Director James Gunn Confirms His Favorite Suicide Squad Run

The Suicide Squad writer-director James Gunn on Monday shared a photo of his Suicide Squad comic book collection and praised the works of writer John Ostrander.

“I have been an enormous fan of #SuicideSquad in all its @DCComics incarnations – but to me there will always be something special about the #JohnOstrander run,” Gunn wrote on Instagram. “Black ops military tales with disposable, often forgotten super villains?! Pure perfection. Photo of my own collection.”

Gunn previously hinted he would borrow inspiration from Ostrander’s Suicide Squad comic books when he posted the cover of Suicide Squad Vol 1 #2 to his Instagram story with the hashtag “#JohnOstrander.”

Early reports from March claimed Gunn’s lineup of costumed villains conscripted to serve Task Force X would include Ratcatcher, King Shark, Polka-Dot Man, Peacemaker, and the returning Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and Deadshot (Idris Elba, replacing Will Smith). It was later learned Elba would instead play a new character entirely.

Ostrander’s Suicide Squad works have been collected in Suicide Squad: Trial by Fire, Suicide Squad: The Nightshade Odyssey and Suicide Squad: Rogues.

In 1987’s Suicide Squad Vol 1 #1 — one of the books pictured in Gunn’s collection — shadowy government agent Amanda Waller recruits various jailed supervillains to combat a Quraci terrorist group known as Jihad.

The politically-driven story involved Deadshot, Bronze Tiger, Enchantress, Plastique, Mindboggler, Rick Flag, Captain Boomerang, and combat medic Karin Grace as part of the initial lineup.

“It’s called The Suicide Squad,” producer Peter Safran recently told ComicBook.com when explaining Gunn’s film moves away from writer-director David Ayer’s 2016 blockbuster Suicide Squad.

“It’s not Suicide Squad 2. It is not a sequel. I will leave that alone but, yes, it’s called The Suicide Squad.”

Warner Bros. is developing The Suicide Squad for August 6, 2021.

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