Suicide Squad

About

Suicide Squad, officially known in-universe as Task Force X, is a team of DC Comics antiheroes consisting of various incarcerated supervillains who are forced to run difficult black ops missions for the United States government in exchange for leniency.

History

In September 1959, the original iteration of the Suicide Squad was introduced in DC Comics The Brave and the Bold #25, consisting of the characters Rick Flag, Jr., Karin Grace, Dr. Hugh Evans and Jess Bright. This original incarnation did not consist of supervillains and bore little resemblance to modern iterations besides the character of Rick Flag, who would continue acting as a field leader in later editions.

The team was revived in 1986 in the DC Comics crossover story Legends to destroy the fire elemental Brimstone and was depicted as a secret government organization run by one Amanda Waller, employing incarcerated criminals to perform high-risk operations in exchange for reduced sentences and with the threat of execution in the event of failure via bombs implanted inside their bodies. This would remain the formula for all subsequent versions of the team.

Major recurring members of the team in its various incarnations include Captain Boomerang, Deadshot, Bronze Tiger, Count Vertigo, King Shark and Harley Quinn, among a revolving door of numerous others, many of whom are quickly killed off.

On July 25th, 2014, the Suicide Squad was featured in the DC animated film Batman: Assault on Arkham (shown below).

2016 Film

In September 2014, director David Ayer signed on to direct a Suicide Squad film for Warner Bros. As of May 2015, the film's cast consists of the characters Deadshot (played by Will Smith), The Joker (played by Jared Leto), Harley Quinn (played by Margot Robbie), Rick Flag (played by Joel Kinnaman), Captain Boomerang (played by Jai Courtney), Enchantress (played by Cara Delevingne), Amanda Waller (played by Viola Davis), Killer Croc (played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), Slipknot (played by Adam Beach), Katana (played by Karen Fukuhara) and El Diablo (played by Jay Hernandez). On May 3rd, Ayer tweeted a photograph of the Suicide Squad cast (shown below).

Reception

Suicide Squad has received middling-negative reviews ahead of its August 5th, 2016 release date. Critics bemoaned the overstuffed cast and fact that though the film depicted a villainous, anarchic group of characters, it stayed mostly true to tired superhero tropes.^[8][9][10] On Metacritic,^[5] the film has scored a 44/100 based on 35 reviews, and on Rotten Tomatoes,^[6] the film scored 33/100. The latter score prompted DC Comics fans to start a Change.org^[7] petition to shut down Rotten Tomatoes because of the way the site "Affects people’s opinion even if it’s a really great movies (sic).” As of August 3rd, 2016, the petition has 13,360 signatures.

2021 Film

A sequel to the Suicide Squad film was tentatively planned since before the first one's release and went through many changes in plans, much like other projects in the DC cinematic universe, but the project was solidified in 2018 when Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn was hired to direct it after being fired from Marvel (to which he would later be rehired, only for the third Guardians film to be delayed by multiple years due to Gunn's commitment to DC's project); this was a notable development, as the first Suicide Squad film was perceived as poorly attempting to emulate the humor and charm of the first Guardians film.

The film entitled The Suicide Squad, was released in August of 2021 and is considered a standalone sequel, taking place within the same continuity as the first but not continuing any of its specific plot threads nor explicitly mentioning its events. The only returning cast members are Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn), Viola Davis (Amanda Waller), Joel Kinnaman (Rick Flag) and Jai Courtney (Captain Boomerang), while new characters include Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), King Shark (Sylvester Stallone), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior) and Polka Dot Man (David Dastmalchian) among many others, most of whom die at the very beginning of the movie.

Unlike its predecessor, The Suicide Squad was met with excellent critical reception, but was a box office bomb. A spinoff miniseries centered around the Peacemaker character will be released in January of 2022.

Online Presence

On March 6th, 2012, a Facebook^[1] page titled "Suicide Squad" was launched, gathering more than 60,000 likes in the next three years. On July 21st, 2014, the WatchMojo.com YouTube channel uploaded a video explaining the origins of the Suicide Squad team. On December 4th, the Screen Junkies YouTube channel uploaded video in which several men discuss the Suicide Squad (shown below, right).

On April 10th, the /r/suicidesquad^[4] subreddit was launched for discussions about the comic book team. On May 3rd, a thread discussing the Suicide Squad was posted on the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[2] subreddit.

Jared Leto's Joker Photograph

On April 13th, 2015, principal photography for the upcoming 2016 superhero film Suicide Squad, which is based on DC Comics’ anti-hero team with the same name, began in Toronto, Canada. On April 24th, the director David Ayer tweeted an official promotional photograph of actor Jared Leto dressed as the Joker in the film (shown below, left). Within 72 hours, the tweet gathered upwards of 40,000 retweets and 33,000 favorites. The photograph was posted to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Joker’s first appearance in the 1940 comic book Batman #1, with Leto’s manic facial expression alluding to a panel in the 1988 Batman graphic novel The Killing Joke (shown below, right). The photograph subsequently spawned a photoshop meme.

King Shark

The character of King Shark as portrayed by Sylvester Stallone in the 2021 film quickly became its most popular new character in the realm of memes due to his endearing, childish personality, which drew many comparisons to Guardians of the Galaxy character Groot.

Search Interest

External References