Suicide Squad Movie

I think it goes without a doubt that Batman wears some of the absolutely strongest Plot Armor of any fictional character, bar less a Badass Normal one at that. Any who can be seen as a Worthy Opponent by Darkseid should logically be able to take on the Villain Pub.

Granted, Darkseid sees him as a Worthy in that scene less because he's Bad Ass, but because he's human, Darkseid believes Humans Are Bastards, and thus he totally believes Batman's claim that he would destroy Apokalyps to spite him and commends Batman for being willing to do horrible murderous things to get what he wants. We never find out if Batman was bluffing.

Basically is Batman vs Palpatine, Thanos, Zod, Khan, Voldemort, Bowser and Loki.

Khan is probably the weakest of the list, and he takes out an entire squad of Klingon by himself.

He'd need at least a dozen Batmobiles to hit them with. Though I'd say the character he has the best chance of beating in a fight is Voldemort.

The superheroes vs a bunch of villains from lots of different genres (not just superhero movies) would be really fun for HISHE to do. However, depending on how Dr. Strange goes they might be boned - I could see Superman taking out Voldemort and/or Palpatine (depending on how you interpret the Force) before they can magic him to death, and Loki and Bowser might give him a fight but it wouldn't be a winning one for their side, but if Strange introduces Dormammu all bets are off.

edited 11th Oct '16 11:16:19 PM by KnownUnknown

I mean, he's already basically defeated a supervillain with the powers of Nightmare:

Also

Palpatine: The part where you chose to save the world... Do you know who does that? ..The heroes.

Wrong Palpatine, Evil Versus Oblivion exist for a reason.

Evil Versus Oblivion generally works because the characters doing it aren't the protagonists. Once an evil character is starring in a story and is doing good for self preservation against something worse, it takes a lot of work to keep them from being the good guys, especially if they genuinely have standards against what the worse evil is up to. It does happen, but it takes commitment to having the character be a horrible person and good writing to keep the audience invested.

Hollywood is barely ever brave enough to really do it, so you usually end up with characters like The Skwad or the Pirates of the Caribbean, who are very clearly heroes (or at least, difficult not to think of as heroes) by the end of the movie even if they're supposedly still doing bad stuff.

edited 12th Oct '16 12:22:52 AM by KnownUnknown

Still why didn't Floyd just say, "Uh.. I'm a hitman I kill people for a living."

There many examples of evil protagonists in an "Evil vs Oblivion" conflict.

• Alucard of Hellsing
• Vegeta of Dragon Ball Z (pre- character development)
• Alex Mercer
• Zim
• Dracula of Castlevania
• Hyde, Griffin and Nemo
• Some members of the Horde and the Alliance in Warcraft

edited 12th Oct '16 12:55:56 AM by dantecito

Of the ones I know of:

Vegeta isn't the series' protagonist - he's at first a recurring villain, and then The Rival - and doesn't even come close to that kind of character focus until well after he's made what is essentially a Heel–Face Turn (or a Heel-Meh-Turn). Super is the first time the series has ever given him focus comparable to that of the protagonist, and by that point there's no way he could be considered evil any more.

Alex Mercer is an Anti-Hero in the actual narrative of the first Prototype game (most of the evil things he does are either the dead Alex or stuff the player is capable of doing by way of it being a sandbox, rather than plot stuff), and is an outright villain in the second.

Invader Zim is a Black Humor series with a lot of intentionally skewed humor, and the narrative of the series isn't about Zim fighting more evil things, it's about him being an incompetent Big Bad. Him doing an Enemy Mine is a thing that happens in one or two episodes, but it's not something as important as it would be if they made a movie out of it or something.

edited 12th Oct '16 1:02:04 AM by KnownUnknown

Anyway, the Suicide squad are nominal heroes at best, and protagonist villains at worst.

The exceptions would be Katana and "El Diablo"

They're protagonists who have done bad things, but they're not Villain Protagonists - that would require them to be the ones doing evil in the plot, and they're not. The only one of them two does anything particularly negative over the course of the actual plot, and not the backstory - at least to characters we're not supposed to be unsympathetic to - is Harley and Boomer, and they both have Changed My Mind, Kid moments later on.

Them being all "friendship is the bestest" in the movie and nearly all of them having strong senses of honor in some way, not to mention having several Morality Pets / Chains, also makes it hard to consider them Nominal Heroes, especially when they get several opportunities to be selfish and choose not to be. At worst, they're Noble Demons. But ultimately most of them are simply Anti Heroes.

edited 12th Oct '16 1:09:12 AM by KnownUnknown

"also makes it hard to consider them Nominal Heroes",

Are you kidding me.?

• Deadpool and Guts are less evil than they are, and are considered nominal heroes.

They are a Lighter Shade Of Black, but aren't anti-heroes.

edited 12th Oct '16 1:23:49 AM by dantecito

The problems come from having the Squad doing any remotely heroic job rather than a genuine shady operation as Waller's private errand boys. An assassination group is different from a counter-terrorist group.

The only way to really define the characters is as a Villain Episode.

That said, Deadshot and maybe Croc are the only ones who seem semi-redeemed by the movie's end, not counting Diablo. Lawton looks like he has beaten some demons, Croc looks relatively happy in his place. Boomerang is left screaming in his cell and Harley is still happy when puddin' shows up.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/heres-some-suicide-squad-concept-art-that-will-be-starr-1788278862

I didn't think it was scary I actually thought it looked awesome.

Here is the full website for concept art.

edited 27th Oct '16 11:22:04 AM by Halberdier17

So Enchantress actually looked cool and Joker looked less like a comically try-hard douchebag? Why didn't they go with those?!

I don't think they would ever do this, but what if they ever made a joke clip of Superman accidentally defeating the Suicide Squad? I don't know what would be the best way of showing it though. They knock themselves out by running into Superman? Superman flies by and they get knocked over by the slip stream?

edited 27th Oct '16 12:03:25 PM by bookworm6390

I don't see a problem there.

Also, Joker was always going to be a tatted-up gang leader. What you see is filler art of him.

Because that would have been harder to animate and the CG department was presumably working under tight studio deadlines thanks to Warner Brothers' desperation to catch up with the MCU. The more divine Enchantress, Incubus, and Eyes would also have read as less Obviously Evil, and I suspect someone in the studio might have objected on that basis. Summer blockbusters need to be simple, guys, because Viewers Are Morons!

Didn't a lot of Jared Leto's Joker come from Jared Leto myself? If so, then that's on him, but even then it's based on real gangster fashion and bling of our day. If he didn't have green hair and powder-white skin, he wouldn't look all that out of place in any given crime movie. And I don't know that the old-timey suits and string ties the Joker wears in the comics are any less ridiculous— they work because they suit the character and we're so used them, so a Joker who keeps up with current fashions is kind of a novel idea. But even Heath Ledger's Joker looked more like he got his suit out of the Salvation Army donation bin, or (more likely) off a dead man's body.

I didn't mind Leto's take on the Joker. It's not going to top Mark Hamill^note not even close or Heath Ledger^note RIP, but it's serviceable.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have our next credits gag.

edited 27th Oct '16 1:16:55 PM by Unsung

I'd say he's on the road to topping Ledger. With only 7 minutes and 20 seconds of screentime he made a huge impact and stood out amongst all the unfocused noise of the film.

Leto's a good actor and his scenes do hold your attention, I'll give him that. He might still turn this around and make me eat my words with another movie, but I really liked The Dark Knight, largely because of that rendition of the Joker. So we'll see.

edited 27th Oct '16 11:56:05 AM by Unsung

I wasn't really a fan of Ledger's Joker he is good but my favorite live action Joker is still Jack Nicholson even though the backstory with him killing Bruce's parents isn't correct.

edited 27th Oct '16 11:58:28 AM by Halberdier17

I disagree on that last part. It's correct for the film, and taking the film by its own merits, it's an okay choice. A bit cliched and hackneyed, but okay.

For the larger Batman mythos, having the Waynes' murders being by some kind of supervillain or being orchestrated by some large organization is missing the point, and isn't something just Tim Burton's guilty of. Gotham has fallen into that trap too.

edited 27th Oct '16 12:24:00 PM by Cruherrx

So in that concept art Enchantress would've been able to create Boom Tubes.

I guess they had her get her hands on a Mother Box.

They also have the "Eyes of the Adversary" listed as Parademons.

edited 27th Oct '16 12:42:17 PM by Halberdier17