater appreciation. A lot of its strength is in the ebb & flow of A & B plots, accumulated reference, and the flexibility of the material to blend espionage, costumed super-heroics, and everything in between.

It's kind of awesome that we're looking at an issue that casually brings together a gun-toting earthbound New God in camo pants (Duchess, aka; Lashina), a Charlton acquisition (Peacemaker), and an oddball Steve Ditko creation (Shade the Changing Man). Fruits of earlier stories and a little happenstance.

I hope to take a closer look at some of these characters in the future, but if you'd like to draw your own conclusions you can find the entire crossover collected in the Suicide Squad Vol. 4: The Janus Directive.

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Secret Wars on Infinite Earths has featured more than 600 battles and ranked well over 1000 characters! You can find them all by diving deeper into the Secret Archive: a complete index of featured fights in order of publisher, series, and issue number. Or follow links throughout each post to discover more from your favourite characters, creators, and subjects!

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Winners: Duchess, Shade the Changing Man & Count Vertigo
#191 (+370) Lashina (Duchess)
#348 (new) Shade the Changing Man
#366 (+266) Count Vertigo
#617 (new) Doctor Megala Imposter [+1 assist]
#73 (+1) Vixen [+1 assist]
#959 (new) Major Force
#960 (new) Peacemaker

BRONZE TIGER & VIXEN versus STALNOIVOLK

The Phoenix Gambit: Part Four Black Queen's Mate (DC)
Where: Suicide Squad #43 When: July 1990 Why: John Ostrander & Kim Yale How: Geof Isherwood

The Story So Far...
The Suicide Squad have been dissolved, and Amanda Waller imprisoned, but political unrest in the Eastern European nation of Vlatava has forced the powers that be to reactivate their expendable black-ops force!

Now operating as a fully autonomous outfit under Waller's command; a team, partially reassembled by The Batman, infiltrates Vlatava under the guise of going freelance to a global market!

Russian General Kaligari agrees to hire Waller under strict conditions, working to expedite hardline aggressions against the deranged Count Vertigo, and his Vlatavian resistance. In truth, the Squad work against the Russians, aiming to bring in one of their toughest agents -- the man wanted in connection to an assassination in Gotham City: Ivan Illyich Gort - Stalnoivolk!

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Stalnoivolk 5 (Super-Human)
Intelligence: Bronze Tiger 4 (Tactician)
Speed: Vixen 4 (Olympian)
Stamina: Stalnoivolk 6 (Generator)
Agility: Vixen 5 (Cat-like)
Fighting: Bronze Tiger 5 (Martial Artist)
Energy: Draw 1 (None)
Total: Stalnoivolk 25 (Champion)

It's a classic case of speed and skill against brute strength! The martial arts mastery of Bronze Tiger is unleashed by Amanda Waller with a mission to prove that even an invulnerable man can succumb to the right technique!

Bronze Tiger's target is a Secret Wars on Infinite Earths newcomer: Ivan Illyich Gort, aka; Stalnoivolk - translated as "Steel Wolf"!

Gort is the product of Soviet experimentation during the Second World War. He was born in the early 1900s, but his aging was drastically retarded by the process that also granted him phenomenal super-human strength, endurance, and stamina.

He could have been the first of many, but Stalin ensured his Steel Wolf would hunt alone. The fiercely loyal Soviet super-soldier participated in hostilities in Ukraine, only to be exiled to Siberia after the war. He was eventually recalled to action by the cold and calculating Major Zastrow, to participate in his covert super-human group Red Shadows.

Today we find Stalnoivolk operating under Zastrow to suppress rebels in Count Vertigo's homeland of Vlatava. He's best known for confronting the suspected nuclear threat of Firestorm, and covert operations of the Suicide Squad. As it so happens -- today: he is the Suicide Squad's covert operation!

Bronze Tiger is fighting master enough to challenge most strong-man types, but it's fair to say there's an air of mismatch when he goes up against Stalnoivolk.

It also doesn't help that Ben Turner isn't in the best of mental states, having been severely rattled under interrogation from Sargent Steel, before the Suicide Squad were officially disbanded as a government operation. The cold control he exhibited fighting Ravan in Suicide Squad #2, or taking care of Enchantress in Legends #3, is replaced with a recklessness that could prove dangerous.

His former lover Mari McCabe, aka; Vixen, secretly has his back, but in his current state The Tiger has no desire to call upon her assistance. She isn't exactly thrilled with the idea of offering it, either. The Ben Turner she once loved is a memory replaced by a man haunted by past misdeeds.

Which is a shame, because Vixen is arguably the better match-up for Stalnoivolk. Her ability to channel the morphogenetic field through her tantu totem means she can emulate characteristics of the strongest animals. That allowed her to go it alone against Professor Ivo and his androids in her own moment of darkness [Justice League of America #261]. She's also gone toe-to-toe with Wonder Woman in JLA: Classified #3, and Volcano Man during Justice League of America (Vol. 2) #15!

If Bronze Tiger and Vixen can get on the same page, they should be able to match the brute force of Stalnoivolk. If they don't, there's a real danger they'll just get in each other's way! The combined stats favour the Suicide Squad duo, but do not count out the simplicity of Stalnoivolk's power!

The Tape: Bronze Tiger & Vixen Ranking: Bronze Tiger (#79)

What Went Down...

Walking the streets of Vlatava; Stalnoivolk receives a call summoning him back to Red Shadow headquarters. It sufficiently distracts him from the figure leaving the shadows behind him. The mystery man strikes with deadly precision!

The blow to the base of the skull manages to send Stalnoivolk to his knees! The attacker is Bronze Tiger -- and he doesn't believe in true invulnerability!

Stalnoivolk defiantly digs his fingers into the concrete sidewalk beneath him and hurls the rubble at his looming attacker! He manages to catch Bronze Tiger by surprise -- momentarily blinding the martial arts assassin!

The Russian powerhouse rushes to capitalize on his gambit, but the Tiger can sense his movements. He vaults over the hulking super-soldier, buying enough time to regain his vision!

With clear sight on his target - Bronze Tiger responds with a furious flurry of targeted strikes! He hits a knee, the jaw, the back of the skull -- all in an effort to bring the "steel wolf" down!

The Tiger finishes his combo by thrusting both feet at Stalnoivolk's face -- but the Russian super-soldier catches him by the ankles! He's getting annoyed!

Luckily for Bronze Tiger, his Suicide Squad teammate and ex-lover Vixen has been following him. She leaps from the rooftops above and summons the charging power of a wild rhinoceros - targeting Stalnoivolk's steel back!

The super-human sneak attack involuntarily arches Stalnoivolk's back, releasing his grip on Bronze Tiger! The martial artist spills to his back, but wastes no time reorienting to capitalize on the unexpected assist!

Vixen channels a stampeding elephant into her punch as she strikes the wolf of steel's skull for the umpteenth time! At that same moment: Bronze Tiger thrusts his heel into Stalnoivolk's chest at full force!

The Russian finally falls! Invulnerable, but not undefeatable!

The Hammer...
At last we can answer the riddle: How do you defeat an invulnerable Steel Wolf? With the pure power of a stampeding elephant, and the striking ferocity of a tiger, of course!

After deep diving into Black Panther's origins last month; it might seem as if we're keeping up a theme of featured feline fighters. It's mostly a coincidence of what I've been reading lately, and maybe a little bit of influence from the recent Winter Olympic Games. I saw a whole lot of foulplay from Russians during the games. What's with that, any way?

The thought occurs that Bronze Tiger would be a very interesting opponent for Black Panther, should we ever get another round of DC versus Marvel fantasy fights! He's kind of a fusion of the physical discipline and mastery of Bronze Tiger, and the animalistic spirituality of Vixen!

Fans have often posited Black Panther works well as a counterpart for Batman, but there's no shortage of those. Who could resist a "cat fight" between two hand-to-hand masters of Black and Bronze?... Speaking of which: we really will have to get to Bronze Tiger's famous fight with Batman sometime soon!

As noted: I've been busied with the pages of Suicide Squad of late, reliving some of their classic conflicts from the back-half of the memorable run.

The Cold War was basically deemed done & dusted by this time in the series, but with a character as fun as Stalnoivolk, who wouldn't want to go back for another round of Soviet espionage and hostility? Facebook trolls and nudging speed skaters pale in comparison to the man dubbed Steel Wolf!

Regular readers know I love a good, simple second tier villain, and the bushy moustached Stalinist fits the bill perfectly! He's a great no frills kinda bad guy! A WWII relic who almost serves as a Russian counterpart to a 1940s Superman.

Stalnoivolk is a "man of steel" from behind the iron curtain - just as capable of leaping tall buildings, or out-pounding the powerful surf, as early era Supes! Like classic era Superman, he also doesn't do much more than take a good punch - or deliver one! The presentation is more austere, but that's both part of its charm, and the effectiveness of the character as a threat of will.

John Ostrander apparently created Stalnoivolk as a Firestorm villain, but he's arguably at his best as a threatening presence stalking the periphery throughout his Suicide Squad run. The Russian shows up pretty early as a continuation of threads from the first year's mission to Moscow [which went poorly]. 1990's "Phoenix Gambit" may come at a time when Cold War tension was losing topical relevance -- but it was the showdown readers had to have been waiting for!

The fight described is an action-packed moment of triumph for two of The Squad's best heroic characters, but it also shows the breakdown of their one-time romantic relationship.

The modern Bronze Tiger is fairly inseparable from Suicide Squad, but their mutually shared arc also did a lot to move Vixen forward after the final days of the Detroit era Justice League [see; Vixen versus Professor Ivo]. She goes into the Suicide Squad an emotionally broken hero, and comes out of it stronger. An inverse to the Bronze Tiger story, which finds him broken by Sarge Steel's grilling amid the governmental dissolving of the Squad in the previous story arc. It also plays to his earlier days brainwashed by the League of Assassins.

Ostrander [and Yale]'s Suicide Squad is a great time just about anywhere you might drop-in, but as I'm finding out while I fill in gaps, it's much more satisfying read in its entirety!

The accumulation of character development, sub-plots, and high concepts is really fantastic. In many ways, the content feels very relevant to our present world. Yet I'm not entirely sure if the long form spread would lend itself to the more timid aspects of our present pop culture.

If you've enjoyed dipping a toe into Suicide Squad with today's featured fight, you can currently seek out trade paperback collections for most of the original run. Using the link provided [right] will even help support the site at no extra charge to you!

As always, you can find plenty more action by following your curiosity to links littered throughout this post, tags down the bottom, or by plunging into the Secret Archive for an index of every fight organized by publisher, series, and issue number!

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Winners: Vixen & Bronze Tiger
#48 (+31) Bronze Tiger
#69 (+49) Vixen
#845 (new) Stalnoivolk

DEADSHOT versus ENCHANTRESS

Hitting The Fan (DC)
Where: Suicide Squad #6 When: October 1987
Why: John Ostrander How: Luke McDonnell

The Story So Far...
When the Soviet Union proposes a trade with the United States for a controversial novelist's freedom; The Suicide Squad are called upon in secret to extract the prisoner right from under their noses!

It was a politically charged mission to Moscow none of them wanted to take, but the ingenious plan of new recruit Oswald Cobblepot, (aka; The Penguin), makes the trip behind enemy lines seem possible! There's just one catch: Nobody thought to ask Zoya Trigorin if she wanted to be rescued!

A hostile prisoner throws the mission into disarray -- much to the delight of Enchantress! With the Soviet Army closing in fast, Colonel Rick Flag has no choice but to order Deadshot to bring the wild witch down when she goes rogue!

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Deadshot 3 (Athlete)
Intelligence: Enchantress 5 (Professor)
Speed: Deadshot 3 (Athlete)
Stamina: Enchantress 4 (Athlete)
Agility: Draw 3 (Acrobat)
Fighting: Deadshot 4 (Trained)
Energy: Enchantress 6 (Cosmic Power)
Total: Enchantress 24 (Champion)

Floyd Lawton is Deadshot by name, Deadshot by reputation -- but can a bullet from the assassin's gun really pierce the magic veil of the Enchantress? That's what we're here to find out in a battle of Suicide Squad teammates!

We have, of course, seen another Squaddy take down Enchantress in a previous instance: Bronze Tiger was on-hand to make sure she played nice when the team went up against Brimstone in their inaugural mission [Legends #3].

Deadshot's aim was true, successfully taking Brimstone down with the use of a specialized laser weapon. The next mission was also a success for Deadshot, who defeated Manticore in a deadly close-quarters battle [Suicide Squad #2].

There's no denying Deadshot is a master marksman, but not quite every shot is a bull's eye! His very presence with the Suicide Squad is a result of being captured by The Flash, who was too fast for Deadshot's draw [in Legends #1].

No hero has gotten under Lawton's skin quite as thoroughly as Batman! Their multiple run-ins include Deadshot's very first outing, when he posed as a masked vigilante to oust The Bat. He nearly pulled it off, but as in most of their clashes, it ended in Deadshot's defeat. His eventual comeback in Detective Comics #474 is one such example.

Enchantress doesn't have the hand-to-hand fighting prowess of Batman, nor his unique insights. She does, however, possess a broad spectrum of magic powers as a witch that should be able to deal with most guns and munitions.

Without specialist weaponry, Deadshot seems pretty out of his depth against Enchantress. His greatest strength lies in long-range sniping to get the drop on an unprepared Enchantress. That's how Bronze Tiger closed similar odds.

Enchantress was supposed to impersonate novelist Zoya Trigorin while the Squad extracted her from Russia, but with the mission thrown into chaos, she's completely off the leash. That bodes well for Deadshot, who can capitalize on her distraction. Will it work? Let's find out...

The Tape: Enchantress Ranking: Deadshot (#114)

What Went Down...
An explosion rings out from the Novogorod Psychiatric Hospital. The mission has gone bad. Real bad! The Suicide Squad regroups in the snow covered woods just outside, while The Enchantress delights at the opportunity for chaos!

With Russian troops rapidly closing-in; Colonel Rick Flag is forced to make an urgent decision about the witch flying overhead. With time running out, he turns to Deadshot with a non-lethal order to shoot.

Deadshot feigns concern that he may not be able to bring Enchantress down without accidentally killing her. Flag puts a gun to his head and warns him not to miss!

Unaware of the conspiring gunmen below; Enchantress is completely unprepared when she hears the sudden explosion of Deadshot's rifle!

The searing sting of the bullet follows in an instant. Struck in the head, The Enchantress plummets from the sky to the thick floor of snow below.

Flag orders Nightshade and Nemesis to collect the body. A dark smile creeps over Deadshot's face as he assures the Colonel his shot was made to order -- on target and non-lethal.

Enchantress is groggy when Nemesis lifts her from the snow by the shoulders. He demands to know her name, but she instinctively refuses! If spoken, it will return the wicked witch to the darkness -- restoring innocent June Moone.

So Nemesis tells her she's June Moone: a spy who will be shot on sight! The barely conscious witch denies this, too. With time running out he leans over her face and asks who she really is. At last she says it: "Enchantress!"

The Hammer...
This one may challenge your definition for a "fight", but the fact is: some conflicts end not with the throwing of fists, but with the firing of a single bullet! Such is the stock & trade of Deadshot!

As we build a bigger profile for Deadshot, it'll be interesting to see what his strike-rate as a marksman is really like. The reputation of killers in comics doesn't always match-up to results. Scroll down to the bottom of this post to see what today's win does for his overall fight rank!

Today we're here to track the movements of Enchantress, whose early tenure with the Suicide Squad provided one of the great sub-plots of the first couple of years. It loosely inspired elements of the 2016 movie, but as with most things in that adaptation, the source material was not well represented.

The premise is simple: The Suicide Squad are a band of convicted villains operating as a black-ops team to work-off their sentences. They're guided by trusted agents like Rick Flag and Bronze Tiger, but the criminal nature of most of the team means there's always an underlying tension of mistrust.

Enchantress is arguably the most openly hostile of the group, but she's tethered to the pleasant alter-ego of June Moone, who volunteered her services.

Moone initially has enough sway to keep the wicked witch in check, but every time Enchantress is summoned, her dark powers grow. The threat that she'll turn on the team is always there, but the trade-off is that her magic is one of the Squad's most powerful weapons, and sometimes can be directed.

Inevitably, this dangerous game means various members of The Squad are forced to take Enchantress down once her work is done.

We saw this in their inaugural mission, when Enchantress saved the team from being scorched by the flaming aftermath of Brimstone -- only to immediately turn on them! Bronze Tiger became the first teammate to shut her down.

Comics being what they are; there are different flavours to the various times Enchantress is thwarted. The next time we visit the theme it will probably seem vaguely comical, but each indignity is only building toward the inevitable.

The reader knows Enchantress' power and hostility is growing, and the tension that mounts is one of the great threads weaved into the tapestry of John Ostrander's early Suicide Squad!  It could've greatly enhanced the film had they taken it in the same direction, rather than abruptly making her the arch-villain of the first film. One of many mistakes.

If you're looking for more Suicide Squad, or follow-up entries, be sure to check out the Secret Archive. You'll easily find featured fights indexed by publisher, series, and issue! If you just want to read these issues in their entirety for yourself, you can support the site by using the Amazon link provided!

You can also follow Secret Wars on Infinite Earths on Facebook and Twitter to get daily links to fights inspired by the topics of the day! A like, share, or retweet is a much appreciated way to show support!

Additional Note: Assist stats will be recorded for Rick Flag for ordering the hit, as well as Nemesis & Nightshade, who helped ensure Enchantress switched back to June Moone. These details were important to securing Deadshot's triggerman victory.

Winner: Deadshot
#66 (+48) Deadshot
#846 (-314) Enchantress
#383 (--) Rick Flag [+1 assist]
#420 (+75) Nemesis (Tom Tresser) [+1 assist]
#527 (new) Nightshade (Eve Eden) [+1 assist]

BRONZE TIGER versus RAVAN

Trial By Fire (DC)
Where: Suicide Squad #2 When: June 1987
Why: John Ostrander How: Luke McDonnell

The Story So Far...
To the outside world: Belle Reve Federal Prison is just a hive for holding incarcerated scum and villainy. Within those walls reigns Task Force X Agent: Amanda Waller - taking her pick of the litter for an expendable covert ops group codenamed The Suicide Squad!

In their second field mission The Squad are headed to Northern Qurac. Their target: Jotunheim -- the cliff-side stronghold of an emerging terrorist organization known simply as The Jihad.

Task Force X has inside intel on the super-human terrorist group, who've been hired to commit an attack on the United States within the week. That means the know exactly who they're up against, and how to take them down! Now it's just a matter of wrangling their reluctant forces long enough to take them down!

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Draw 3 (Athlete)
Intelligence: Draw 4 (Tactician)
Speed: Draw 4 (Olympian)
Stamina: Draw 5 (Marathoner)
Agility: Draw 3 (Acrobat)
Fighting: Draw 5 (Martial Artist)
Energy: Draw 1 (None)
Total: Bronze Tiger 25 (Champion)

The Suicide Squad are headed to Northern Qurac for their second field mission against a terrorist organization known simply as The Jihad (later Onslaught). We've already seen Deadshot take on Manticore. Now Bronze Tiger has drawn a perfectly matched opponent as skilled in the deadly arts as he is!

Tiger was along for the Squad's first mission against Brimstone in Legends #3, but as we ultimately saw, his deadly hands were mainly present to keep Enchantress in check [also in Legends #3]. He was out of his league against a giant beast of Apokolips, but this time Benjamin Turner is in his element!

In his youth, Turner left the crime-ridden streets of Central City to seek the path of a master martial artist. In Japan, he studied under O-Sensei alongside fellow student Richard Dragon. They fought side-by-side as agents of GOOD and the CBI, until Turner was captured and brainwashed by The League of Assassins!

For a time Bronze Tiger became one of the world's most notorious assassins, famous for besting Batman! A rescue mission led by Rick Flag eventually brought him back to the side of angels. He volunteered for the Suicide Squad as penance, never certain that the programming he received is totally gone.

Ravan's path to murder was decidedly more willing. He's one of the last of the Thuggee: a real-life cult of Indian thieves and murderers known to insinuate themselves into the lives of travelers, gaining their trust in order to kill them. Experts on the subject estimate the sect to be responsible for somewhere between fifty thousand, to two million deaths over a span of 150 years.

With every murder, Ravan believes he delays the coming of the Kali Yuga for a thousand years -- an age of chaos wrought by the demon Kali. He applies his religion to a modern context, making assassination his trade. He's a highly skilled hand-to-hand martial artist, with a particular penchant for the garrote. A charming playboy who delights at the contest of a worthy opponent -- and boy has he found one!

The Tape rates our two fighters statistically evenly matched -- but I give the overall advantage to Bronze Tiger. His training seems to be a bit more diverse, more expert, and his reputation far exceeds that of Ravan. I'm also tipping my hand a little with knowledge of their subsequent encounters. What happened the first time Bronze Tiger fought Ravan? Let's find out!

The Tape: Draw Ranking: Bronze Tiger (#135)

What Went Down...
His fourth tier quarters are described as "part shrine to Kali, part playboy mansion." There, Ravan rests -- until his peace is interrupted by the sound of exterior gunfire against the facility. Jotunheim is under attack, but as the skilled Thuggee martial artist quickly realizes -- so is he!

The master combatants share honorable introductions as they square off, each admiring the obvious skill of the other. It isn't often either man meets an opponent they can consider a worthy challenge.

is it Bronze Tiger's shoulder or fist that collides with Ravan's jaw as the fight gets under way? It's hard to say. The two fighter's legs tangle. The second blow is decisive: Bronze Tiger's right arm raining down with a tomahawk-like chop!

Ravan throws his arm up - staggering the Bronze Tiger enough to cost him a vertical base! The Thuggee fighter swings his right leg, but Bronze Tiger leans down and blocks the head-high kick!

Their masterful moves have been a successive flow of strike and counter-strike. Devastating in their precision, and chess-like in the consequence of their commitment to the most efficient response. The conclusion is an inevitability already decided several moves in advance.

The blocked kick forces Ravan into a vulnerable open stance. Bronze Tiger wastes no opportunity capitalizing -- thrusting a kick into his opponent's spine!

Ravan drops to the floor. He knows in an instant that he's defeated. His back is broken. He cannot defend himself. With resignation, he accepts his fate: "Kill me". Bronze Tiger turns his back. Ravan will not die this day.

The man once programmed to kill by The League of Assassins should have no trouble executing his opponent, but to what end? He was ordered to neutralize Ravan. In this, he has succeeded. He has no memory of his past life as a killer, and sees no reason to incite it. To Ravan's fury - he leaves with his victory.

The Hammer...
A broken back is a pretty definitive way to defeat your opponent! Bronze Tiger is undeniable winner.

Ravan lives to fight another day, and indeed, vows to find the means to take his revenge. He swears so on Kali - so you know he means business! Comics being what they are, you can probably guess he'll eventually return. The rematch - to be visited at some stage in The Comic Book Fight Club's future!

For now, we dwell on the past. Not for any negative contrast, but to reassess the fine works of John Ostrander and Luke McDonnell.

I haven't always appreciated them the way I should, but I've found my fandom along the way.

We were a little scattershot when Secret Wars on Infinite Earths featured the Suicide Squad last August. That meant short shrift on the series itself, and to Bronze Tiger, in particular. Nice to be back to pick up the tab!

If I remember correctly, Suicide Squad #2 fell into my lap some time around 1989 or '90. I was young. Very young. Too young to be responsibly handed a comic book about international terrorism, and/or military suicide missions.

It came in a show bag with an issue of MAD Magazine and a novelty whoopee cushion. A mothers group's nightmare, I imagine, but such were the times. It hardly mattered. Celebrity caricatures and faux-flatulence were good for a few laughs, but the Suicide Squad was a tough sell to a young reader. If a parent had been aware enough to be concerned about the impact of the subject matter, they would've been relieved to know it was largely lost on a small child. There was plenty going on in the issue, but there were too many generic folk without exciting costumes. No competition for the four-colour laugh riot of the then contemporary Justice League, or so I thought at the time.

For the most part, super-powers always made side arms seem pretty lame to this young reader. Punisher and Nick Fury lacked the charm of their pulp era forebears, and guys like Rick Flag and Nemesis didn't even have the decency to wear a fancy bodysuit! Blokes in t-shirts and slacks weren't exactly cutting it in a world dominated by Spider-man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the like.

I don't mind saying that the reader was definitely the problem.

With wiser eyes, I've found the joy in Suicide Squad, and even the members of The Jihad that once seemed so plain. You'll note that the super-villain group was redubbed "The Onslaught" a decade or two later, when the meaning of their name became a more sensitive subject in The West.

As it turns out, Suicide Squad was the kind of comics I actually loved all along. If I'd only investigated beyond an initial childhood bias, I would've seen it was far more than a mere modern take on war and spy comics.

The series is and was a joyous melting pot of disparate concepts sourced from old comics, new comics, forgotten comics, and the real world of global culture, politics, and events. Heck. With more reading and awareness of the world, it turned out the war stories were pretty good, too! It's just nice that it has a kick of kung-fu heroes, Kirby Fourth World, and other super-hero mythology, too.
Most major characters weaved into the tapestry of Suicide Squad offer a thread of tangents explored over the course of the series. They provide a bank of natural stories that flow effortlessly around the missions, and DC crossover events that occur throughout. At times it seems as if Ostrander has more ideas than he can possibly find time for! Their simmering builds a lot of effective tension in the series, and makes every new story a well earned change of pace.

Bronze Tiger is a unique thread to the kung-fu comics of the '70s, and The League of Assassins, who are famous by association with Batman. Some time we'll take a closer look at Bronze Tiger's fight with Batman, which is frequently referenced in Suicide Squad to establish his credibility as a combatant.

Tiger's history isn't focused upon until much later in the run, but he adds a lot of spice to the mix as one of the team's few heroic figures.

Benjamin Turner is a man with conviction putting his troubled past behind him. A contrast to Rick Flag, who spends the early part of the series putting his troubled past in front of him. Their connection through backstory makes the Suicide Squad stronger.

Flag was the man who pulled Bronze Tiger out of The League of Assassins, and helped deprogram him with Amanda Waller. The retrieval mission was initiated because of Bronze Tiger's history with the Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI), and King Faraday. A rich tapestry of DC references that lend a strong sense of verisimilitude to the world of the Squad, and surrounding intelligence agencies.

It was fascinating to learn that Ravan is a character who appropriates a real life criminal concept. The Thuggee (said tug-gee) were apparently a genuine cult of bandits and murderers found in India. As noted in The Tale of The Tape [above], they're attributed by scholars with responsibility for somewhere between 50,000 and 2 million murders. A clan whose primary intent was to kill without remorse. A scary concept. Very effective in its context of comics!

Ravan eventually becomes a member of the Suicide Squad himself. I'm looking forward to examining more of those stories. His relationship with Bronze Tiger will remain antagonistic, but they establish a curious rapport around mutual respect. I mightn't have appreciated Ravan as a youngster, but his unique brand of suave assassin is a lot of fun as it develops!

For now, we update the rankings and press on! March is a month of martial arts mayhem inspired by the Netflix release of Iron Fist! The Marvel heroes have been taking over The Comic Book Fight Club, so I thought I'd take this last opportunity to show some DC love. We've got one more martial arts showdown to go, but as you'll soon see -- it comes from neither of the "Big Two".

Can't get enough Suicide Squad or Bronze Tiger? Ready to read the series for yourself? Use the Amazon purchase link provided [right] to get this battle and more in collected edition! Doing so helps support the site at no extra cost to you!

Use links littered throughout this entry to discover more exciting corners of the comic book universes! You can also dive into the Secret Archive Index to check out every previous feature fight referenced by publisher, series and issue! Or follow on Facebook and Twitter to get daily fight links inspired by current topics! A like and share make all the difference!

Winner: Bronze Tiger
#77 (+58) Bronze Tiger
#826 (new) Ravan