Suicide Squad

This article covers a number of comic series; for the theatrical version of the same name, see Suicide Squad (film) .

Suicide Squad (Eng. "Suicide Command", free " Ascension Command ") is the title of a series of comic series published by the US publisher DC Comics since 1987.

The series, which is a mixture of action and agent stories with some science fiction elements, is about the experiences of a secret government organization, which is recruited from prisoners with extraordinary skills, who are promised impunity in exchange for participating in risky intelligence operations. The name Suicide Squad - which was only used as the title of the booklet, while the group always only calls itself Task Force X in the action inside the booklet - on the booklet cover indicates the high probability of not returning alive from one of these operations.

The main models for Suicide Squad are the movie The Dirty Dozen and the TV series Mission: Impossible .

Series under the title "Suicide Squad"

The first series, called Suicide Squad , started in May 1987. It appeared on a monthly basis until June 1992 and reached a total of 66 issues. There was also a so-called Annual , which was published in 1988, and the special edition Doom Patrol and Suicide Squad Special # 1, which was also published in 1988. The entire series was written by writers John Ostrander and Kim Yale . The visual design of the notebooks was done by changing artists, namely the draftsmen Geoff Isherwood, Luke McDonnel, John K. Snyder III. and Grant Miehm as well as the ink artist Karl Kesel . The publication of the series in a German translation did not materialize, contrary to the announcement by Norbert Hethke Verlag that it wanted to transfer Suicide Squad under the title Strafbataillon in a corresponding transmission.

From November 2001 to October 2002 a second series appeared under the title Suicide Squad . This series, which reached only twelve editions before it had to be discontinued, was written by the author Keith Giffen and graphically set in the picture by the illustrator Paco Medina .

Between November 2007 and June 2008, DC Comics released an eight-issue mini-series about the Suicide Squad. This is also differently called Suicide Squad. Raise the Flag became known. John Ostrander returned as a writer, who completed some of the remaining storylines from the original series. Javier Pina took care of the drawings .

A fourth "Suicide Squad" series was released from September 2011 to July 2014 and reached 30 issues. This series was written by Adam Glass . The drawings were copied from Federigo Dalocchio and Ransom Getty .

A fifth Suicide Squad series ( New Suicide Squad ) that continues to this day was launched in July 2014 and continues to this day. This is supervised by the author Sean Ryan and the illustrator Jeremy Roberts .

In addition, stories about a previous version of the Suicide Squad appeared a good twenty years before the start of the first own series under this title in the 1960s as backup stories in some editions of the anthology series The Brave and the Bold . The author of these stories was the science fiction writer Robert Kanigher , while the drawings were taken care of by the artist Ross Andru . The first of these stories appeared in The Brave and the Bold # 25. A total of six stories appeared in Issues # 25-27 and 37-39.

Other Suicide Squad stories have appeared in individual issues of series such as Legends (# 3–5; 1986), Superboy (# 13; 1995), Checkmate , 52 or Chase (# 2 and # 3; 1998). In most of these booklets, members of the squad appear as guest stars and experience shared adventures with the title characters of the respective series.

Plot of the "Suicide Squad" stories in The Brave and the Bold

The Suicide Squad stories that appeared in The Brave and the Bold told of a quartet of secret agents who go on adventures around the world. The team consists of officer Rick Flag Jr., his girlfriend Karin Grace, doctor Dr. Hugh Evans and her sidekick Jess Bright.

The stories in this series - known as the "Silver Age" version of Suicide Squad - are very science-fiction and fantasy-heavy. So they describe adventures in which the squad members encounter dinosaurs , giants and monsters.

In the final adventure of this Suicide Squad in The Brave and the Bold # 39, Dr. Evans killed on a mission while Bright is captured and brainwashed by Soviet forces that emerges as the bestial Koshchei. Grace - who is secretly pregnant - and Flag, who escape, end their relationship at the end of the story.

In 1988 the story of this "first" Suicide Squad was deepened in the booklet Secret Origins # 14 and linked to the history of the modern Squad: It is shown how he was after his last mission for the old Suicide Squad (consisting of adventurers without superpowers) is recruited as a team leader for the new squad (consisting mostly of super creatures). In addition, it is revealed in this issue that the task force of the so-called Suicide Squadron , whose adventure played during the Second World War Robert Kanigher, the inventor of the "Silver Age" squad, in the 1970s in the series "The War that Time Forgot" in the series Star-Spangled War Stories had told, was the predecessor of the modern Suicide Squad within the fictional world of the DC universe: This team had - like the modern Squad and unlike the "Silver Age" Squad - made up of criminals (specifically criminal members of the US Army), who were considered expendable, so that the leadership could send them on ascension missions with a clear conscience. As you can see in this issue, the head of this team was Flag's father, Rick Flag Sr.

In the 2004 miniseries DC New Frontier , a non-canonical reinterpretation of the "Silver Age" version of the Squad was presented: Here the team around Flag appears as a group of budding space travelers during the presidency of John F. Kennedy , who during a Test flight with which she prepares for a trip to Mars, dies.

Plot from the 1st "Suicide Squad" series (1987–1992)

The modern reinterpretation of the "Suicide Squad" fabric was first introduced in 1986 in the Legends miniseries . It describes how the US government in order to get an effective tool to avert threats to security and national interests of the US - especially those emanating from beings with superpowers - and its dependence on the (conceivably ephemeral ) To reduce the benevolence of superheroes like Superman , commissioned the creation of a task force of meta-beings (i.e., beings with superpowers).

The opaque and assertive secret service official Amanda Waller is entrusted with the administrative management and supervision of this company. Waller, who - as it later turns out - was the one who had given the government the idea of ​​establishing such a team and thus brought about the task it was given, decided to set up the new unit, officially known as 'Task Force X' ("Einsatzkommando X") is used to recruit from prisoners with superpowers: These are in exchange for the fact that they are committed to individual dangerous commandos or - this is the case with the majority of the team members - over a longer period of time on various missions To participate in such a manner, make an offer to have their sentences waived. Prisoners who respond to this will be transferred to the Belle Reve prison, behind the facade of which the headquarters of the new Black Ops unit is hidden. Due to the dangerous nature of the missions that are assigned to the task force and the high probability of being left behind, the team members and their clients ironically refer to them as the "Suicide Squad".

The existence of Task Force X is a government secret within the fictional world in which their stories are set, so the group always acts in secret.

Intradiegetically, DC-Verlag has also used the "Suicide Squad" concept as a means to explain why the adversaries of various superhero characters in its publishing program (such as Batman, Green Arrow, Flash and Black Canary) almost stand out always shortly after one of their defeats against the superhero to whom they are assigned as an opponent figure, and the arrest and transfer to a prison or (especially in the case of Batman opponents) a mental hospital of the DC Universe (such as the Arkham Asylum ) are now on the loose and make the superhero in question again a hard time. The pattern of action that has become known as the " revolving door " effect and continues in an endless loop, that the villainous antagonists of the DC heroes usually only stay locked up for a short time only to haunt their heroic counterparts again soon, is explained by the fact that they were shortly after their imprisonment for the squad are recruited and thus get out of custody, in order to then turn to their personal criminal private projects again after one or more missions with the squad and their release from it - or while they are still in it, between two missions - and so on again come into conflict with their old superhero Nemesissos.

While the majority of the squad consists of professional criminals and sociopaths with questionable personality traits, some upright characters with integrity are added to the squad as supervisors: For example, career officer Rick Flag Jr. (the same Rick Flag who is at the center of the "Suicide Squad" stories , which had appeared in The Brave and the Bold in 1959/1960 ), who functions in most of the issues of the series as the command leader of the squad on their missions, the secret agent Nemesis (alias Tom Tresser) and the purified assassin Bronze Tiger . As director, Waller gives the team his orders (or submits the orders to the government) and is in charge of this, but hardly ever takes part in the team's missions.

The squad's operations are mostly directed against hostile states, criminal syndicates or terrorist groups. To keep the criminal members under control during their missions, to ensure their obedience to the instructions of Waller and Flag and to prevent "desertion" from the service of the squad, most of them wear explosive collars that explode and the carrier kill if he tries to remove them by force or if they are activated remotely from the squad's command center in Belle Reeve (e.g. if Waller and her staff, who monitor most operations by radio and radar location, discover that the concerned team member tried to "tear out").

Tribe members of the Squad, who appear in almost all of the series' stories, include Rick Flag, Bronze Tiger and Nemesis hit man (an adversary of Batman ), the thief Captain Boomerang (a villain of the superhero The Flash ) and the overthrown Eastern European prince and Thief Count Vertigo (an adversary of the archer superhero Green Arrow ).

In a larger number of stories, the Squad also includes eco-terrorist Poison Ivy (Batman adversary), corrupt scientist Dr. Light (Green Lantern villain), the seductive enchantress, the over-the-top thief couple Punch and Jubilee, the transformational Shade, the tactically gifted Thinker, the former model Vixen and the ethereal superhero Nightshade.

For a long time puzzling - both for the protagonists of the series and for the readers - is the identity of the amnesiac team member Duchess , a criminal who belonged to the squad during the first three years of the series and has no memory of her life until shortly knows before their recruitment into the squad. Finally, it turns out that she is an alien named Lashina, who comes from the planet Apokolips, which is ruled by the dictator Darkseid. After Lashina - a member of Darkseid's bodyguard, the so-called Female Furies - regained her memory, she returns to her home planet - which represents a mixture of Christian ideas of hell and a future world covered with soulless futuristic high technology in which nature has died - back. On this occasion, several members of the squad are attacked. The following stories describe how they must find a way to return to earth.

The team of active squad members is complemented by the IT specialist Barbara Gordon, who provides Task Force X under the code name "Oracle" with the information it needs for its operations and for which she is responsible as a professional hacker and researcher , provided. Gordon, who used to work as a superhero herself under the alias Batgirl , has been physically disabled and has to use a wheelchair since a confrontation with the insane criminal Joker, who shot her through the spine. Naturally, she does not take part in the squad's missions. Unlike Waller and the rest of the squad's support team, she doesn't stay in the squad's secret headquarters in Belle Reve, but has her own headquarters in Gotham City, from which she manages the actual squad and Waller's support team the preparation of the team's operations and while they are in progress, the required information is supplied through constant radio contact and digital data transmission.

In contrast to the original Suicide Squad from 1959/1960 - which was made up of extremely positive, heroic characters - the team in the 1987 series is, with a few exceptions, a group of antiheroes . The cohesion of the group is naturally extremely low, due to the orientation of its lonely, anti-social to psychopathically inclined members, largely determined by their respective ego interests, so that the (dysfunctional) group dynamics are caused by constant tension, by mutual aversions of certain team members to each other and is even marked by specific personal enmities. During the task force's operations, this often means that the success of the mission is jeopardized and occasionally causes unnecessary losses for the team.

What was untypical for the time of their publication was that author John Ostrander actually let a large number of members of the team whose adventures he was describing "die" within the stories he told and even let characters from the circle of the closer main characters perish, according to the team's leader, Rick Flag, at the end of the second year of the series.

Overview of the individual storylines in the series

The first adventure of the Squad (consisting of Flag, Bronze Tiger , Captain Boomerang, Enchantress, Deadshot and the super powerful Colossus Blockbuster), told as one of several storylines in the miniseries Legends (author. John Byrne ), describes how Waller describes the Task force on the alien monster Brimstone (a giant, fire-breathing creature based on the lizard Godzilla from the Japanese film series of the same name, which is sent to earth by the alien ruler Darkseid to devastate it in order to prepare for an invasion of the planet by Darkseid's armies ) is beginning to cover the rural areas of the United States with a trail of destruction. In the end, the Squad succeeds in destroying Brimstone, but team member Blockbuster is killed.

The first storyline of the regular series ("Baptism of Fire"), which reflects the events of that time (1987) of the ongoing Middle East conflict (especially the 1st Intifada ), depicts the squad's hunt for a terrorist group called Jihad (the sometimes referred to as Onslaught). The squad succeeds in infiltrating the group's headquarters (the fortress Jotunheim) in the fictional state of Qurac and (for the time being) smashing it. Numerous enduring storylines of the series start here: For example the enmity between the squad martial artist Bronze Tiger and the jihad terrorist Rustam, whom he cripples in a duel, the rivalry between Rick Flag and the leader of the jihad terrorists Rustam, which is unrequited Love of the "Suicide Squad" member Nightshade for their commanding officer Rick Flag and the role of Captain Boomerang as the black sheep of the team, who here - as in numerous later stories - endangers the success of the mission through his cowardly and scheming behavior and deliberately endangers it Causes the death of his teammate Mindboggler after she offended him.

The second story arc in the series ("Mission to Moscow") is about how the squad is sent to Moscow to free the dissident writer Zoya Trigorin from prison. Based on the situation of dissidents in the Soviet Union during the Cold War such as Andrei Dmitrijewitsch Sakharov , the anti-Soviet and anti-Russian prejudices of the Western community of states in the last few years of the East-West conflict are questioned: This is how Zoya rejects it after the team has found out to let themselves be liberated and causes the members of the squad to rethink their perception of the states behind the Iron Curtain, which is certain from simple black and white thinking. The group eventually has to flee through the Siberian tundra from the Soviet Union, where they meet a Russian superhero troupe, "The People's Heroes", and have a brief battle with them. Trigorin is killed and team member Nemesis is captured. In a later story, the Squad manages to free him from captivity in Russia with the help of the Justice League .

In the stories "Rogues" and "Final Round" (# 21-22), the existence of the Squad is made public through an exposure story in the Daily Planet newspaper after Deadshot told US Senator Cray, who tried Waller with the threat of revealing the secret to capture the clandestine task force, to use their intelligence connections to get his re-election, shoots to prevent Rick Flag, who has the same goal, from compromising himself with the act. Derek Tolliver, who conspired with Cray, also dies in this story. A press release deposited by him in his office about the existence of the squad leads to the aforementioned revelation of the planet. Deadshot, who has a secret death wish, is gunned down in an argument with the police, but survives his injuries to his chagrin.

To limit the damage, the squad undertakes a public relations offensive and rescues a nun from the violence of a repressive regime. For camouflage purposes, an actor named Jack Kale is used as the alleged leader of the squad. Meanwhile, Rick Flag returns to Quarci and destroys Jotunheim Fortress, the headquarters of the Onslaught terrorist group, with an experimental explosive device, killing him himself.

In the crossover "The Janus Directive", which runs through issues # 27-30 of the Suicide Squad and various issues of the Checkmate and Captain Atom series , a secret war takes place between the squad and two other secret government organizations, the Checkmate secret service and the military Research facility Project Atom. It turns out that the terrorist Kobra set these agencies against each other in order to distract them from his own activities. In the course of the clashes, the headquarters of Checkmate and Suicide Squad are destroyed. After the manipulations Kobras come to light, this one is defeated. The crossover ends with the three organizations being given autonomous status.

Issues # 37-39 ("The Coils of the LOA") of the series are about how Amanda Waller assigns Deadshot, Ravan and Poison Ivy to carry out an assassination attempt on the leaders of the organization LOA, which plans to create a zombie army. Waller is arrested at the end of the story.

In Issues # 40–43 ("The Phoenix Gambit") tell how the squad is reorganized a few months after the end of the previous story arc that ended it being disbanded. Waller receives a pardon from the US President through the mediation of Sergeant Steel and is released again to take over the administrative management of Task Force X again. The background to the reactivation of the group is that the US government would like to use the special capabilities of the commando to avoid the looming danger of a violent escalation of the ongoing conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Eastern European state of Vlatava, which is shaken by a civil war - which, if it is not settled soon, would necessitate intervention by the two superpowers - to prevent. At this point, Waller begins to take part in the squad's operations as an agent instead of just managing them remotely. At the end of this story, the squad gives up its subordination to the US government - Waller had previously extorted consent to this step from the government as a condition for it and the squad to take over the Vlatava mission - and becomes an independent mercenary force, which, for a fee, places itself in the service of the highest bidder.

The three-part "Serpent of Chaos" (# 45-47) has another mission of the Squad in the Middle East: They represent the leader of the terrorist organization of the same name, Kobra, who aims to start a third world war. For this purpose he had himself arrested by the Israeli secret service Mossad , whose agent Dybbuk he would like to manipulate as a tool to unleash a war. The story revolves around philosophical considerations on the subjects of good versus evil, free will and morality, which are carried out in dialogues between the Mossad agent Dybbuk and Kobra on the one hand and the cabbalistic magician Ramban and Dybbuk on the other. Ravan in the end (apparently) dies of poisoning while fighting Kobra.

Issues # 59-62 contain a multi-part series entitled "Mystery of the Atom". The starting point of the plot is the kidnapping of the former president of the QUrac state, President Marlo, by the fictional Israeli secret service Hayoth, whom the Israelis want to bring to trial as a war criminal. This leads to a confusing "everyone against everyone" confrontation between the Hayoth, the Justice League (Superman, Batman and Aquaman), the Suicide Squad and the terror group Jihad known from earlier storylines. Superman finally puts an end to the chaotic exchange of blows with his overwhelming powers. In this story, the missing superhero Atom , alias Ray Palmer, appears again, who unravels the mystery of his supposed membership in the Squad: Not he, but a man named Adam Cray, who pretended to be him, was the "Atom "who was a member of Task Force X for a while in previous issues of the series.

In the last storyline of the series (issues # 63–66: "Rumble in the Jungle") the squad travels to the fictional island of Diabloverde in the Bermuda Triangle . Your mission is to overthrow the dictator of the small island, a certain Guedhe, who appears to be endowed with the gift of invulnerability, and to free the island's population from his regime. The squad finally succeeds in defeating Guedhe's personal bodyguard - a group of metahumans who provocatively call themselves the Suicide Squad. Guedhe himself dies after Waller, who for once leads the squad herself, outwits him and, thanks to her assertive personality, robs him of his belief in his own immortality (he turns out to be a powerful medium that has psychosuggestive self-healing powers : As long as he is sure of his invulnerability even in his thoughts, he can heal physical injuries by means of his spirit through pure willpower before they kill him, or he can reanimate his dead body by means of his thoughts), with the result that after he loses faith in his immortality, he also loses immortality as such and physical death also seizes and obliterates his spirit. After completing the mission, Waller declares the Suicide Squad disbanded. On the last few pages of the series, Count Vertigo releases Deadshot from the obligation to kill him, Vertigo.

Plot from the 2nd "Suicide Squad" series

The twelve-part second "Suicide Squad" series is a dark parody of the Justice League International series , which the author of this series had written almost ten years earlier.

As in the first series, the plot revolves around a team of super criminals who, in exchange for their release from prison, make themselves available to the US government to carry out dangerous commandos. Instead of Task Force X, the official team name of this incarnation of Suicide Squad is Task Force Omega. Instead of Waller, the team is now led by officer Sergeant Frank Rock (the title character of the war comics Sergeant Rock and the easy Company ). Waller is meanwhile in this new edition of the material in the office of a "Minister for Metahuman Affairs" (Secretary of Metahuman Affairs) in the cabinet of the superman archenemy Lex Luthor, who at that time in the DC Comics reigning as US president.

The team has a particularly high loss rate in this version: During the first deployment of the new team, almost all members (Cluemster, Clock King, Big Sir) die with the exception of Major Disaster and the immortal Multiman. The protagonists of the series are the well-known Deadshot, Major Disaster and Killer Frost. Apart from Rock, his right-hand man, Bulldozer and the technicians Havana (a daughter of Amanda Waller) and Modem, who dies at the end of the series, act as assistants in the background.

The missions this squad accomplishes are rescuing a scientist from a secret laboratory on Iceland, exterminating a runaway colony of biologically modified ants, exploring the island of Kooey Kooey Kooey and re-dealing with the group Onslaugt from the first series. It is suggested in the last issue that the supposed team leader Rock is not real rock, but an imitator who has taken its place, without this having been clarified within the series (or since).

Plot of the 3rd "Suicide Squad" series (2007-2008)

The third "Suicide Squad" series describes the return of Rick Flag and the formation of a new Suicide Squad. The starting point of the plot is the order to smash an unscrupulous company that is responsible for the development of deadly bio-weapons.

In the course of the series it is described that Flag survived his apparent death in issue 22 of the first series by teleporting himself into the lost world of Skartari inside the earth with a magical artifact immediately before the Jotunheim Fortress was destroyed.

The members of this new team include the well-known Bronze Tiger, the former General Wade Eiling transformed into a monstrous creature with self-healing powers, the explosives expert Plastique, Owen Mercer (the son of the original Captain Boomerang, who temporarily took over his villain identity).

Plot of the 4th "Suicide Squad" series (2011-2014)

The 4th Suicide Squad series takes up the cornerstones of the first series: Again Amanda Waller is the director of Task Force X. The most important members of the team in this version are Deadshot, who now figures as the group's "field leader" as well as the Over-the-top Batman adversary Harley Quinn and the King Shark, a hybrid human-shark creature belonging to the villain gallery of the super meclone Superboy . The team also hires serial killer James Gordon Jr., who soon develops an uncanny obsession with Waller , as the team's psychological advisor .

The main recurring antagonist of this version of the Suicide Squad is the terrorist group Basilisk (similar to the group Jihad in the original series). Other missions deal with how Task Force X tries to hunt down the immortal metahuman Resurrection Man and how they locate a baby who has the antidote for a viral disease that is about to break out. Again and again the series takes the bizarre love affair between Harley Quinn and the insane Joker into view.

A plot node that was no longer resolved before the series was discontinued and that is torn up again and again in the series revolves around the mysterious " samsara " formula, with the help of which the doctors of the squad are able to apparently miraculously kill team members who have been killed in action Way to bring it back to life.

The last editions of the series are part of the "Forever Evil" crossover. In this, the squad, led by Deadshot and Quinn, engages in a fight with the Crime Syndicate and the destructive android OMAC. New team members in this story are Warrant, Steel and Unknown Soldier, as well as Captain Boomerang, who is returning to the squad.

The 5th "Suicide Squad" series

In the 5th Suicide Squad series, which started in July 2014 , a new incarnation of Task Force X is being put together. The focus of the plot is again, as in the previous series, the hit man Deadshot and the insane former psychiatrist Harley Quinn.

Other members of this Suicide Squad include the Flash villain Reverse Flash, Aquaman villain Black Manta, and an eccentric woman known only as the Joker's Daughter. For a short time the mercenary Deathstroke also belongs to the new team, but he turns against his teammates in the second issue and tries to kill them.

Guest appearances of the Squad in other series

In the Superboy series, the Suicide Squad (consisting of Captain Boomerang, Deadshot and the Superboy villains King Shark, Knockout and Sidearm) is used in the three-part "Watery Grave" ( Superboy # 13-15, 1995): In this, Superboy and Policeman Sam Makoa teams up with the squad to destroy the headquarters of the Dilicon Dragons crime syndicate, which is located in a base on the ocean floor. The squad member Sidearm is killed here.

In the miniseries Hawk & Dove , the US government hires the squad to hunt down the teenage superheroes Hawk and Dove. The Squad in this version consists of Bronze Tiger, Count Vertigo, Deadshot, Flex, Quartzite, Shrapnel and Thermal.

In the series Chase , the title heroine Cameron Chase is assigned in the 2nd edition (1998) by Amanda Waller to lead a formation of the squad consisting of Bolt, Copperhead, Killer Frost and Sledge, which is assigned the task of a military base in South America to destroy.

The 2001 miniseries Our World's at War tells in a secondary thread how a squad newly formed for this purpose (consisting of Manchester Black, Chemo, Mongul, Plasmus and Shrapnel) frees the monster Doomsday, imprisoned on the moon, from its prison, so that the US can free it -Government can use it as a weapon to fend off an alien invasion. Most of the Task Force members are killed by Doomsday on this occasion.

In the miniseries Salvation Run , the squad takes on the task of capturing dozens of other criminals on behalf of the US government, who are then transferred to another planet as a source of danger that cannot be contained on earth, where they will henceforth live as exiles.

Recurring characters

Amanda Waller

Amanda Blake Waller appears in most incarnations of the Suicide Squad material as the spiritus rector behind the formation of the squad and as the head of the unit that gives her her orders. The character was introduced into the DC Universe in the November 1986 comic book Legends # 1 (authors: John Ostrander and Len Wein ; illustrators: John Byrne ).

Since the first Suicide Squad series in 1987, Amanda Waller has been a frequent antagonist - and occasional ally - of various DC superhero characters, typically appearing as a powerful intelligence officer who secretly manages her own (often questionable) agenda or pursuing the agenda of the politically powerful that clashes with the ethical principles of various DC heroes she comes into conflict with. Although the character portrays more of an antihero than a villain, it was voted 60th of the "Best Comic Book Super Villains of All Time" in a voting on the IGN genre website.

Waller is - what at the time of her first appearance (1986) for the function of the holder of a powerful position in the state apparatus, which she holds, untypical and downright pioneering - an African American. For almost twenty years, from 1986 to around 2008, a particularly noticeable feature of her external appearance was her enormous body: her barrel-shaped, stocky build earned her the nickname “The Wall”. More recently, this aspect has been greatly scaled back in the comics as well as in the cartoon and film adaptations, so that Waller is portrayed as an average strong and even as a slim woman.

Waller is mostly portrayed as a self-confident, bossy and assertive secret service agent who is not picky about her means. It often engages in intrigue, intimidation, and even blackmail, mostly in the name of national security, to get others to act in the way it wishes. In most variations of the Suicide Squad fabric, her relationship with most of the ex-super villains she recruits as agents in exchange for waivers is marked by strong antipathy. A special relationship of hatred (on his side) and contempt (on her side) connects her with Captain Boomerang, who is a member of the Squad in almost all incarnations of the series.

In the first issues of the Suicide Squad series from 1987, Waller's background story is described: Here she appears as the matriarch of an originally underprivileged family from the inner city of the US metropolis Chicago , who, after one of her sons, one of her daughters and her husband the fell victim to rampant gang crime in this city, entered the service of the government. These stories also tell that Waller was the one who came up with the idea of ​​recruiting a special task force from imprisoned super criminals who, in exchange for custody, were to undertake to carry out dangerous missions in the service of the government.

While Waller is the overall leader of the squad in the original Suicide Squad series and gives it its orders, its deputy, former Army officer Rick Flag, is the one who is responsible for the operational management of the squad and command during its missions.

Amanda Waller is also a recurring figure in the DC series Checkmate , which appeared from 1988 to 1991 and describes the activities of a secret service operating in the DC universe.

After the discontinuation of the first Suicide Squad series, Amanda Waller was sporadically used as a character in other series of the DC publishing house, whereby she usually continued to play the role of the secret service boss acting behind the scenes, forging morally ambivalent projects. As head of briefly reactivated formations of the Suicide Squad, Waller appears in the mini-series Eclipso (1992), Bloodlines (1993) and Salvation Run .

In the years 2001 to 2002, the character of Amanda Waller, after it had hardly been used for a long time, appeared again quite regularly in the magazines of the various series about the superhero Superman , in which at that time a lengthy storyline was in Superman's archenemy Lex Luthor rose to the office of US President and held it for a while. Waller appears as Secretary of Meta-Human Affairs in the Superman stories describing Luther's presidency. H. Appeared in Luther's Cabinet as Minister for the Affairs of Superpowered People.

In the second series published from 2005 to 2008 under the name Checkmate , Waller was again used as the main character.

In the restart of the entire DC universe, which began in 2011, Waller appears in numerous stories in various series in her well-known role as head of the secret service. However, the figure has now undergone a major overhaul: It is now significantly younger and physically more agile, more efficient and more attractive than in the stories from 1987 to 2010. Unlike in almost all old stories about the Suicide Squad, it is now actively taking on take part in the team's field operations instead of controlling them remotely.

Since the 2000s, the character of Amanda Waller has been used in numerous television series, computer games and, most recently, even a movie that deal with elements of the Suicide Squad material:

In the animated series Justice Leagure Unlimited , Waller (US dubbing voice CCH Pounder ) appears in numerous episodes as the head of a secret government project called Cadmus, which is dedicated to the task of developing means to help the superheroes of the Justice League should they ever fight the Humanity should turn off. Under her aegis, various super-beings are developed in the laboratory through genetic experiments and similar processes, which should be able to stand up to the League and defeat it if necessary, but at the same time (theoretically) are programmed to lead the project to always be strictly loyal to: so Galatea, a clone of the superhero Supergirl , the monster Doomsday (which turns against Cadmus) and the team of the Ultimate , as a result of artificially accelerated maturation more powerful . In the episode Clash , she allies herself with Superman's archenemy and manipulates Superman and the superhero Captain Marvel into a duel. In Task Force X , she sets up a variant of the Suicide Squad, to which she assigns the task of infiltrating the Justice League headquarters and stealing a powerful weapon. In the Cadmus four-parter ( Question Authority , Flashpoint , Panic in the Sky and Divided We Fall ), there is finally an open confrontation between Waller and the Cadmus project on the one hand and the league on the other, which is one of Waller's ordered attack on the League's satellite headquarters culminates. She only lets this break off when Batman - who until then in the series Waller's counterpart as the shrewd, in the background acting string puller and strategist of his team, just as she is hers, plays her evidence that her "ally" Luthor manipulated and cheated on them to advance his own criminal purposes. After Luthor and the extraterrestrial Brainiac, who, as it turns out, steered Luther's actions in secret, are defeated by the League, Waller reconciles with her and becomes her official liaison with the government.

In the television series Smallville , Waller is played in several episodes by Pam Grier . Here, too, she figures as the scheming head of the secret service who causes all kinds of difficulties for the superheroes this series is about.

In the series Young Justice , Waller can be seen on the sidelines as director of Belle Reeve Prison, while she supports the title characters in the cartoon film Batman / Superman: Public Enemy as Minister for Metahuman Affairs.

Armanda also made short appearances in the computer and console games Arkham Origins (2013) and Arkham. Blackgate (US dubbing voice: CCH Pounder ) and the online game DC-Universe Online (US dubbing voice: Deborah Colle ), in which she is responsible as the puller for the lineup of the Suicide Squad. In the prequel cartoon for the first two games mentioned, Batman. Assault on Arkham makes her appearance in the same way, with the film ending with her being targeted by Deadshot.

In the game Lego Batman. Beyond Gotham , Waller is even a playable character as part of the additional downloadable content for the game (US dubbing voice: Cynthia Addai-Robinson ).

Amanda Waller is played by Cynthia Addai-Robinson in the television series Arrow . Here she is director of a secret service called ARGUS and appears for the first time in the episode Keep Your Enemies Closer of the 2nd season. In the Suicide Squad episode , she finally puts together a formation of the team consisting of Deadshot, Bronze Tiger, Michaels, Shrapnel, and John Diggle to locate and destroy an arsenal of biological weapons.

Waller, played by Angela Bassett , appears as a supporting character in the 2010 comic book adaptation of Green Lantern .

In the Suicide Squad film version from the year 2016 takes Viola Davis the role of Amanda Waller.

Bronze tiger

→ Main article : Bronze tiger

Captain Boomerang

Professional criminal Captain Boomerang, aka George "Digger" Harkness, is a member of the unit in almost all versions of the "Suicide Squad" material. The figure owes its name to its habit of using the boomerang hunting device as a weapon , which comes from the culture of the Australian indigenous people .

The character was introduced to DC Universe in the December 1960 comic book Flash # 117 (Author: John Broome ; Illustrator: Carmine Infantino ). Since then, Captain Boomerang has been one of the most widely used adversaries of the title character of this comic series, the crime fighter Flash, who - since he was struck by lightning - has the ability to move at superhuman speed.

In most versions of the character, Harkness is an Australian criminal who has mastered the boomerang throwing weapon and always wears a large number of boomerangs on his body that he uses as tools to commit crimes. His boomerangs are often "trick boomerangs" that are prepared in the most varied of ways: For example, he uses boomerangs that are equipped with explosives and that explode when they hit their target, or boomerangs that are electrically charged at the tip and cause a shock when they hit .

According to his backstory, in most versions of the DC Universe, Harkness is the son of an American soldier and an Australian who - separated from his parents - grew up in a poor family in an Australian town called Korumburra. As a young man he was a showman and entertaining fairground visitors by showing off his boomerang skills. After he was hired as an advertising mascot for a toy manufacturing company, he took on the persona of "Captain Boomerang", who was dressed in a striking blue doublet and cap, adorned with scattered white boomerang emblems, for his appearances in advertising films. After the audience rejected the toys he was promoting and smiled at him as a ridiculous character, Harkness turned bitter and hateful to the crime, defiantly maintaining the "Captain Boomerang" identity. His thieves brought him into conflict with the superhero Flash over and over again and over time made him a permanent member of the so-called "Rogues 'Gallery", the villains' gallery of the "Red Lightning", that is, those opponents of the superhero with whom this time and again gets to do.

While Captain Boomerang spoke normal American English for the first few decades he appeared in DC comics, he has been given an Australian accent in most stories in which he is used as a character by writers since the late 1980s placed in the mouth.

Since the development of the "Suicide Squad" story in 1986, Captain Boomerang has been a member of virtually every version of Task Force X whose adventures describe the "Suicide Suqad" stories. In the first "Suicide Squad" series, which was published from 1987 to 1991, Harkness was one of the four de facto main characters alongside Rick Flag, Deadshot and Bronze Tiger : He appeared in almost every magazine and played one in almost every story central role in the plot.

The first editions of the series describe how Captain Boomerang, after his umpteenth defeat by the Flash, receives an offer from the US government to get his sentence waived if in return he agrees to do it for several years the US government to participate in dangerous command missions with the task force X set up by the opaque intelligence official Amanda Waller. After he gives his consent, Harkness is transferred to the Belle Reeve Prison, a facade institution behind which the headquarters of the task force is hidden, in which the members of the same are prepared for their missions.

Within the team, Captain Boomerang is a loner who is extremely unpopular with most of his colleagues. His relationship with them is correspondingly tense. The main reasons for this are his hateful-cynical manner, his cutting personality and his undisguised racism (he always calls the Afro-American bronze tiger "Abbo"). His violence and unpredictability, as well as the cowardice and unreliability that he displays on missions (for example, he repeatedly abandons other squad members), also contribute to making him unpopular in the task force circle. Amanda Waller in particular, the boss of the Suicide Squad, has a strong aversion to Waller and despises him as an "idiot and failure" ("a jerk and a screw-up"), but nevertheless regards him as useful, so that she keeps on coming falls back on him. While in most of the "Suicide Squad" stories he acts as the class clown of the task force, who teases and annoys his teammates, the captain's treacherous side also occasionally comes to light: He deliberately causes and sees the death of team member Klipnot in a story in another, standing idly by, as the team member Mindboggler - who had offended him shortly before - is killed, although he had the opportunity to save her.

After the first Suicide Squad series ended, Captain Boomerang was used again as a villain in the Flash comics for a few years. In the 1995 miniseries Underworld Unleashed , in the hope of finally gaining recognition as a successful super criminal, he makes a pact with the demon Neron, who in contrast promises him immortal fame for his services. Neron betrays Boomerang - as well as four other Flash villains (Captain Cold, Heatwave, Mirror Master and Weather Wizard) who engage in similar deals with him - but leaves him and his four accomplices in explosions that they themselves caused Life come. In the one-shot The Rogues , the demon lets the five crooks return to earth as the undead and cover the hometown of the Flash, Keystone City, with chaos and devastation. Flash finally manages to outsmart Neron and bring Boomerang, like the other four, back to life as a human.

In the miniseries Identity Crisis , Boomerang is killed again: in a contract murder to the detriment of the Jack Drake company (the father of the superhero Robin ), which he carries out, both men kill each other. This time his death only lasted temporarily: In the miniseries Blackes Night it is described how Harkness - like dozens of other "dead" DC villains - comes back to life as a zombie and takes part in attacks by the zombie army of the so-called Black Lanterns on various DCs - Heroes involved. At the end of the storyline, he is miraculously transformed back into a human. However, for a few years, George Harkness was replaced in most of the stories in which Captain Boomerang appeared by his son Owen Mercer (also known as Owen Harkness) as the bearer of this identity. This is introduced into the DC universe in the issue Identity Crisis # 3 from October 2004 (author: Brad Meltzer ; illustrator: Rags Morales ). In Flash # 225 of 2006, we learn that Owen's mother is Meloni Thawnee (who is also the mother of the superhero Impulse ), whom Digger Harkness met while traveling back in time to the 30th century. In contrast to his father, who is clearly portrayed as an unrepentant criminal, Owen Harkness is more of an antihero than a villain, who often works with superheroes such as Robin, Supergirl or the Teen Titans .

After the restart of the entire DC universe in 2011, Digger Harkness is once again the bearer of the identity of Captain Boomerang. As in the past, the character is a permanent member of the latest version of the Suicide Squad, whose adventures are set in the new "52" universe, which is where most of the DC stories that have been released since 2011 are set.

Since the early 2000s, Captain Boomerang has been used as a character in numerous adaptations of the Flash and Suicide Squad "material in other media:

In the animated series Justice League Unlimited , Captain Boomerang appears in several episodes (US dubbing voice Donal Gibson ). In the episode "Task Force X" he participates in a squad attack on the Justice League satellite headquarters in order to steal a powerful weapon that is kept there. In the episode "Flash and Substance" he takes the inauguration of the Flash Museum in Keystone City as an opportunity to carry out a raid on this memorial to the glory of his archenemy together with other members of the Rogues Gallery. However, the combined forces of Flash, Batman and the space hero Orion manage to put an end to Boomerang and the other villains.

In the series Batman. The Brave and the Bold tells the episode "Requiem for a Scarlet Speedster", how Batman frees the Flash from the violence of Captain Boomerang, who has chained him to an oversized boomerang and is preparing to fire it. Here he is dubbed by John DiMaggio .

In the television series Arrow , Captain Boomerang is played in several episodes by Nick Tarabay . He appears for the first time in the episode "Draw Back Your Bow". In the episode "The Brave and the Bold" it is revealed that he is a former agent of the Australian Secret Service and a former member of the Suicide Squad. The plot of the episode revolves around how he tries to track down former squad commander Lyla Michaels in order to kill her. He is eventually knocked out by the show's title character, Arrow, and the Flash.

In the cartoon Batman. Assault on Arkham (original US dubbing voice: Greg Ellis ) shows Captain Boomerang as a member of a version of the Suicide Squad who infiltrates the Arkham Asylsum mental hospital to free a prisoner.

Captain Boomerang also appears in various computer games such as DC Universe Online (US dubbing voice: J. Shannon Weaver ), Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (US dubbing voice: Nolan North ) and Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham .

In the 2016 Suicide Squad movie , Captain Boomerang is played by Jai Courtney .

Deadshot

→ Main article : Deadshot

Count Vertigo

Count Werner Vertigo (English count "Graf" and vertigo "vertigo") is the last offspring of the ruling family of the fictional Eastern European principality of Vlatava. He is one of the main characters in the Suicide Squad series , written by John Ostrander, of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Vertigo has powerful telepathic powers that allow him to hover and disturb the senses of other people by implanting dizziness and dizziness that make them lose their sense of direction: this skill, called the "vertigo effect" in the comics, makes it possible him to put other people in a state of staggering confusion in which they are unable to distinguish "above from below", so that they cannot walk properly (but stumble to the ground) and also not with a weapon, camera or other Objects can aim at him.

The character was introduced into the DC Universe in the July 1978 comic book World's Finest Comics # 251 (author: Gerry Conway , draftsman: Trevor Von Eeden and Vince Colletta ), in which Vertigo acts as the antagonist of the superheroes Green Arrow and Black Canary . He was then repeatedly used as a villain character in stories about Green Arrow and Black Canary and - less often - in stories about Batman. It is commonly attributed to Green Arrow's Rogues' Gallery .

The stories in which Count Vertigo appears as the antagonist of the three named superheroes mostly revolve around the classic topoi of the "superhero fights super villain" motif: Black Canary, Green Arrow or Batman prevent Vertigo crimes of self-enrichment in some stories (e.g. attempting to steal back a precious jewel from his parents' former state treasure, which they had to sell after the Second World War) or track him down after he has committed such crimes and bring him down, while in other stories he is the one himself, who chases them (or sets traps) and attacks them with the intention of taking revenge for previously suffered defeats by killing them, whereby in the end he always succumbs.

Count Vertigo's personal background was explained in the early stories in which he appeared that his family lost their throne after the annexation of their homeland by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II and had to flee into exile in Great Britain. As a result of this stroke of fate, the declassed aristocrat turned to a life as a criminal. His superpowers are explained by a congenital disturbance of his spatial perception and his equilibrium, which he corrects with a device implanted in his temple in a similar way as hearing impaired people compensate for their hearing impairment with a hearing aid: his implant enables him to improve his own balance and Projecting cognitive disorders onto other people and making them lose control of their own movements and senses. In later stories, Count Vertigo's superpower is decoupled from the said implant for reasons that remain unexplained and has passed over to himself in an organic way. He also has the ability to hover and fly - without explanation - only in later stories: In his early appearances, he uses magnetic shoes with which he can run up walls and ceilings.

Within the first Suicide Squad series, Count Vertigo meets the reader for the first time when the Squad visits Vlatava to end a civil war in which Vertigo participates in an effort to take power in his homeland. After Vertigo is defeated, he is made a slave by the ecoterrorist Poison Ivy, who at that time belongs to the squad, with the help of her psychosuggestive abilities (her body produced pheromones with which she can subjugate other people to her will) and in this way recruited into the squad. As a result, he was a member of Task Force X until the end of the first Suicide Squad series in 1992 and took part in many of the team's missions.

Count Vertigo has a special relationship within the original Suicide Squad series with his teammate Deadshot. A long subplot that ran through this series revolved around an agreement between the depressed Count Vertigo and the professional killer, the content of which was that Deadshot would one day shoot the Count to free him from the agony of life. This storyline was only resolved in the last pages of the last issue of the original series, in which Count Vertigo dissolves his agreement with Deadshot, as he realizes that his death wish would be fulfilled by a shooting by Deadshot - which he had in the eye at the time because his Christian faith forbade him to fulfill his death wish by shooting himself - ultimately representing nothing more than an indirect suicide and thus, according to his beliefs, would also prevent him from entering heaven.

In later incarnations of the "Suicide Squad" material, Count Vertigo is repeatedly a member of various compositions of the team, such as the miniseries Salvation Run and the maxiseries 52 .

As part of the reboot of the DC universe since 2011, a new Count Vertigo was introduced in the issue Green Arrow # 22 (3rd series) from 2014, whose fictional biography is described in the issue Count Vertigo # 1. His name is now Werner Zytle and, like old Count Vertigo, is a nobleman from the fictional nation of Vlatava. In this variant, the family in Vertigo's youth fled to Canada, where Zytle turned to organized crime as a youth in Vancouver in order to finance his efforts to assert his birthright and to conquer the Vlatavian throne for himself. After he succeeded in doing this, he continued to control criminal activities of all kinds in secret as monarch of Vlatava.

Various variations of Count Vergio had - with slightly different names - appearances in various television productions based on comics from the DC publishing house: This is how Batman gets it in the episode "Off Balance" of the animated series Batman: The Animated Series with a villain named Vertigo do, who looks and has the same powers as Count Vertigo in the comics (US dubbing voice: Michael York ). Unlike in the comics, Vertigo is not a fallen nobleman fighting for his rights to the throne, but a renegade follower of the Batman enemy Ra's al Ghul, who tries to usurp control of his criminal empire and on End of episode dies when he falls from the battlements of a castle he uses as a hiding place while fighting Batman.

In the series The Batman Count Vertigo appears as a villain in the fifth season (US original dubbing voice Greg Ellis ). Here he appears as a criminal scientist, to whom a mechanical eye lends the abilities that influence the sensory abilities of those around him. He uses these to steal valuable technical equipment. Batman and Green Arrow stop him here together.

In the 2012 television series Arrow , a character played by Seth Gabel , named "The Count" and based on Count Vertigo, appears. In contrast to the comic book, this interpretation of the character does not come from Eastern Europe and also has no superpowers: Instead, it is a criminal from the Balkans (probably from Romania) who, in his speech and mannerisms, is reminiscent of the depiction of the fictional character of the vampire Dracula from the novel of the same name by Bram Stoker by the actor Bela Lugosi in the Hollywood film adaptations of the material in the 1930s. The Count acts in Arrow as the leader of an unscrupulous gang of drug dealers who have invented a novel - and dangerous - designer drug called Vertigo in the fictional hometown of the hero of the series, the vigilante Oliver Queen (who is based on Vertigo's arch enemy in the comic original, the archer Green Arrow). The drug des Counts causes anxiety attacks and severe pain in its users in overdosed form, so that soon after its introduction it becomes a considerable social danger. The code name "The Count" is explained within the series by the fact that he liquidates his enemies by two targeted stabs in the neck with a double syringe filled with a lethal dose of his drug, so that these have wounds that are reminiscent of the bite marks of Count Dracula resemble. After Queen's sister has a car accident under the influence of Vertigo, the criminal hunter follows Vertigo and smashes his organization. At the end of his debut episode, Queen injected the Count with several injections of his own drug in revenge for his actions. This has the consequence that he falls mentally deranged and is taken to a mental hospital. In the second season of the series he becomes master of his senses again, escapes from custody and is killed by the Queen with an arrow shot in a renewed argument with Queen. In the third season, a new count, embodied by Peter Stormare , takes his place, but who is also defeated in two fights with Queen.

Count Vertigo (US dubbing voice Steve Blum ) also appears as the antagonist of Green Arrow in the animated short film DC Showcase: Green Arrow . In this film, Vertigo puts the killer Merlyn on his niece Perdita - who stands in the way of his claim to the throne of Vlatava. The assassination attempt is prevented by Green Arrow, who defeats Merlyn in a duel. Then Vertigo succeeds in overpowering and capturing both Green Arrow and Perdita with his "vertigo effect". The situation is finally saved when Arrow's partner Black Canary appears on the scene, against whom Vertigo's "Vertigo Effect" proves to be ineffective, since she can overwhelm him with her ability to emit deafening sonar screams even without a sense of direction.

In the series Young Justice , Count Vertigo (again dubbed by Steve Blum) appears in several episodes as a corrupt diplomat from the small kingdom of Vlatava, who abuses his diplomatic immunity to evade prosecution for crimes organized by him. He is finally stripped of his diplomatic immunity and arrested in the episode "Coldhearted" when the teenage superheroes, whose adventures the series is about, manage to prove to Vertigo's niece, the Queen of Vlatava, that her uncle is after her life. to get to the throne yourself.

Rick Flag

Rick Flag Jr. is the Squad's field leader from 1987-1991 in the first Suicide Squad series , i.e. H. the leader of the unit in their operations.

The figure was introduced into the DC universe in The Brave and the Bold # 25 from 1959 (author: Robert Kanigher , draftsman: Ross Andru ).

The first few booklets of the original Suicide Squad series describe how Flag, a career officer, takes over the lead of the team that Amanda Waller has put together. In contrast to almost all other team members, who are criminals who take part in these missions in return for pardon, Flag is an idealist who participates in the squad's missions out of patriotism , military sense of duty and personal conviction. A constantly recurring motif in the series is that the flag of integrity clashes with its corrupt, depraved, depraved, subordinate teammates. Exceptions are Bronze Tiger and Nemesis, with whom he has good relationships. Particularly fraught with conflict is Flag's relationship with ex-professional killer Deadshot, who is very similar to him in many ways, a thought that is particularly hateful to him due to Deadhsot's grueling past.

Flag finally dies apparently during a mission in the fight with the terrorist Rustam, here he is killed in an explosion. While he can be seen briefly as a ghost in the afterlife in some storylines of the following years (e.g. in the Day of Judgment miniseries from 1998), it is contradictingly revealed in the magazine Checkmate (2nd series) # 6 from 2008, that Flag survived his supposed death: In the story in question, his friend Bronze Tiger frees him from a prison in the fictional state of Quarci on the Arabian Peninsula.

In the mini-series Raise the Flag from 2009 it is explained that Flag and Rustam survived the explosion by Rustam both shortly before the fatal explosion with the help of a magical artifact called Scimitar in the inner world of Skartaris - a mixture of prehistoric times and the knightly Middle Ages - teleported. In the course of the series it is also revealed that Flag's real name is Miller and that he is not the son of the officer of the same name, Rick Flag senior, but that this identity has been artificially given to him through a systematic brainwashing that he was subjected to at the instigation of the unscrupulous General Eiling was planted.

In other media, the figure of Rick Flag has been used repeatedly since the 2000s:

He appears in the series Justice League Unlimited in the episode "Task Force X" (US dubbing voice Adam Baldwin ), in which he leads a unit of the Squad consisting of Captain Boomerang, Clock King, Deadshot and Plastique, which is in a command mission enters Justice League headquarters to steal a powerful weapon. In the computer game Batman. Arkham Origins Blackgate from 2013, Flag acts as a background figure: He observes Batman's attempts to put down a prisoner revolt in Blackgate prison and in the end recruits the prisoners Deadshot and Bronze Tiger for the squad.

In the series Smallville , in which he is played by Ted Whittall , Flag is used as a character in the episodes "Lazarus", "Shield", "Ambush" and "Collateral".

In the 2016 Suicide Squad film, Flag is played by Joel Kinnaman after Tom Hardy, who was originally envisaged as actor , had to decline the role due to scheduling difficulties.

In other media

watch TV

In the cartoon series The Justice League , the Suicide Squad (made up of Rick Flag, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, Plastique and Clock King) appears in the episode "Task Force X" in which they infiltrate the Justice League satellite headquarters for one stealing powerful weapon. The name Suicide Squad is not mentioned in the series out of consideration for the youthful target audience. Instead, the name Task Force X "is used throughout.

In the series Smallville , a version of the Suicide Squad is built into the plot of the 10th season.

In the second season of the Arrow series , the Suicide Squad - which is also officially called Task Force X - appears in several episodes. Here Deadshot, Bronze Tiger and Shrapnel belong to the squad.

Cartoons

The cartoon Batman: Assault on Arkham , which tells the story of the history of the video game Batman: Arkham Asylum , describes a squad mission that leads them to the Arkham Asylum mental hospital: On behalf of Amanda Waller, the team, consisting of Deadshot, Captain Bommerang, Killer Frost, Harley Quinn, Black Spider and King Shark liquidate the super villain Riddler who cheated on Waller. Black Spider and King Shark are killed during the operation, Harley Quinn and Captain Boomerang are arrested. The film ends with Deadshot, the only one who has returned from the mission, pinning himself on Waller's heels with the aim of taking revenge and the laser pointer of his sniper rifle can be seen as a red dot on her forehead.

cinemamovies

The shooting for the 2016 theatrical version began in April 2015, the US theatrical release was on August 4th and in Germany on August 18th, 2016.

The role of Harley Quinn was taken on by Margot Robbie . The original plan was for Tom Hardy to play Rick Flag, but he withdrew from the project due to scheduling conflicts. As a replacement, attempts were made to hire Jake Gyllenhaal .

Joel Kinnaman eventually took on the role of Rick Flag. Jared Leto played Joker, Will Smith Deadshot , Jai Courtney Boomerang, and Cara Delevingne Enchantress. Directed by David Ayer .

Anthologies

To date, the following reprints of Suicide Squad stories have appeared in the form of anthologies:

• Suicide Squad: From the Ashes , 2008 (includes Suicide Squad , Series 3, # 1–8)
• Suicide Squad. Trial by Fire , 2011. (includes Suicide Squad , Series 1, # 1-6, and Secret Origins # 14)
• Suicide Squad. Kicked in the Teeth , 2012. (includes Suicide Squad , Series 4, # 1-7)
• Suicide Squad. Basilisk Rising , 2013. (includes Suicide Squad , Series 4, # 8-13, # 0, and Resurrection Man # 9)
• Suicide Squad. Death is for Suckers , 2013 (includes Suicide Squad , Series 4, # 14-19)
• Suicide Squad. Discipline and Punish , 2014. (includes Suicide Squad , Series 4, # 20-23, Detective Comics # 23.2, and Justice League of America # 7.1)
• Suicide Squad. Walled In , 2014 (includes Suicide Squad , Series 4, # 24-30)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tom Hardy Drops Out of 'Suicide Squad'. Hollywood Reporter, January 15, 2015, accessed January 17, 2015 .