One of the great things about the Suicide Squad as a concept is that, baked into the very idea of the team, is the notion that there will be changes along the way.
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This was seen in Suicide Squad, the movie. If there’s a sequel (which doesn’t seem farfetched for a movie with a $175 million budget, which has now earned over $500 million globally), it will be without Enchantress, Slipknot, and possibly The Joker and Harley Quinn, all of whom were taken off the board in different ways throughout the film.
So who would we replace them with? Or who would we just plain like to see represented in the series?
Read on…
It feels good to be bad…Assemble a team of the world’s most dangerous, incarcerated Super Villains, provide them with the most powerful arsenal at the government’s disposal, and send them off on a mission to defeat an enigmatic, insuperable entity. U.S. intelligence officer Amanda Waller has determined only a secretly convened group of disparate, despicable individuals with next to nothing to lose will do. However, once they realize they weren’t picked to succeed but chosen for their patent culpability when they inevitably fail, will the Suicide Squad resolve to die trying, or decide it’s every man for himself?
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KING SHARK
This guy almost made it into the first movie, only to be replaced by Killer Croc.
He has made a couple of appearances on The Flash, so it’s not like we’re really hurting for a Killer Shark appearance on the big screen…but he’s a cool-looking character visually, and he could be someone who the first movie lacked: a disposable character who is at the same time memorable.
In the comics, the Suicide Squad has rarely shied away from living up to its deadly moniker. In the movie, the deaths we got were telegraphed a mile away and not particularly emotionally affecting. Killer Shark could be a great opportunity to have a cool, brutal, fun, gross character for a while and then either kill him off, or have him kill somebody else off if needed.
KNOCKOUT
Once the New Gods are introduced in Justice League, this onetime Suicide Squad member would be a great addition to the cast.
Originally she worked as an assassin and member of the Female Furies, but she later fled to Earth, only to meet Superboy and launch a long flirtation with him. It was never really clear whether they were friends or foes, or whether her flirtations with him were anything other than her attempts to play with his mind and have a little fun at his expense, but the relationship was fun, and it’s easy to see her having something similar with somebody on the Suicide Squad — maybe Flag, who would be unlikely to return her advances following the events of the first movie?
She’s also a powerhouse physically, and has ties to the Justice League’s biggest foe, so there’s that element as well.
SHRAPNEL
Again, we’ve seen a version of this character on TV — he was a mad bomber in an episode of Arrow — but where The Flash did King Shark justice, Shrapnel was really an entirely different character.
And nowhere near as cool.
While his look may be a little lackluster on the page — especially around this time, when Metallo looked very similar to this, it was hard to really get emotionally invested in somebody who looked like the bargain bin version of an already-overused villain — I think it would really pop onscreen, and the “flurry of razor-sharp metal” use of his power would be the kind of thing that would probably work really well on film.
Yeah, pretty much that’s it. I want to see him because I think actually SEEING him would be cool. Next.
MAJOR DISASTER
The big downside to using Major Disaster is that traditionally, his powers come from his tech, and so one would think he’s not a good fit for the Suicide Squad. After all, why not just outfit Rick Flag or somebody else who’s more ethically sound and emotionally stable to do the job?
But if you go too far down that logic hole, the whole concept of the Suicide Squad can fall apart. So I’m going to go with “No, let’s keep him. He has cool powers.”
TATTOOED MAN
There were a number of rumors — and even some set photos that seemed to back them up — that The Tattooed Man would appear in Suicide Squad.
A Green Lantern villain for the most part, there have been a number of characters with the Tattooed Man name, but it comes down to the same thing for each: somebody who has a whole lot of tattoos, and who can bring those tattoos to “life” to act as weapons for him.
It’s kind of a shame that he wasn’t in the movie, as I could see his particular power set (or Shrapnel’s for that matter) being both useful and visually interesting against Incubus in the movie’s final act.
MARK SHAW
In the late ’80s, DC not only had the Suicide Squad, but they also had titles for Manhunter and Checkmate. The together would occasionally team up in some composition or another, and since later in life the Mark Shaw version of Manhunter would turn out to have a hidden personality who was his own arch-nemesis, who then killed a bunch of other characters who were using or had used the “Manhunter” name.
He’s a weird, complex, damaged, violent character — just like basically everyone else in this movie — but he would also be a little different becuase in spite of all of that he perceives himself as the good guy.
NIGHTSHADE
Nightshade, another magical character but one that’s traditionally been shown as much less powerful and more on a superhero level, is an obvious choice to bring into the second film since it was eventually revealed that it was she and not Enchantress who was supposed to host the Succubus (Incubus’s sister).
That, and she played a major role in the Suicide Squad for most of its ’80s/’90s run.
BLUE DEVIL
I don’t remember if he ever had a time with the Suicide Squad, but it wouldn’t surprise me. A great, fun character with a complex and tortured backstory who also rose to prominence in the ’80s? The two seem like a match made in Heaven.
And honestly, it would be difficult to do justice to Blue Devil on TV. There have been hints that a version of the character exists in-universe on Arrow, but just look at him! He’s begging to have a stare down with Leto’s Joker.
And the fact that he’s a good guy who looks evil is a fun thing to play with in a team full of villains. He could particularly be a good counterpoint to Harley, who is evil but beautiful.
MAJOR FORCE
One of the big criticisms people have made about Amanda Waller’s Task Force X is that she immediately lost control of Enchantress, which more or less rendered her whole “who’s going to fight the next Superman?” argument moot.
The wildly-improbable events of the movie (that’s not a criticism, just an acknowledgment that she would be a terrible leader if she planned around that) notwithstanding, there’s nobody on this team that should be able to compete with a top-tier superhero. Major Force, though, could totally flip that script.
A Captain Atom villain and basically an evil version of the powerful superhero, Major Force would be a great addition to the cast because while you wouldn’t have the most powerful member going totally off the reservation and becoming evil like you did in the first movie, you would have a really powerful character who’s an unrepentant bastard. Combine that with a might-makes-right attitude, and his antagonistic relationship with the rest of the team could be a lot of fun to explore.
ORACLE
Probably the title’s longest-running contribution to the DC Universe aside from the Squad itself, Oracle was Barbara Gordon, having bounced back after being injured in The Killing Joke and turned into a badass super-spy who provided intel for the government, the Squad, and the superhero community.
And I so, SO want to see Oracle onscreen.
