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Warning! The following contains SPOILERS for The Suicide Squad. Proceed with caution!
James Gunn promised in The Suicide Squad that DC villains would die, and credit to him, he fulfilled that promise in a major way. The movie was a wonderful bloodbath of carnage, to the point it was impossible to know who would be alive or dead at the end. This resulted in me forming some personal attachments with characters several times, only to be let down by their sudden, violent deaths.
On one hand, it was brilliant because I was shocked every time. On the other, I'm pretty sad some DC villains I got to know won't appear in any speculative sequels. Of course, there's likely a way in the lore for DC to reverse the fortune of these key characters, I'd be thrilled. Anyways, here are the folks I'm sad bit the dust in The Suicide Squad.
Captain Boomerang
Only a few cast members from Suicide Squad made it back for The Suicide Squad, and full disclosure, I expected most, if not all of them to live. In the end we lost both Joel Kinnaman's Rick Flag and Jai Courtney's Captain Boomerang, but I'm way more upset about one than the other. Boomerang was done dirty with his brutal death on the beach, though I'll admit I loved that shot of his arm still holding the glowing boomerang.
Jai Courtney was one of the few high points of Suicide Squad for me, but the rest of the movie was not up to par. I'd hoped we'd get more of a chance to see Courtney go to work as Captain Boomerang, but his screen time was over as quickly as T.D.K.'s plan to detach his arms and slap soldiers. Seriously, what did The Detachable Kid think was going to happen after that?
The Thinker
The Thinker was one of the keys to The Suicide Squad's main mission and was mainly responsible for the progress the Corto Malteaseans (and U.S. government) had made with Project Starfish. Thinker surprisingly didn't meet his end by anyone in Task Force X, but didn't last long once Starro escaped. The space starfish had a real bone to pick with the genius villain for years of torture and torment, and ripped Thinker apart as soon as it got the chance.
I'm a big Doctor Who fan, so I was thrilled to see Peter Capaldi in The Suicide Squad in a prominent role. I was also heartbroken to see him gone so soon because I legitimately believed there was so much more we could've gotten from the character in future adventures. Hopefully, this version of The Thinker was smart enough to have a contingency plan for death, and there's a clone or backup of his mind on a hard drive somewhere that could one day return in another project.
Polka-Dot Man
Leave it to James Gunn to take one of DC's lamest villains of all time and turn them into one of the most entertaining characters in The Suicide Squad. Abner Krill's story of being forcefully injected with an inter-dimensional virus by his mother and watching his siblings endure similar torture (some of whom died) was tragic. It made me care about Polka-Dot Man, which is pretty impressive because he didn't compromise the character all that much to do so.
Polka-Dot Man isn't any less lame in The Suicide Squad, but the fact that they lean into it makes him so much more likable. He's not just the dude that throws polka dots, he's the guy haunted by the vision of his mother who hopes to die and end his tortured existence. Of course, just when it seems like he reached some measure of happiness in the entire movie, he's crushed by Starro. As on brand as that was for the character, I was upset to see him leave the DCEU for what could be forever.
Blackguard
I know Pete Davidson is a person most people are hot or cold on, and I think the fact that I have his character in this list shows exactly where I stand. I was entirely ready to see Blackguard be a total treacherous piece of shit for the entire length of The Suicide Squad, but sadly, it wasn't in the cards. Blackguard didn't expect to be so expendable and promptly got his face blown off in about the grossest way possible.
I've definitely wrestled with Blackguard's death the most out of all the others in The Suicide Squad. Was Pete Davidson's performance so good because we only got a few brief scenes before he was killed off? I still don't know where I stand on that, but I do know I'd be willing to see Davidson return as another DC villain just to see if it was a fluke or not. Who knows, maybe he'll shock the haters and become the next major face of a superhero franchise. C'mon, decision-makers in Hollywood reading this, what's the harm in giving Davidson a multimillion-dollar franchise to lead?
Mongal
When I learned that The Suicide Squad was going to bring in Mongal, the daughter of Mongul, I got excited. Granted, I only knew stuff about Mongul and not either of his children, but given the number of throwdowns he's had with prominent DC superheroes, I figured his daughter would be every bit as fearsome and formidable. As we saw, that was not the case at all, and she went down after foolishly grabbing a helicopter and forcing it to the ground.
Granted, that scene was hilarious. Plus, the possibility of Mongal being alive on Earth left open the possibility of Mongul coming to Earth in an attempt to bring his child home. Granted, I'm not sure if he'd do that or if he'd even mourn her crispy helicopter death. What I do know is that I wanted to see more of Mongal kicking ass, and maybe the awful helicopter death could've happened to Weasel instead.
The Suicide Squad is currently available to stream on HBO Max (which you can subscribe to with this link), and watch in theaters. James Gunn's first foray into the DCEU was a blast, and it doesn't appear as though it will be his last. Stay tuned for more updates on that front.
