The Suicide Squad Plot Includes Secret Nazi Experiments

If John Cena’s Peacemaker is “douchebag Captain America,” as he has been called more than once since it was announced he would come to the big screen in James Gunn‘s The Suicide Squad, maybe it’s no surprise that there will be some Nazi experiments that play into the film’s plot. Warner Bros. executive Peter Safran confirmed as much — and it’s a DC Comics Easter egg that should raise some questions about the story that it will be a part of. In the movie, the team heads to Corto Maltese, where they apparently have to recover something from a former German prison.

Its name? Jotunheim. In the comics, that base is in Qurac, a fictional Middle Eastern country used as a stand-in for unfriendly regimes. In the movie, it will be part of Corto Maltese, a South American locale that has been name-dropped in everything from the Batman movie to Arrow and Smallville.

“There they have to destroy a Nazi-era prison and laboratory named Jotunheim, explains Safran, “where political prisoners were held and experimentations took place.”

If you remember the DC FanDome posters for The Suicide Squad, which were an homage to imagery from Suicide Squad #1 from the ’80s, you’ll likely be interested to learn that Jotunheim is the fortress that the Squad stormed in that issue. That means those posters likely gave fans their first look at Jotunheim itself.

Given Qurac’s traditional role as one of the DC Universe’s big sources of criminals and terrorists, it’s worth asking whether its traditional neighbor, Black Adam’s kingdom of Kahndaq, might have some kind of tie to the plot, too.

After The Suicide Squad, Cena will headline his own Peacemaker series at HBO Max. Joining Cena in The Suicide Squad is a star-studded cast including Sean Gunn as Weasel, Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flagg, and Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang Idris Elba as Bloodsport, David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man, Steve Agee as John Economos and King Shark (on-set reference), Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher 2, John Cena as Peacemaker, Michael Rooker as Savant, Flula Borg as Javelin, Peter Capaldi as Thinker, Nathan Fillion as Tok, Mayling Ng as Mongal, Pete Davidson as Blackguard, Joaquin Cosio as General Mateo Suarez, Juan Diego Botto as Luna, Storm Reid as Tyla, Alice Braga as Sol Soria, Jennifer Holland as Emilia Harcourt, and Taika Waititi in an unknown role.

The Suicide Squad is set for release on August 6, 2021.

h/t Empire magazine, on sale now.