Suicide Squad Movie

so we should have Batman do it then?

You can have a Legion of Doom with villains that appeared in the very film the Legion is featured in.

I'd rather a villain get offed after they've served their purpose than have them suffer Malcolm Merlyn syndrome

Killing villains eventually isn't a problem, but I'd say there's probably a compromise to be had between a villain who lives on for several seasons of Villain Decay and villains whose purpose is to fight the hero for one movie, get little in the way of character development apart from a Motive Rant somewhere around late Act II, then die before the credits roll. Serialization and interconnectedness have kept people filing in to see these movies, people who've never even touched a comic book. I don't think making one or two of the villains more complex (and competent) would hurt them.

There are more than you'd think.

edited 22nd Jan '17 10:40:44 AM by Bocaj

Agreed. I've come to the conclusion that most fans who demand wanting to see the Joker killed, mean they want to see him gone, like a comic version of X-Pac Heat. I'm all for complex and lasting villains, but this should be a package deal, otherwise you're left with either unfulfilled potential, or just boring Scrappies and creator's pets.

What's interesting is that this particular Joker seems quite a bit nicer than his current comicbook counterpart - his relationship with Harley in particular is almost wholesome, with none of the casual abuse present in other versions. Nor is he the bland serial killer whose one shtick is openly pointing out and exploiting the contractual immortality that every supervillain benefits from, never mind how annoying it is when other characters rationalize not killing him, because "that's what he wants". So what? I bet that's what half of Gotham wants as well, so letting him die happy is a small concession to letting him die, period. For that matter, Deadshot officially surpassed Deathstroke as my second favorite DC character (after Lobo, natch), when he humiliated and offed the clown in Assault on Arkham. Fingers crossed for Batman getting a similar moment in the DCEU.

edited 22nd Jan '17 10:42:51 AM by indiana404

You could also give the excuse that he's comparitivelty tame for why Batman won't kill him.

Dead shot didn't kill Joker in Assault on Arkham is that is a prequel to the Arkham games and Joker was alive until Arkham City.

The honor of humiliating and killing the Joker still solely belongs to Terry Mc Ginnis, I'm afraid

edited 22nd Jan '17 10:48:55 AM by windleopard

In the movies? I'm only really talking about the movies— I don't have this problem with their series. The MCU has Loki, Nebula and Thanos, Dormammu, Zemo, plus various characters who didn't necessarily die at the end of their movies like, I don't know, Abomination, maybe Red Skull? And it's not really just about them living, so much as them recurring. Not all of them and not forever, but it's just taken a while to establish some of the big name villains who don't die.

Also, despite this being a DCEU thread, this is more of an MCU problem. I don't especially think keeping Zod, Doomsday, or even the Joker or Lex Luthor alive is a sacred cow here.

Part of the problem is that the Avengers don't have the broad, colourful rogues' galleries that Spider-Man, Batman, or Superman do. If you write out Red Skull and the Mandarin, Cap and Iron Man aren't left with many other options.

edited 22nd Jan '17 7:04:38 PM by Unsung

I've mentioned before how the MCU has turned into a nineties sci-fi drama, revolving solely around the heroes while villains are all but an afterthought. There was no reason not to update the Mandarin or revive the Red Skull, but that just wasn't the narrative they're going with. It's not a stumble when it comes to the villains, but an overall flaw that sadly appears intended as a feature.

The requisite is making him comparatively tame. He still pulls the occasional citywide disaster, with Endgame necessitating even the assistance of the other Arkhamites.

Instead, I think the major problem is that he doesn't make for much of a physical challenge, so there's not much of a ballgame in just fighting and subduing him. He's advertised as presenting some grand philosophical dilemma, but even that pretty much only works against the staunchest of principles zealots themselves. That's why I maintain that Deadshot killed him - sure, he lived to annoy another day - again, like any other comicbook villain - but he still got shot down by a guy who was neither intimidated nor impressed by him. Very much like Terry, really. This is how the Joker should die - not with a bang, not even with a whisper, but with nothing more than the casual shrug of utter indifference.

edited 22nd Jan '17 11:00:59 AM by indiana404

So Deadshot killed him metaphorically then? Though he was still laughing when he died.

Actually now that I think about it, the DCAU wasn't really afraid to have the Joker be humiliated not just by heroes and villains but by ordinary civilians like in Jokers Favor where a guy he's been tormenting scared him with a fake bomb. Or that episode where Ivy kneed him in the crotch (im sure Ivy/Harley shippers loved that )

The DCAU wasn't too strict about the no-killing rule or Batman's attitude regarding lethal outcomes either. Remember this gem?

Mind you the breaking of the one rule was only in cases of what measure is a non human. Lord Superman killing Lex was his moral event horizon and Huntress got kicked out for trying to kill a mob boss.

Hell, I think the only reason Terry got away with h killing Joker was because it technically wasn't the Joker but an A.I

edited 22nd Jan '17 11:26:47 AM by windleopard

Aliens and some robots are people too

yeah but tell that to the writers.

I actually preferred the Joker as a secondary antagonist, because it's that kind of lateral storytelling that would thrive in a cinematic universe. It's the same reason seeing Batman and Flash in cameos was so cool.

The reason villains are often killed at the end of these movies is because the filmmakers want to move on to a new villain and not just do previous villain 2.0. Nolan had plans of revisiting the Joker by putting him on trial, but Ledger's death prevented that. There would likely be other villains in the mix, some theorized The Riddler and Joker would serve a Hannibal Lector role as he knew Nygma, but since Joker was beaten once it would diminish the story having him be the primary Big Bad again. Magneto in the X-Men franchise had a similar problem.

What I'm saying is that I think that attitude is wrongheaded when it comes to superheroes. Superheroes aren't a fantasy about that time when we finally vanquished evil and lived happily ever after, they're a metaphor for our daily struggle. Supervillains aren't about becoming ever more threatening to the hero— almost the opposite, I'd say, where they actually become easier to fight, almost routine, right up until the hero gets complacent, and then all of a sudden it's The Night Gwen Stacy Died or the Sinister Six. It's okay for some Villain Decay to occur, if you can acknowledge it in-universe and make that part of the story rather than some Willing Suspension of Disbelief thing that we just don't talk about. Part of the fantasy is that even the heroes trip up sometimes, and the real lesson is that you never really win once and for all— you have to take your victories as they come.

...At least that's how I'd like to see it handled. They're gonna do their own thing.

Shame about Heath Ledger, though. I would've loved to have seen the Joker's day in court, and as far as (somewhat) more realistic superhero movies go, Nolan was the guy to do it.

edited 22nd Jan '17 7:00:48 PM by Unsung

For one and done films I approve of killing supervillains, but serial storytelling like the MCU and DCEU demands you spare most of them for sake of compelling character investment.

Ultimately these are "cinematic" universes, which mean what happens in the story has to be big and have a sense of finality to it, otherwise it becomes what is called "episodic." It's just difficult to portray the daily grind of superhero life and not rely on a generic montage. Bruce's broken body and spirit in TDKR didn't quite work because we only saw two previous adventures. The MCU was only just now barely able to convey that with Tony in Civil War, and that's because he had five prior movies of action to build to that.

That's one way to put it, but occasionally it veers too much into defeatist martyrdom, particularly with characters like Batman who have more than enough resources to make a difference even when they aren't patrolling the night in spandex. For that matter, it might just be that Batman switching to nightly patrols, rather than mostly reacting to the Bat-signal, was the turning point in his overall attitude. He stopped being a guy responding to emergencies - which would justify his mentality and moral stance as someone not wanting to take the law into his own hands - and became the Punisher-lite, a guy all too happy about inflicting pain and collateral damage galore, but fizzling out when it comes to the final blow.

Essentially, while the Status Quo Is God in most superhero stories, this only ever remains appealing if the status quo is good. That is, if supervillain activities are regarded as unusual occurrences rather than the default state of affairs, and this is reflected in the mentality of the superheroes. The moment a superhero goes all Judge Dredd about how dark and gloomy his city is, he might as well grab a Lawgiver to match that attitude - at least then the audience knows he's not pulling any punches either.

edited 22nd Jan '17 12:41:23 PM by indiana404

" but he still got shot down by a guy who was neither intimidated nor impressed by him. Very much like Terry, really. This is how the Joker should die - not with a bang, not even with a whisper, but with nothing more than the casual shrug of utter indifference"

I disagree, I like how he die in dark knight return(I think it was that), after all said and done he just kill themselves, is fitting for him and give a really dark end or hell Injustice that really show what happen if you gave to the jokers end, NOW THAT was impact to tell about.

Now about what I would do....the same actually, just make the enchantress manipulate Joker as bait and them escape, also forget the whole "lighting int he sky" shit, is a really overused trope a this point, just focus in the EOA that are creepy enought.

I think the thing about Batman is that it's meant to present the sense (illusion though it may be) that the status quo is being shaken up by Batman, that he is making a difference. And when he's just by himself in Gotham, and you assume Comic-Book Time is in effect, that does kind of work— if you don't think about it too hard. The fantasy of Batman (or the Punisher, Daredevil, or John Constantine) is different from other superheroes. Every day he comes close to failing and falling, dying, becoming the very evil he's fighting against, or just being unmasked and arrested. The appeal of Batman for a lot of people is that his crusade may well be doomed, but he does it anyway, out of principle or obsession. The latter is even more appealing to some, that fatal flaw that makes him tragic, someone whose achievements are admirable even if they're not to be emulated. So I do think it's possible to enjoy a series where the status quo is bad, and the hero's only real victories are ever moral, and they're basically just martyrs for their own doomed cause. Y'know, just not every story.

Also Gotham's whole march of the damned only really makes sense if you try and ignore the city full of living gods apparently living right across the bay all this time, but I can still enjoy a thing in spite of its flaws.

edited 22nd Jan '17 7:03:39 PM by Unsung

I agree about there being some grace even in a doomed crusade, but there is a darker undertone or alternate interpretation of some of his stories - namely, that the struggle isn't quite so hopeless, and it's Batman's own gluttony for punishment that prevents him from moving on and actually making a difference. That he's become part of the problem, rather than the solution. The same can be said about Tony and Steve in the MCU, the former's disastrous ambitions already having taken thousands of casualties, and the latter pretty much going full Jedi Council in how he distrusts everyone not entirely on board with his self-appointed operations.

Essentially, the question can be made whether superheroes truly act for the benefit of the general public, or simply for their own. And when things turn too sour, their stories start looking like sadist shows about just how miserable they've made themselves. To contrast, it's no mere coincidence that stories about anti-heroes like Deadpool or indeed the Suicide Squad tend to be fluffier and more comedic, as they're all about coping with one's darker aspects, rather than simply anguishing over them.

Deadpool and the Squad also work because they make a show over how dark everything is, they work in a "why so serious?" thing going on which is quite good actually.

Something BVS did interesting in that respect was that Superman was largely a reactionary, emergency figure, we didn't see him trying to capture bad guys but just trying to protect the innocent. Superman generally doesn't spend time disassembling the criminal elements within his city, he isn't a vital element of Metropolis social infrastructure. His attempt to stop Batman was treated as a unique circumstance and something he took a long time exploring before making the decision to act. In fact, he looked at Batman as one of the the causes of Gotham's problems and not a necessity. That dichotomy has been at the foundation of many Batman stories, that while fighting the criminal element he is stirring up other problems. Gotham is likely better off having Batman keeping criminals second guessing their actions, but there is a sense that despite his actions Gotham is always on the edge of implosion.

Yeah, that was something I liked about BVS as well - the sense that, while Superman's existence presents its own issues both for him and the general public, the world itself isn't always doomed and in constant need of his particular assistance. Ditto Batman being controversial and clearly off his meds when we see him in person. In general, so far the DCEU hasn't really been selling its heroes as indispensable or invincible, which is a nice break from their typical portrayal in comics.

x4 Yeah, and I still really wish they hadn't given Hank Pym's responsibility for inventing Ultron to Tony when he already had his days as an international arms dealer to live down, but it's done now. And I still think Cap's paranoia isn't totally out of scope, but that's just based on assumptions about how a fictional universe would work, not what would be appropriate in real life. For the most part, both characters still work for me.

The general soapiness of the MCU is part of what keeps me from taking it too seriously, actually. It's kind of funny even when it's not. (Which I like, personally.)

One of the key elements about Batman is that no matter how much he wants to work alone, he ultimately can't. He needs the police, at the very least, and the street doctors and informants and Catwoman and whole extended Batfamily. I like Batman because he's so deeply flawed, and has such obvious neuroses.

Meanwhile it's good to show that Superman can remove himself and see the bigger picture, because that's what well-adjusted people do.

edited 22nd Jan '17 6:51:34 PM by Unsung

Soapiness is a good fit for Marvel stuff. The comics took heavy cues from soap operas.