It’s the second half of Gail Simone’s high-octane, fan-favorite epic as a team of antiheroes take on the most dangerous missions in the DC Universe!
Writer Gail Simone and artist Nicola Scott revitalized the long-dormant Secret Six concept in 2008, bringing together an unexpected group of characters including Catman, Deadshot, Scandal Savage, Rag Doll, and Bane. This team took on high-stakes missions across the DC Universe, as the series added depth and intrigue to these villains and turned them into fan favorites.
With the first half of her run collected in 2024’s Secret Six by Gail Simone Omnibus Vol. 1, fans can now own the complete story with this second, must-read volume! This omnibus includes both the remainder of Simone’s original Secret Six run, and the revival that debuted in late 2014, which introduced a nearly completely new lineup, consisting of Catman, Strix, Black Alice, Porcelain, Big Shot, and the Ventriloquist.
This volume collects Secret Six (vol. 3) #17-36, Secret Six (vol. 4) #1-14, Action Comics #896, Doom Patrol (vol. 5) #19, Suicide Squad #67, a story from Convergence: Wonder Woman #2, and pages from Action Comics #895.
Gail Simone is a comic book writer well-known for her work on Birds of Prey (DC), Wonder Woman (DC), and Deadpool (Marvel), among others, and has also written humorous and critical commentary on comics and the comics industry such as the original "Women in Refrigerators" website and a regular column called "You'll All Be Sorry".
It's great to have the back-half of Simone's Secret Six run, even though it's not quite as good as the first.
The highlight is the Darkest House, which is the terrific conclusion to the whole get-out-of-Hell-free arc from the first volume. It nicely dovetails a variety of long-running storylines, setting the book up for its finale.
The downsides of this volume? Well, they're not Simone's fault, because it's all about crossovers & editorial mandates.
Simone says that she loves crossovers, but the Black Ring crossover is just barely comprehensible. The Doom Patrol crossover is slightly better, but put that together with Black Ring and you have a pretty big interruption of the main storyline.
As for the Nu52 version of the Secret Six? I haven't landed on whether I'm happy to have all of Simone's work in one (two) volume, or if I would have preferred it be left out entirely. It's not just that it's not that good, it's that it's poor usage of the original Secret Six characters lessens the impact of the first series. Catman seems almost a different characters. And Scandal, Jeanette, and Ragdoll have almost no characterization. And some of Black Alice's backstory seems to have been rebooted for no good reason.
(That's pretty much the Nu52 in a nutshell: it was crap reboots for no good reason.)
As for the new characters? They're come and gone too quickly to really care about them.
Anyway, I think on a reread I might skip the Black Ring, Doom Patrol, and Nu52 sequences entirely, which is a shame, because that's about a third of the book. But what's left would be closer to the standards of the original volume.
People will discuss the wild audacity, the tremendous character development, the depravity, and how only the greatest comic book author of our time could make this somehow come together.
All of that is true but I want to focus on something else: she is the funniest writer around. A character is asked why they are in hell and he confesses to adultery and mass murder. His third reason: I also lied about my commitment to recycling.
This omnibus is filled with the most hilarious lines in the midst of the wildest stories on the planet.
This book reprints the last third or so of Simone's original Secret Six run, plus the complete New 52 incarnation of the team. And they're both just so much fun. Smart and funny and sexy and fun. Great stuff all around.