Suicide Squad

There are enough great DC supervillains to fill Belle Reve Prison several times over, so we've asked ComicsAlliance contributors Benito Cereno, Elle Collins, Chris Haley, Emma Lawson, Kieran Shiach, and Tom Speelman to compete in putting together their very best fantasy DC supervillain teams. In part one, several of the publisher's most iconic villains were snapped up, including Lex Luthor, Catwoman, Doomsday, and Darkseid, and Benito locked in two of DC's greatest apes in Gorilla Grodd and Monsieur Mallah. With some of the most obvious choices out of the way, where will our panelists look next?

The Suicide Squad movie has brought some of DC's weirdest villains to the big screen even before some of the publisher's major heroes could make their debut, and judging by the movie's huge opening weekend, audiences are only too happy to meet the bad guys. Of course, there are enough great DC supervillains to fill Belle Reve Prison several times over; many more than we might ever meet at the movie theatre. So for ComicsAlliance's third fantasy superteam draft, following on from our fantasy X-Men teams and our fantasy LGBTQ teams, we've asked our contributors to fight it out to put together the best DC supervillain teams, drawing only from the main line DC comics continuities.

Suicide Squad has only been in theaters for a week, but it’s already become a flashpoint for fan discussion. (And yes, that was a DC pun, thank you very much.) Does the movie’s plot make sense? Does it matter? How much of David Ayer’s original vision wound up in the theatrical cut? And maybe the most contentious debate of all: Is the movie better than Warner Bros.’ previous entry in the DC Extended Universe, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice?

As far as Suicide Squad is concerned, DC's big Rebirth event couldn't have happened at a better time. Right as there's a big budget Hollywood movie out featuring Captain Boomerang, Deadshot, and Harley Quinn, the entire universe is giving readers the chance to hop back in on the ground floor with a brand new Suicide Squad #1 from Jim Lee, Jason Fabok and Rob Williams.

Movie fans will recognize Ninja and Yolandi Visser — collectively known as the group Die Antwoord — as the human stars of Chappie, Neill Blomkamp’s RoboCop/Short Circuit hybrid about a dystopian future where a police robot gains sentience and starts talking like Sharlto Copley. According to Die Antwoord, though, movie fans should also recognize them as the people who inspired the look of Suicide Squad, currently the biggest movie in America, shattering box office records left and right, even though they didn’t get any kind of credit or compensation.

By all accounts, a lot of stuff got cut out of Suicide Squad. If you believe the recent press reports, there were two totally different versions of the film competing for release: A darker take from director David Ayer, and a jokier movie edited in consultation with the company that made the film’s popular, upbeat trailers.

Suicide Squad is the latest film from DC Comics' cinematic universe, and while it has received mostly negative reviews, many die-hard DC fans have come away thrilled by the villain-centric romp. If you're one of those that loved the film and want more comics in the same vein --- but you already know to check out the John Ostrander, Kim Yale and Luke McDonnell run on the series --- we've got a list of five independent comics to seek out next. Love that? Try this!

In honor of Suicide Squad's release, we've gathered some great fan art of the Suicide Squad characters in their recent incarnations, tattoos and all. No surprise, there's a lot of Harley Quinn (she's a beloved character with an amazing look in the new movie), but you'll see plenty of the other team members as well. This is the gallery you want to look at when you're feeling bad. This is the best Suicide Squad fan art.

There’s no question that FOX’s Gotham works best with its weirder tendencies, but Season 3 has at least some questionable choices to tackle. Out of TCA, Gotham bosses explain the decision to age up Claire Foley’s li’l Poison Ivy into a young seductress, as well previewing proto-Suicide Squad members like Killer Croc, and a Joker cult in Season 4.

The box-office records it demolished over the weekend aren’t the only broken parts of Suicide Squad. For all its admittedly impressive financial success, the movie’s story is shockingly incoherent, and that’s when the film has a story at all. Sure, Will Smith was great and Margot Robbie made an impressively committed Harley Quinn. But in much the same way the Suicide Squad is held hostage in Midway City by sinister bureaucrats, Smith, Robbie, and company are trapped in a movie that gives them very little play and makes even less sense.