I'm on a Suicide mission. No, wait, that sounds way too dramatic. The truth is I'm holding a donut, checking e-mail and I work in comics. It's March 2011, and I'm in the opening stages of putting together a new SUICIDE SQUAD monthly series as part of The New 52. I've just hung up the phone with the series writer Adam Glass - his SQUAD pitch is fantastic. His two big guns: Deadshot (classic SQUAD character, no problem getting that approved), and ... Harley Quinn. Hmmm. It's an intriguing idea. Harley's a great character, she's a fresh face on the roster and she - as a Batman villain - brings star power to the team. Most important, Adam's got a take on the character that pushes her in a new direction. Trick is she's outside the SUICIDE SQUAD stable of characters. Unlike Deadshot, Harley's under the BATMAN umbrella. I gotta work this through with BATMAN Group Editor Mike Marts. Mike's crazy busy prepping all (!) the Bat books that launched as part of The New 52, but he makes the time. We talk it through and he digs it. Greenlit. We're rolling. Plots get approved, scripts get written, and we're almost ready to start drawing. The last piece of the puzzle comes in the form of an e-mail attachment: DC Co-Publisher and guy-who-is-crazy-good-with-a-pencil Jim Lee steps in with a new look for Harley. With all character designs in place, pages for the series begin pouring in. That launched SUICIDE SQUAD #1 and it's all been building up to SUICIDE SQUAD #6 and #7: The Hunt for Harley Quinn. Harley searching for the missing (dead?) Joker, her new origin revealed, the Squad relentlessly chasing their AWOL member through Gotham City ... by story's end, dirty secrets are exposed, characters die, and we make the team rue the day the Squad writer requested Harley for the team. Place your bets: SUICIDE SQUAD #6 & 7, Harley Quinn vs. the Suicide Squad! - Pat McCallum Pat McCallum is the editor on SUICIDE SQUAD and a bunch of other stuff. He enjoys donuts.