WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Suicide Squad #2, by Robbie Thompson, Eduardo Pansica, Julio Ferreira, Marcelo Maiolo and Wes Abbott, on sale now.
The Suicide Squad hasn't been wasting any time as the DC Universe kicks off its Infinite Frontier era. With Amanda Waller continuing to assert her control and planning to extend her mission directives across the reborn multiverse, Task Force X has gone on a deadly recruitment drive to acquire key personnel for Waller's more ambitious plans. And after a mission in Arkham Asylum that incurred severe casualties on the current iteration of the Suicide Squad, Waller's next target is under the care of a major superhero institution: The Teen Titans Academy.
After forcibly recruiting Superboy onto her team and having her team recruit an imprisoned William Cobb from Arkham, Waller is having to deal with a diminished team after the losses Task Force X endured, including both of its teleporters. As the team's resident muscle Culebra asks Waller in private what the squad's next move is, the government official observes that the team is in dire need of its own speedster. With that in mind, Waller's display shows Alinta, a speedster superhero from Australia currently training on Titans Island under the supervision of the classic Titans.
With both the team's teleporters dead and gone in the Arkham mission, Task Force X will likely be forced to resort to a far more complicated extraction mission into Teen Titans Academy rather than a simple infiltration and exfiltration through a convenient portal. This planned extraction also comes at a time when the senior Titans are a bit on edge and potentially looking for trouble within their own ranks as Nightwing is troubled by an unknown figure taunting him over his past using the Red X persona. With tensions building, the Suicide Squad is potentially going into a facility with the original Boy Wonder already on high alert as they seek to kidnap a speedster, which is already a risky proposition.
Future State hinted that Waller wanted to create her own team that would masquerade as the Justice League on parallel worlds to further her agenda. Alinta is intended to become this team's version of the Flash, as she uses the superhero moniker Bolt. While it's unclear how much of Alinta's Future State depiction lines up with Infinite Frontier's, Bolt had confessed to wanting to redeem herself as a superhero after initially taking on a life of crime due to her dysfunctional family. The Infinite Frontier Alinta doesn't appear to be as personally conflicted but, as a recent recruit, this may come to the forefront as she continues to train to become a superhero.
Waller is steadily progressing towards the fruition of her Future State ambitions, with Cobb and Conner Kent now in her employ, and the next big step is forcibly recruiting Alinta. She is determined to acquire all the members necessary to form her multiversal team, even at the cost of any and all of her other Suicide Squad members.
The Suicide Squad narrowly survived a disastrous mission in Arkham Asylum -- and many of the team didn't survive -- and after spending some time up close and personal with the DCU's most murderous supervillains, Task Force X is about to dive headfirst into an entire academy of aspiring superheroes.
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