A day we never thought would come is here: The Suicide Squad is coming to the big screen, in an odd variation from DC’s overall plan. Everybody else getting a movie is some form of heavy-hitter; the Suicide Squad is… a bit different. So who’s going to be in it?
A Brief Overview
The Suicide Squad is a team of supervillains who go on high-risk, dangerous missions to reduce their sentences. It was originally conceived as an explanation for why supervillains get out of jail so quickly, and was unique for mainstream comics at the time: gritty, cynical, violent, and darkly funny. One assumes that will be the theme of their big screen movie.
Who’s Directing?
David Ayer, best known for Training Day, End of Watch, and Fury, out this week. So tough people on a morally ambivalent mission is kind of his thing, making him a good choice for the material.
Guaranteed Members
Without question, one of the main characters will be everybody’s favorite marksman, Deadshot. He’s really the central character of the book, aside from badass bureaucrat Amanda Waller, and has been for nearly thirty years. He’s also the only one guaranteed to survive.
Highly Likely
We’ll definitely see Deathstroke in some capacity or another. He might be the main bad guy, or he might be a member of the team, but DC’s been promoting him fairly heavily, even giving him a new comic book after his first go at the New 52 was canceled.
Beyond that, you’re likely going to see the only other member of the Suicide Squad to truly survive his time on the team, Captain Boomerang. Boomerang made it out because, well, he’s the Platonic ideal of a yellow-bellied backstabbing coward, a feature he will probably retain in the film.
Likely
Beyond that, well, the door’s open. There have been a lot of members of the Suicide Squad over the years, usually low-rent scrubs who die horribly, so DC can pretty much throw anybody at the wall to see who splats. That said, you can probably expect to see Count Vertigo, whose powers are well summed up by his name; Bronze Tiger, an expert martial artist; and probably at least a few random dead-meat characters. In fact, if somebody introduces themselves as somebody you can immediately spot as a lame-ass, expect them to become a smear before the end of the first act. Come on, DC, let’s see Bloodsport and Sidearm die!
Fans of the comics might note that I’m omitting one name in particular, Harley Quinn. It’s not out of the realm of possibility, I suppose; her current book inexplicably sells well and she’s a popular character. But by the same token, they just announced ten movies and Batman will only be important in three of them, and they’re not even doing another solo Batman movie until probably 2021. It would likely be just a little too complicated; “Here’s the Joker’s former psychologist who was also a gymnast he drove crazy and dyed white. No, we’re not showing you the Joker.”
No, if I had to lay down money, my gut tells me Harley will be getting her own movie in the near future. Suicide Squad is likely the test canary for putting out smaller, cheaper movies centered around characters that aren’t as well known, a strategy DC and Warner Bros. have acknowledged in the past. Either way, we’re just happy to see a great cult comic finally get its due.
