James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad Casts Ant-Man Actor David Dastmalchain as Polka-Dot Man

James Gunn keeps having fun jumping the fence between DC and Marvel, in preparation for both DC’s The Suicide Squad and his return to Marvel Studios for Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3. The latest universal crossover comes in the form of Ant-Man / Ant-Man and the Wasp actor David Dastmalchian being cast in The Suicide Squad.

According to a new report, Dastmalchian has been cast in The Suicide Squad as Polka-Dot Man, an obscure DC Comics villain. Polka-Dot Man’s powers are as ridiculous as his character: he wears a suit covered in spots that he can peel off and use for a variety of purposes, like attack, escape, and transformation of objects into weapons, etc.

Polka-Dot Man is just one of the obscure DC Comics characters that Gunn is bringing into the spotlight for The Suicide Squad; other characters include the likes of of Peacemaker, Rat-Catcher, and King Shark – and THR‘s breakdown of the latest casting also provides some more detailed clues about how these characters are being factored into the DC movie universe:

“Plot details are being kept secret but the new characters include DC villains such as Ratcatcher (she controls rats), Peacemaker (he loves peace so much he will kill for it), King Shark (would you believe us if we told you it’s a humanoid shark?) and last but certainly not least, Polka-Dot Man… Gunn has shown an affinity for pretty obscure comic characters — this one has appeared less than a dozen times since his creation — and the character is said to lean into his embarrassment of his “lame” abilities.”

So far, Gunn’s approach seems to be using these obscure DC Comics villains as sort of blank slates to build on – slates that few fans would care about Gunn cracking in half. In a recent Instagram post, Gunn himself indicated that a lot of these obscure villain characters are being propped up as “red shirts” – i.e., characters whose sole purpose is to serve as bodies to be killed off. As Gunn puts it:

“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. Black ops military tales with disposable, often forgotten super villains?! Pure perfection. Photo of my own collection. ❤️ #TheSuicideSquad”

The DC Movie Universe continues with Shazam now in theaters, Joker on October 4th, Birds of Prey on February 7th, 2020, Wonder Woman 1984 on June 5th, 2020, and The Batman on June 25th, 2021.

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