The best Suicide Squad stories across movies, TV, and comics
15.02.2024 - 20:33
/ polygon.com
/ Kevin Conroy
/ Idris Elba
/ David Ayer
/ Harley Quinn
/ Margot Robbie
/ Toussaint Egan
/ Amanda Waller
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, the cooperative open-world looter-shooter from Rocksteady Games and the latest installment in the Batman: Arkham series, was released earlier this month to an all-but-unanimously tepid reception.
After nearly eight years of development, several delays, and a storm of controversies regarding the game’s story and live-service elements, audiences appear to be lukewarm about playing as Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark as they fight across a Brainiac-occupied Metropolis to assassinate the mind-controlled members of Earth’s greatest heroes. Which is a shame, because the basic concept behind the Suicide Squad is still a lot of fun!
Whether or not you’re playing Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, there are still plenty of other stories to enjoy if you’re a fan of A.R.G.U.S.’s covert team of superpowered convicts. Whether in movies, television, animation, or comics, we’ve assembled a list of the best Suicide Squad stories to date that you can enjoy right now.
Director: James Gunn
Cast: Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena
Where to watch: Max, Netflix
This recommendation feels like a no-brainer. When it comes to live-action Suicide Squad movies, there’s James Gunn’s action-packed 2021 film and… well, there’s the other one. The Suicide Squad taps into the irreverent wackiness at the heart of the team’s premise, something that was sorely lacking in the self-serious tonal scattershot of David Ayer’s 2016 film, while introducing several previously unadapted comic-book villains like King Shark, Peacekeeper, and the Polka-Dot Man. It’s a damn fine film, the commercial and critical success of which is directly responsible for Gunn taking the reins at DC Studios and being trusted with the next incarnation of the company’s cinematic universe. —Toussaint Egan
Directors: Jay Oliva, Ethan Spaulding
Cast: Kevin Conroy, Neal McDonough, Hynden Walch
Where to watch: Max
This animated feature is especially interesting because of its tangential relationship to Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League. During the development of WB Games Montréal’s Batman: Arkham Origins, Warner Bros. Animation approached writer Heath Corson to develop the script for a story about the Suicide Squad set in the Batman: Arkham universe, several years prior to Rocksteady’s own attempt at the concept.
The result was 2014’s Batman: Assault on Arkham, an animated feature following a group of superpowered criminals (including Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark) being recruited by A.R.G.U.S. commander Amanda Waller to infiltrate Arkham Asylum and kidnap the Riddler. It’s essentially an Ocean’s Eleven-style heist thriller about a team of bickering supervillains who are