DC Reboot Pitches: Justice League vs. the Suicide Squad

The Deal: this is the ninth in a series of pitches for the rebooted DC Movies, and the end of Phase One. I’m leaning on AI art to mock-up these pitches, because it adds a layer of humor and weirdness.

The Pitch

Our story begins en media res. The screen is black, and we hear, heavy, human breathing, the sounds of someone running in the rain, and narration, as black boots go crashing through puddles before cutting back to black. “People believe I’m arrogant. That I believe I belong standing shoulder to shoulder with Gods.” It’s Batman speaking, which becomes clear when we see Metallo, just his metal skeleton, the glowing kryptonite powering it exposed, strolling out of the burning wreckage of the Batmobile.

“His car is gone,” Metallo says.

Black Manta floats out of the water. “His sub is gone.” A burning boat floats on the top of the water behind him.

“And I killed his drone,” Cheetah says, watching through a scope as a bat-shaped drone falls from the sky. Her rifle is actually a long-distance taser, single-use, because Flag doesn’t trust her with a firearm.

Batman is running, turns and throws three batarangs, each colliding with one of Boomerang’s boomerangs before continuing to run. “He’s still on the move,” Boomerang says.

“It isn’t about where I belong, it’s that someone has to stand up.” Batman stops, and allows Joker to strafe his cape with a tommy gun to protect a ‘child’ in the middle of the alley. “And in Gotham, not many do.” Batman rises to his full height. The ‘child,’ it turns out, is just a doll stuffed with C4, and Batman has to resume running, rather than confront Joker, as it explodes behind him.

“I told you Amanda,” Joker taunts over their radios in a sing-song.

“You keep these comms clear, or I’ll blow that bomb in your neck just to get your voice out of my head,” Waller barks.

“She’s going to be disappointed when she finds out it’ll take more than that,” Harley says. “Like electroshock. But I wouldn’t rule out a lobotomy.”

“Quinn,” Flag says, and she drops into a side street, keeping Batman going down the alley. But he slices left, and hops a fence on the opposite side of the alley, just over the boards and under a sheet of industrial metal siding. “Damnit,” Flag says, catching up with Quinn. “Are we funneling him, or is he funneling us?” She leaps through the same hole.

“Just keep to the plan, Flag,” Waller says, watching events from a monitoring room through a series of drones and satellites.

Batman gets into the open, and fires his grapnel to the top of an apartment building. Harley and Flag are just behind him, climbing up a fire escape.

“No way,” Harley says, stopping just outside a rooftop door. “I seen Mr. J make this mistake too many times. Never follow the bat into a cave.”

“It’s an apartment building,” Flag says.

“And it was a metaphor. There’s no place he’s more dangerous than when you think he’s trapped.”

“Quinn, there’s two buses out of here, and one goes to the cemetery.”

“Ooh, field trip!” she squeals happily. “I love the cemetery.”

“Just get in there,” Flag shoves Harley through the open door, into darkness.

“Aw, nuts,” she says from inside, before being kicked back out, over the edge of the building. In the same moment, a batarang, carrying a wire, loops around her feet, so she doesn’t go far, and swings down and hits her head against the side of the building. “I feel like I should remember whether you can get a double-concussion,” Quinn says, before passing out.

“I’m going to need backup,” Flag says into his comms.

“This suit was designed for deep sea submersion; it doesn’t fly,” Manta tells him from the street.

“And Luthor didn’t give me rocket boots,” Metallo snipes, running up beside Manta.

“Fine,” Flag says, “Team Full of Density and Excuses, start on the bottom floor. We’ll sweep from the top. You flush him, holler.”

“I’m with you,” Cheetah says, landing in a catlike sprawl after climbing the exterior of the building. “Though I still say I’d be more effective if you let me have a sidearm.”

“He eats mercs for breakfast.”

“I’m here as well,” says the White Martian, “and he doesn’t have to be a telepath to know you’d use the gun on him at the first opportunity.”

Cheetah sticks her tongue out at the Martian. Flag leads the way inside the building. “It’s quiet,” Flag says.

“Too quiet?” Cheetah asks with an edge to it.

“He’s correct,” the Martian says. “The building is empty. In fact, I don’t even see-” liquid dribbles from the ceiling, onto the Martian, and an instant later the liquid ignites as Batman drops down on him, kicking him out of the door and back onto the roof.

Batman takes on Flag and Cheetah hand to hand; they’re both military-trained, so their styles mesh well, for a moment, until Batman compensates. He knocks the wind out of Cheetah, then smashes Flag face-first into a door-jam; Flag does manage to get a shot off, and it pancakes against the back of Batman’s cowl.

Cheetah gets up, slowly, having taken a knife Flag dropped in the fight. Instead, Batman hands her his cape, and points outside, at the screaming Martian. “He’s coated in a napalm derivative; smother the fire, deprive it of oxygen for a few minutes, and it will go out.”

She pauses, and calls in to Waller. “Orders?”

“Damnit,” Waller mutters. “Stand down. Aid the Martian asset.”

She drops the knife, and takes the cape.

Batman only gets a few steps in before Black Manta collapses a wall on his left while Metallo collapses a walls on his right. One goes high, the other low, and Batman is able to leap down the middle, and they clang together, loudly. “Ah,” Manta says. “Clearly I need better sound-dampening.”

“Or a smaller head,” Metallo says. Both give chase. At the end of the hallway, Boomerang turns out of a door. He flings four boomerangs; Batman does, too. Three of the batarangs knock the boomerangs out of the air; the fourth smacks Boomerang in the head, so that he’s falling as Batman runs past. Boomerang’s last projectile detonates as it flies past Metallo and Black Manta, knocking them into Boomerang. As he rounds the end of the hall and into a stairwell Batman slaps an oval slab of plastique with a bat-symbol detonator in the center onto the wall. It detonates as he leaps down the stairwell, catching Boomerang, Manta and Metallo in a pressure wave and sending them flying in the opposite direction from the initial explosion.

The stairwell collapses behind Batman. “I really did tell her,” an eerie voice echoes, through the stairwell, “but no one listens to the jester.” Joker leaps from the shadows and slashes Batman with a knife, managing to cut him, though superficially- mostly because Batman slipped out of his cowl, leaving Joker holding it as he notices a rope hanging over the edge of the stairs. He cuts it, and cranes his neck, holding his hand to his ear, hoping for a thud, but instead hears a door open, and shut. Joker crosses his arms and harumphs, then starts to put the cowl on himself, though we cut away before it’s clear what’s happening.

We see Batman from behind, without his cowl or cape, through a rifle scope. “I’ve got your target in my sights. Advise.”

“I want him identifiable. We have to be able to put a face to this. Give me a realistic assessment of whether you can give me that.”

Batman leaps over and onto a motorcycle, and very swiftly speeds away. At this distance, with Batman moving quickly, armored save for his head, it would be a shot in the dark, at best. “No shot,” the sniper says, and lowers the rifle. Those who saw Cyborg will recognize the voice as belonging to Deathstroke, but shh…

Flag comes to to someone in a Batman cowl slapping him across the face, then in his best Bale Batman voice howling, “Who do you work for?” Flag yelps, and draws, trying to fire an empty gun into the Joker’s chin as he scrabbles to get out from under him.

“See?” Harley says, handing Flag back his magazine and bullet, “funnier with an empty gun.”

“It’s barely a joke if no one lands in the hospital,” Joker pouts from under the cowl.

“I’ve got a broken rib, if that tickles your funny bone,” Cheetah says.

“Me-ow,” Joker says.

“Can the Martian pick him back up?” Waller asks over comms.

“The Martian’s currently extra-crispy,” Cheetah says. He’s mostly off-screen, but we can see a charred limb raised out of Batman’s cape, and hear him moaning.

“Fall back,” Waller says. “We’ll regroup.” She throws her headset across the room.

We cut to black, and show white text: One hour earlier.

Joker is wrapped in a cape from a Phantom of the Opera Halloween costume and leaps over the end of a table, singing “Kill the bat!”, ending what was clearly an energetic song and dance number, most likely to the tune of “Kill the Beast” from Beauty and the Beast. “Come on,” Joker says, “it’s worth whatever we have to pay Disney.” Harley leans into him and whispers in his ear. “They wanted that much? And they call me a villain?” He cackles uproariously, before adding. “I’m joking– we’re both monsters.”

Flag drags Joker off the table by the cape. “Let me just say, this team was designed in the hopes of overwhelming a demonstrably superior force with intel from previous encounters. But you two are the only pair with largely duplicative knowledge.”

“Then why are we both here?” Harley asks.

“Both your psych profiles indicate an unwillingness to play well with others. And since we happened to sweep you both up on the same night, Waller let me have a spare, in case one of you goes boom.” He pantomimes the bomb at the base of their skull exploding.

“Not it,” Harley says, putting a finger to her nose.

Waller clears her throat. “Captain,” she says, before leading Flag away. “Any luck with the alien, Flag?”

“This time it only took 10,000 volts to get him to stop trying to eat my men’s hearts… but I don’t think he’s giving up the goods.”

“That’s fine. We don’t have to get buy-in. We just have to get him in the room with the right one of these do-gooders, and his anger will take care of the rest.”

“What about the Bat?”

“If we need the big guns to take down an industrialist with too much man-pain, you need to find another line of work.”

Batman is driving his, at this point still functional, Batmobile through Gotham. The interior lights turn red, right before Alfred calls over the radio. “Sir, sensors show you’re being shadowed by multiple aerial drones, as well as an armored personnel carrier.”

“Insignia?” Batman asks, taking a turn sharply.

“No known government markings, sir.”

“I’m diverting to site 21.”

“Would you like assistance?”

“At this stage, I’m not willing to risk anyone else.”

“Very good, sir. Happy hunting.”

Lights go from a low red to bright red, with alarms blaring loudly as Metallo leaps from a building down towards the car. In slow motion, we see Batman’s ejector seat send him hurtling just out of the reach of Metallo’s clawed fingers as his feet crumple the Batmobile’s cockpit. The ejector seat fires a small rocket burst before loosing a parachute. Almost immediately, the parachute’s wires are cut by several boomerangs, and Batman bounds off of a nearby wall, kicking free as the chair explodes. He’s able to use the cape to slow his descent enough for him to land, albeit roughly, in a roll. Batman touches his belt to cue his comms. “It was an ambush. Send a drone and the submersible to my location.”

“The bike?”

“Set it to circle the site. I might need a quick egress.”

And we’re now caught up to the beginning, matching one of the shots of his boots running, then, where that shot cuts to black, we stay at black, and put up white text: Now.

We go back to the Task Force X HQ. Waller, trying to save face, pivots, saying Batman is maybe the most dangerous of them, that he’s managed to survive on grit and wit, that they need to take out his potential allies to keep him exposed and vulnerable. Joker actually confronts Waller- accusing her of letting Batman go in the hopes of drawing in all these other players, and their weaponizable tech- Martian, Kryptonian, Amazonian, Atlantean, etc.. Waller won’t confirm or deny, but it’s clear there’s some truth to it- that him figuring that out almost gives her a grudging respect for him. He storms off, seemingly in a reasonably normal huff, stating he agreed to kill the Bat, not this suicide mission. Flag tells two of his operatives to follow Joker. He loses contact with them thirty seconds later. Waller triggers Joker’s bomb, and the guard nearest Waller’s head explodes. “Shirt,” she demands of Flag, and he strips it off. She uses it to wipe her guard’s blood off her face. “I told you the clown was too dangerous.”

“And I told you your security was sloppy,” Flag says, sliding the shirt back on. They each think Flag continuing to wear the shirt is a middle finger to the other, proof of the other’s screw-up.

“Uh,” Harley points out the cowl Joker left behind is playing a message on repeat- the same message he’s sent to the rest of the Justice League.

The message continues, as we show a montage, proving that Batman has secreted beacons in each of the League member’s homes, that activate, first showing a holographic bat signal, then playing his message. “These aren’t the circumstances I was hoping to contact you in. In fact, I was hoping I’d never need to. I was content to confine my activities to Gotham, and leave you to your own. That option’s off the table. A rogue government operative has assembled a team of our foes. Tonight they’re hunting me, and I have no doubt, they’ll hunt all of you, next. Divided, we’re easy prey. Together… we might stand a chance. I’ve cleared out the old Gotham Penitentiary. I was going to use it as a training facility, but I also realized a time might come when I needed a hardened site for an assault, isolated enough to prevent civilian casualties. Meet me there. And be careful. Waller has resources and cunning.”

We’re back with Waller and Flag at her HQ. He asks to see her without the guards. “I think there’s something you’re not telling me, Amanda. If you really wanted a military team, you’d have gone with the team I suggested. Or at least let me put these clowns through boot. This is barely a step up from that Central City amateur hour.”

“If there’s anything you need to know, I’ll let you know it.”

“You don’t get to pull that chain of command crap with me. I don’t work for you- that’s our deal.”

She smiles. “I know. But you’re fun when you’re angry.” She pours herself a drink, and doesn’t offer him one. “I did ask. The answer was ‘no’ on both fronts. Eiling. Never said a word to me, but he’s the only one in a position to make a case against us. Fear was we’d be creating better, more disciplined criminals; best-case scenario, we’d be replacing slap-dash heroes with trained ones- who would be that much harder to depose if they ever went rogue, and already have a history of doing just that.”

“And that’s why you let us screw up with the Bat.”

“Oh, he’s good. And I did not put my thumb on the scale. But I also didn’t go all in on that mission, either.”

“Because if we can’t take this ‘Justice League’ without training our operators, maybe they’ll let us do that.”

“Or even give us clearance to start recruiting ex-military, like Deathstroke and Deadshot.”

“Didn’t know Deadshot-”

“Yeah, he was one of ours. Second-most decorated sniper in history. Until we found out he was taking private contracts on the side- and wasn’t picky about whose side they were on. We wiped his identity, and there’s been a Presidential kill order for him ever since. I imagine he’d be willing to do some work for us, to have that rescinded.”

“Deathstroke, though… he doesn’t come cheap.”

“I didn’t say anything about hiring him.”

“I don’t think he’s broken any laws.”

“Mercs always break laws. And even if he was so clean he squeaked, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

“This is why I don’t work for you.”

“Keep talking like that, and I’ll find a way to make you.”

He ignores the threat. “So either we win, you get your proof of concept and your green light, or we lose, and you get proof you need more funding and access to better trained operators. I hope I never have cause to be on your bad side.”

“Good luck, Captain,” she says, and raises the glass she never once drank from.

Batman arrives at the prison on his cycle wearing a new cape and cowl. He interacts with a screen in his gauntlet, checking that his security measures are working. “There’s still time to call in the family,” Alfred says over his radio. “Batgirl and Nightwing are less than three miles out.”

“No. These people are too dangerous, even if I had time to prep them.”

“And if your reinforcements don’t show? Master Bruce… you barely escaped your last encounter intact.”

“I’ve got a radar ping, Alfred. Keep the kids away from here. Keep them safe.”

“As you wish, sir. Godspeed.”

The wind blows past him, and then an invisible jet lands. Wonder Woman leaps out of the cockpit, and shakes Batman’s hand.

“I thought about inviting you to a charity fundraiser,” he tells her.

“I bet they’d pay millions just to see the two of us dance.”

“I meant out of costume.”

“I bet they’d pay double for that,” she says with a glint in her eye.

“She’s funny,” Flash is there an instant later. “I knew she’d be intimidating. But funny? I bet you had the Batman blushing.” Flash runs up to Bruce, only to realize he’s towering over him, and comedically lurching back. “Though I could be mistaken.”

“I’m glad you came,” Batman says before turning around.

“I had to,” we hear him before we see him, Superman flying majestically into their midst. “My mom would kill me if I refused a polite invitation from Batman. Unless I sent one of those little cards, but I can never remember the right etiquette for those. Easier just to show.”

Could she kill you?” Batman asks. “Does she have access to the right minerals?”

“Huh,” Superman says. “I can’t tell if you’re joking. I usually can. Microexpressions, heart-rate fluctuations, even tell-tale changes in cerebral blood-flow or neuronal activity.”

“He isn’t joking,” Martian Manhunter says. “He rarely does. Though he does remember how.”

“Stay out of my head,” Batman growls.

“You probably shouldn’t be ornery with the Martian,” Hal Jordan says, landing next to John. “He was the one who convinced me to trust you.”

“Oh yeah,” Flash says, as if the thought is only dawning on him now. “This could have been a trap.”

“No,” Aquaman says, rising out of the reservoir beneath the prison. “I don’t believe anyone else could have found us all.”

“I’m not so sure,” Batman says. “Victor, you might as well come out.”

For a moment we join Cyborg in the shadows. “You can totally do this. You’re a fricking Cyborg.” He walks out of the shadows.

“I was hoping he was with you,” Superman says with a smile. “I… heard the pep-talk you were giving yourself. I’m sure you’ll do fine, son.”

“Don’t say ‘son,’” he replies, largely doing a bit.

“Oh, sorry,” Superman says, genuinely taken aback. “I didn’t mean to imply a patriarchal imbalance; I know you’re younger because I can see your telomeres, but-”

“I just thought we were doing a bit- wait, you can see my telomeres?” Cyborg looks down at his arm, and his cybernetic eye scans it. “Weird. So can I. Why didn’t I ever think of that?”

“Presumably because you already know how old you are,” Flash says, suddenly standing in front of Cyborg, “I’m Flash, by the way.” He puts out his hand at superspeed.

“I think introductions can wait,” Wonder Woman says. “You were about to describe the threat.”

Batman drops a metal ball on the ground which projects an image of Amanda Waller. “She’s basically me, if I worked for the government, was a complete sociopath and had been recruiting the most dangerous criminals we’d ever fought to weaponize against us.”

“If she’s basically you the suit quite effectively shapes your thunder,” Flash says.

“And it kind of washes you out,” Cyborg adds.

“Quiet, children, the adults are speaking,” Arthur says.

“Dude, you’re like thirty, not Arthurian.”

Arthur’s confused. “My name is actually Arthur.”

“That’s no excuse for talking like a Shakespearean character.”

“Touche.”

“Clever,” Flash rolls his eyes, “because Le Morte d’Arthur was written in ye olde English.”

Batman gets an alarm on his gauntlet. “We don’t have time for any of this,” Batman interrupts, “or any time for me to prep you. They’re on their way.”

“You’re leading them here,” Superman says, turning towards Batman, suddenly short.

“Like I said, we fight them here, they can’t hurt civilians- or use the fact we’ll protect innocent people against us. I asked all of you here for two reasons- one, there’s someone coming here each of you has fought before. Two, I think we share the same goal- saving innocent lives. You want to hate me after, you want to kick the hell out of me after, you can.”

“Something tells me he gives a similar speech on dates,” Flash says to Cyborg.

“Man, I’m just happy to be included,” Cyborg replies. “I’ve fought precisely one costumed weirdo. Usually somebody’d slap an ‘S’ on my chest and make me a sidekick, or put me on the JV squad.”

“We aren’t a team,” Batman continues. “We don’t know one another. Our best bet is to continue to work alone, fan out across this place. I’ve built in automated defenses; all of you have been white listed. But knowing the people coming, my traps will only soften them up.”

Cyborg raises his hand. “Yeah, as the one Black guy in the spooky, derelict prison, I think I’d be remiss in not objecting to us splitting up.”

“Anybody want to pair off with Stone?” Batman asks. “You’re welcome to. I’d suggest refraining from sleeping with him, though-”

“No reason to tempt the Gods?” Wonder Woman asks wryly.

“I will,” Flash says, before stopping himself, “go with you, I mean, not sleep with- I have a girlfriend.”

Cyborg puts up his hands. “No one asked, man.”

“So it’s a no questions asked situation?” Aquaman asks Wonder Woman.

“I heard that,” Cyborg says. “And we’re the children,” he says

“I mean you are like ten,” Flash deadpans, waits a beat, then adds, “Kidding; I can’t see telomeres, and you’re also mostly a robot. Though you do have a very youthful cheek.”

“I moisturize.”

“It’s working for you.”

Superman and Batman pair off, mostly because Clark doesn’t trust him (which makes Bruce like him more), and because he wants to try to keep the vulnerable human alive (which makes Bruce like him less). But Batman has his own plans, and takes him to his control room.

“You really trust this Bat-guy?” Green Lantern asks.

“Trust isn’t a concept in my culture. Agendas, subterfuge, are only possible for short durations, and usually by means of rogue technology. I know who he is; I know what he wants, and what he needs. He has been honest with us, to a point.”

“It’s that caveat that has my Lantern senses tingling.”

Manhunter reconsiders. “He would die to protect any one of us, without hesitating. He involved us only reluctantly, after nearly dying twice earlier this evening.”

“I’m beginning to feel like all of us are metaphorically naked around you.”

“Your ring provides rudimentary telepathic defenses. And it’s not polite to pry. I did look into the man, before we came. I’m a father; I can’t risk myself recklessly.”

Batman comes over the loudspeaker. “They’ll likely let the White Martian take point, in the hopes he can disable some of our defenses. He’s easily the largest threat. He’s a telepath. He could shut us all down from a distance without John.”

“So I’m your shield,” Hal says.

“Did I not mention that?” John asks wryly. “Although you won’t need to be for long. He’s here.”

John telepathically tells Flash and Cyborg where the Martian is. John has Cyborg scan to locate him despite him being invisible, and has Flash attack him with a whirl-wind, which John tells them will disrupt his ability to control his atoms- especially after Batman’s attack. Then he attacks the Martian’s mind.

For a moment Martian Manhunter and the White Martian posture, turning into vast webs of limbs and weapons, before John lowers his weapons. “You aren’t like the others. No bomb in your neck; I suppose you could phase out of it the second you wanted. What did they use to leash you?”

The White Martian lowers his weapons. “Megan. They threatened her- to drop thermobaric bombs on her, her school, your apartment. I couldn’t chance it.”

“No. I wouldn’t ask you to. But your heart’s not in this fight. Yield, and I will make it painless. You will tell them you were injured, and lost.”

He takes John’s hand. “Keep our daughter safe.” John shuts down the White Martian’s mind, and John tells Flash to stop, and the Martian falls.

Suddenly we’re in a different control room. Somewhat subtly, to start, it’s the same basic décor as Batman’s. “Martian’s down,” Flag says, as they watch on cameras.

“With time to spare,” Waller says with a smile, as she watches the Suicide Squad make their way through the halls. “He bought us our in.”

“I’m still not happy to have you on-site. You’re what we refer to as a high-value target, and we brought you into the lion’s den.”

“Had to be done,” she says. “This billionaire playboy has tech even DARPA doesn’t understand. The only way I could control this battlefield without being noticed and digitally cut off was to be on site, hard-wired into the system- a lot of which is our system.”

Waller takes control of a security panel, and tells it to target the Flash, before stopping herself, because he’s too fast to shoot. So she’ll give the hero a chance to save someone, and instead targets Cyborg with an automated gun. Flash tries to save Cyborg from as many bullets as he can, but takes several shots in the legs; Cyborg is able to build a metal shield with his tech that’s able to sop up bullets- though clearly the gun is slowly cutting pieces from it.

Back in the control room, Superman stands over Batman, both staring at a monitor. “Stop shooting at them,” he menaces.

“That’s not my gun. I don’t do guns.” There’s a flash of understanding on Superman’s face; he had an idea of who Batman was under the cowl, but that confirms it for him. “Someone else installed it. And they control it.”

“Then I’ll-”

Wait.”

“Can’t you hack into it?” Flash asks, as Cyborg protects him behind a shrinking shield.

“I can’t. It’s hard-wired,” he says, distracted by the gunfire.

“Then hard-wire.”

“Right.” Cyborg scans the nearest wall, finding the right cable, and punches into it, ripping the wiring out and inserting it into a port in his arm. The gun dies. “Whooh!” Cyborg says, raising his arms before collapsing with Flash. “Think I’ll lay back and have a little celebratory heart attack.”

“S’cool,” Flash says dazedly, largely laying in Cyborg’s arms. “I’m just gonna lay here trying to regrow my legs. I feel safe here, as the little spoon. Don’t tell Iris.”

We cut to Batman’s control room. “You’re not, are you?” Superman asks. “Going to tell her?”

“Only with a compelling reason,” Batman says.

“I assume you have one, for keeping me here, for why I’m not fighting with others.”

“I’ve seen the footage, from your coming out party, at Kansas State.”

“That’s not what it was.”

“I wanted you here because you’re vulnerable, in a way most of the team isn’t.”

“I thought you said we weren’t a team.”

“Teams train together. They trust one another. I don’t see either of those happening.”

“You really have trust issues, don’t you Bruce?”

“What?” Batman menaces. Superman is already a blur, but he’s back an instant later.

“God,” Superman says, putting his hand on Batman’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I know what it’s like to lose parents too young…”

Don’t.”

“It’s not healthy to stay this closed off.”

“I mean don’t get distracted.” Batman is focused on a camera, and we zoom into it.

Black Manta is advancing on Aquaman. “I thought for sure they would have sprung Orm,” Arthur says. “Or at least found a Colossal Squid salty I kicked it or something. Those diving suits are cool, but this is going to feel a lot like punching do-” Black Manta blasts Aquaman off his feet. Aquaman is wheezing, struggling as he tries to gets up. A little nozzle telescopes out of a wall, and hits him with a comedically large spray of water.

Superman grins, watching Aquaman knocked back on a jet of water. “And they think you have no sense of humor.”

“I’m about 90% sure that his powers are in part water-based, and judging from the heat coming off that blast, it dehydrated him.”

“Any defenses you were planning on using on the bad guys?” Superman asks, as Manta continues to advance. A different device telescopes out of the floor, and sprays oil onto it.

Manta’s suit gives him a warning, about low-friction, right before he starts sliding, kicking his legs wildly before doing a full Home Alone fall on his back. “Nyuck nyuck,” Superman says.

“Quiet,” Batman replies.

Aquaman punches Manta, but the suit is hardened, originally to withstand crushing ocean depths, and then redesigned to withstand Aquaman’s punches, so it barely dents. Manta tries to blast him from the ground, with Aquaman diving out of the way. “Remove the helmet,” Batman says through a speaker.

“Oh, right,” Aquaman says. He rolls out of the way of another blast. Manta tries to stand, but is even more oily than before, and falls face-down. Aquaman gets a knee into his back, and uses the leverage to tear Manta’s helmet off him. Suddenly seeing David, he feels a pang of remorse. “David, I-”

Manta punches him, knocking him back.

“You want me to-” Superman gestures in that direction.

“No,” Batman says, holding up his hand.

Aquaman lunges, reeling back to throw a punch, but Manta has ample time to punch him in the face. Manta freezes, and we see that Aquaman wasn’t throwing a punch at all, but delivering an octopus, one holding a small glass vial, sitting on Manta’s shoulder.

“I imagine you’re familiar with box jellyfish.” The octopus holds the vial up so that Manta can see there’s a little baby jellyfish inside. “Their tentacles are covered in microscopic cells that function like hypodermic needles. I’ve been working with Percy to get the dosing right; too much venom can cause cardiac arrest, but the right dose leads to paralysis. Because I don’t want to hurt you, David; I didn’t want to hurt your dad, either. You can blame me for his death, if you want; but he made a choice, not to look out for himself, or for you. He risked himself for profit. But… I am sorry. I know I played a role in his death. I was rash, and angry, and I lashed out. It was the first time someone tried to kill me, and I didn’t react well. But we don’t have to do this. You don’t have to take your obvious genius and bend it to hurt people. You could extend humanity’s reach into the deepest parts of the ocean, and further into the reaches of space. I hope you choose something better than this.” He turns to go. “Oh, the octopus is going to stay. He’ll give you a couple of injections. The first is a cocktail, some Atlantean medicine, spiked with some cholestorol agonists. It should prevent any long-term damage from the venom. He’ll also give you a dose of tranquilizer.” The octopus produces a syringe, and hovers the needle over Manta’s eye. “It doesn’t go in the eye, though.” Arthur leans in. “He’s not really a sadist; he just has a warped sense of humor.” The octopus flips Aquaman off as he walks away. “I saw that.” The octopus looms over Manta, wringing his tentacles menacingly.

“Diana,” we hear Aquaman call. Then we cut to him searching. “Diana!”

We cut to Diana parrying a strike from Cheetah. “We don’t have to do this, Barbara.” She catches another blow on her bracelet, which clearly hurts Cheetah’s hand. “I have no desire to hurt you.”

“No,” Minerva scoffs. “You just want to protect the status quo, and all the predators that protects.”

Diana ponders a moment. “I don’t. I also don’t know who preyed on you, Barbara, but I would love to help you stop them- or stop those like him.”

Minerva weighs the offer. “You might even believe that. But they don’t.” Aquaman passes on the other side of two-sided glass, thick enough he can’t hear their fighting. “The men you’re fighting with. Men can’t accept strong women. You’ll find that out.”

“They don’t get to make my decisions for me.”

“You might believe that. I can’t.” Barbara unsheathes her claws. “I know I can’t beat you. You’re faster. Stronger. And you’ve been at this a hell of a lot longer than I have. In a fair fight, I’m catnip. So why fight fair?” She produces Flag’s sidearm, and fires slowly. She’s trying to lead Wonder Woman towards a Claymore mine she and Flag set.

“You should help her,” Batman barks.

“I’m not a dog you can order to attack.” He uses his x-ray vision to ascertain her location in the prison. “I have her- if she needs me.” There’s an awkward silence for a moment. “I do have a Kryptonian dog with similar powers… but he’s shorter, cuter, likes being scritched behind the ears.”

Batman pauses a beat. “What breed?” Batman asks, both because he’s genuinely trying, and because he actually likes dogs, or at least, he likes his.

“Uh, Kryptonian, I otherwise don’t know how to answer that.” He pauses, too, realizing what’s happening. “Yours?”

“German Shepherd. Smart, loyal. Alfred named him ‘Ace.’”

“I guess Krypto resembles a labrador, a white one. He’s smart, too.”

“Do you make him wear a cape?”

“He… gets really anxious if you try to take it off him. Yours?”

“I’m not a monster.”

Pause a beat.

“Have you ever called him your bat-hound?” Clark asks.

Awkward silence, before we cut back to Wonder Woman deflecting more bullets.

“I want you to know something, Barbara, that you taught me. I always saw these bracelets as a shield. I used them to protect myself, and my sisters. I was so focused on protecting people, that I didn’t realize, sometimes the best defense,” she turns her wrists, so a pair of Minerva’s bullets bounce off the bracelets, and ricochet to hit Minerva in the knees, and she goes down, “is offense.”

Barbara’s lying on the ground, holding her gunshot knees. “If I call that a sucker punch, do I have to admit you suckered me?”

Diana holds out a bit of cloth to bind the wounds. “I can’t make promises, Barbara, but I meant what I said. If I can help you, or help you help others, I will. And may the gods make room in Hades for the men who oppose me.”

Cheetah thinks a moment, before taking the cloth.

We cut back to Waller’s control room. “Damnit, I’ve lost visual on Quinn,” Flag says. “Should I blow her?”

“If it’s permission you’re asking for, I think it’s the lady who’d be the one to give it,” Boomerang says, tapping Harley’s monitor.

“No,” Waller says. “This place was a prison, built in the old Gotham mines. There’s feet of rock, concrete and ore in places. We still have audio.”

We cut to Harley, walking into Batman’s control room, holding a white flag in one hand and cue cards, the first of which reads, “Hiya, Bats!” with a little heart dotting the I. She quickly flips to the next card. “I’m bugged” (with a crudely drawn cockroach illustrating it). “And booby-trapped.” Her next card has two diagrams, one with an outline of a chest that’s Xed out, and the other with a circle at the neck.

Batman holds up his hand to stop Superman. We zoom in on his mouth, barely moving; we hear it as Superman does, a whisper, but LOUD. “X-rays might set it off.” Clark nods grimly.

Batman pulls a device with a needle and a scalpel from his utility belt, and Harley stumbles backward, falling back into a chair. Batman signs at Clark, and we subtitle it. “Distract her.”

Superman begins pantomiming, and Harley, confused, follows along. “Look? It’s a bird? No, a plane? No- ow, my neck,” Harley moans, as Batman jabs something into her neck.

“The device is inactive,” Batman says at full volume. “It’s probably safer not to remove it in the field.”

“So it’s safer to leave it in my neck?” Harley asks, springing to her feet.

We cut back to Waller. “Detonate,” she commands, and Flag hits the red button with her name on it. She waits a moment, listening for a detonation. “Shit.”

We’re back with Batman, Superman and Harley. “You could have been wrong,” Clark says.

“But I wasn’t,” Batman says. “Receiver was using a WayneTech chip. I removed it.”

Harley collapses back into her chair. “I really need anxiety meds.”

“Who’s left?” Batman asks, leaning threateningly over her, tilting her chair to put her even more ill-at-ease.

“I’d tell him,” Superman says. “He’s really not rational when he’s like this.”

“Who is left?” he asks again.

“When I left the other control room, there was Boomer, Flag, and Waller.”

“Waller’s on site,” Batman says. “And Flag has a fractured rib; should take some of the fight out of him. Should have broken his trigger fingers while I was at it. That’s all?”

“That, and ‘the big guy’ who was apparently a big fan of eating hearts, and the only one who spooked the guards more than Mistah J.” Metallo crashes through the rear wall, and immediately the shielding around his kryptonite core slides away. “Oh, and that guy.”

“Damnit, Quinn,” Batman says, ducking under one of Metallo’s arms even as he connects with Superman, knocking him into the opposite wall.

Batman starts kicking one of the console panels. “What are you doing?” Quinn asks.

“These systems are all water-cooled.” The panel bends inward, and he’s able to tear it loose, and slices through a hose with a batarang in his fist.

“Heh,” Harley chuckles to herself, “his water broke.” The water crests against Metallo’s metal feet, where he’s using Superman, embedded in the rock at this point, as a punching bag. Batman climbs on the chair with her. “Hey, what gives?”

“We’re improvising. Lift your feet.” She does, as he flings several batarangs at some insulated cords along the wall, slicing through them. One strikes the water, electrifying the floor, frying Metallo, freezing him. Superman, no longer held in place by the force of punches, slides to the floor, where he starts being electrocuted. He struggles to the cable, and picks it up, stopping the flow of current.

“That hurts more than you might think,” Superman says.

“We improvised,” Harley says, as Batman sprints across the room. “You should have listened when he said to lift your feet.”

“I’m sure he’s shielded, we’re probably just waiting for his processors to boot back up,” Batman says as he welds a piece of lead-lining from an x-ray protection gown in Metallo’s chest. “That should help,” he says. “Just don’t hit him in the chest.” Metallo grabs Batman by the throat, but Superman is there in an instant, and knocks him back.

“You okay?” Superman asks.

“I’m fine.”

“A choking like that won’t do any more than a day of vigorous growling,” Harley says, as Metallo and Superman punch each other in the face. “It’s kinda like rock ‘em sock ‘em robots,” Harley says, having to leap out of the way as Metallo throws Superman.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he says, before flying at Metallo.

“Ma’am me again and I’ll make you sorry,” she says, kicking at the empty air where he’d been. Batman grabs hold of her chair and rolls her into the hall as a man-shaped dent appears in the door behind them.

“I think we’re safer out here,” Batman says.

“Unless they’ve got some kind of redundancies in the arming mechanism,” Harley says.

“Fair point. Stick close.”

“Yeah. Nobody wants to die alone if they can take someone else with them.”

“If they need line of sight to set off any redundancies, they have to expose themselves.”

“Ew,” Harley says, making a face.

“Now this is awkward,” a voice echoes menacingly through the halls.

“Run,” Batman says, but Harley stands her ground.

“I never thought I’d find you rubbing another man’s rhubarb,” Joker says, stepping out of the shadows with a large gun.

“I thought the emoji was an eggplant,” Harley says.

“I just can’t decide who to shoot first,” he laughs to himself, before jamming a drum magazine onto his gun. “But I’m not Dent- I don’t have to choose- I can just shoot everone!” he cackles gleefully, filling the hallway with gunfire that doesn’t quite drown out the sound of his laughter (or last as long).

Batman shoves Harley down, taking the brunt of the shots in his armor, protecting her. They’re both lying on the floor, unmoving, Batman with his face covered by a few inches of water.

Joker walks slowly, reloading as he speaks. “Of all the girls I shoved to the floor, I never thought I’d find you sleeping with the enemy, though so long as you’re both sleeping with the fish, who am I to com-” close on Joker’s feet, as we see he’s tripped a wire. Joker stops dead in his tracks, and says, “heh, booby,” before an explosion knocks him into the far wall.

Batman sits up gasping for air. “My hero!” Harley says, wrapping her arms around him. Batman is clearly uncomfortable with the affection, and stands stiffly up.

“I knew he had to be hurting you, too. It’s who he is.”

“It is who he is,” she says indignantly, stamping over to Joker and beginning to kick him.

“Ow, my heart,” he says pathetically, as Batman lifts her up and puts her down away from Joker. Batman lifts him up, and Harley kicks him back down. Batman raises a stern finger to her, and she puts up her hands. Batman gets him up enough to cuff him to a metal bar, then turns to leave, before stopping.

“You know, we’d all be safer if he was unconscious.” Unbridled joy spreads across Harley’s face.

“You wouldn’t hit a guy with glasses, would you?” Joker asks, putting on a pair.

“Those are mine!” she squeals indignantly, kicking him, taking the glasses, and then scissor kicking him into the bar with a gloriously satisfying clang. “I just use ‘em for reading,” Harley says, folding them and putting them in a pocket.

We cut back to Waller and Flag. “Given I can hear the thunder of steel men’s fists, I take it Corben’s still in the fight,” Waller says.

“That’s a bad sign,” Flag says. “He’s not supposed to go toe-to-toe. His edge was the surprise. Longer the fight goes, the better the odds it doesn’t go our way.”

“Then let’s stop dicking around,” Waller says. “Time to put our big gun in play.”

“I’m not sure how wise that is. He might decide to just kill the two of us and leave.”

“Captain, if I stopped every time a man might decide to kill me, I wouldn’t have made it past elementary school.” She cues up a mic. “Do it.” She opens a channel into a cell. “I know we’re still getting to know one another. I know you’re still considering whether to just slaughter your way free. But I have a counter-offer. Kill one of these ‘heroes’ for me, and I’ll see all Earthly records of your time and crimes here expunged. Kill a second, and you’re free. Kill them all, and I’ll tell you where I have William Hand stashed away. Whatever you decide to do with him, it will be like he never existed. Oh, and the first ‘hero’ you get to kill is a Green Lantern.”

We see sharp teeth smiling in the dark cell, lit very faintly by a red light. “With blood and rage of crimson red,” the large alien’s foot stomps, shaking his cage as Waller’s soldiers run.Ripped from a corpse so freshly dead,” his other foot stomps as he tears off his shackles, sending the metal chains flying at camera, “Together with my hellish hate,” he smashes his metal cell, and the doors and all of the walls and even the ceiling fly off in different directions, “I’ll burn you all, That is your fate!” Atrocitus screams, the final words of his oath, as a red lantern symbol burns behind him.

“So… that’s bad,” Hal says. “I thought Sinestro removed him from the planet.”

“Apparently he was stopped by the Earth authorities,” John says, gleaning that much from a superficial reading of Waller’s fleeing soldiers.

Hal’s ring fills them in. “His ring assessed that human casualties sustained in retaining custody of the prisoner were unacceptable, not to mention that the odds of the prisoner escaping during any conflict approached the 90th percentile.”

“John can you-” Hal doesn’t finish the thought before he’s knocked back by one of Atrocitus’ projections.

“No,” John says, phasing through another. “Like your ring, his provides a degree of telepathic shielding. This calls for a more direct approach.” John phases through Atrocitus’ force-field.

“Martian, huh?” Atrocitus says, almost a laugh. “Burn.”

John is engulfed in a burning red flame, before Hal is able to douse him with green foam to put him out. John is able to phase back through the field. “That hurt like fire,” John says.

“You know what else burns like fire?” we hear the words as Flash blurs by. He vibrates through Atrocitus’ shield, and punches him a thousand times, before Atrocitus stumbles backward. Flash vibrates back out. “That’s right: getting punched like a thousand times in a second. You know what that answer wins you?”

“Another thousand punches?” Atrocitus asks wearily as Flash vibrates back through his force-field. This time, however, he’s met with a second, growing field, that shoves him back, screaming, through the first.

“Okay, John, you were right,” Flash says, “that does burn like fire. Vic, you got anything?”

“Yeah,” Cyborg says, “just didn’t want to step on your moment.” He’s got the sonic canon he used on Deathstroke, only now it’s fancy and sleek, and he blasts Atrocitus with it. It looks, from the outside, like the force-field absorbs it without anything happening, but Vic explains, “See, I scanned the frequency of his field, and calibrated my sonics to harmonize with it, turning his field into one big echo chamber.” For a second we pop back inside the field, where the noise is hard to take. Atrocitus drops the field for a moment, to let the sound out. In the moment his field is down, he’s hit in the chest with a batarang that explodes. He stumbles backward, into Diana’s lasso, which she yanks, sending into to the ground, where we see that on his back is the octopuss.

“You know what else burns like fire?” Aquaman asks.

“I can’t be the only one who’s expecting him to say gonorrhea,” Flash interjects.

“Box jellyfish venom.” We zoom on the octopus injecting atrocitus. “Lantern?”

“I got you, little guy,” Green Lantern says, pulling both the jellyfish and octopus away from Atrocitus in a little protective bubble.

Atrocitus scream. “I don’t imagine it’ll cause paralysis in your species, which presumably come from another planet. But sounds like it’s still unpleasant.”

“Fools!” Atrocitus screams, lashing out in all directions with a wave of energy and weapons and flames, knocking them all to the ground. “I will peel the flesh from your skulls and eat it.”

At that precise moment, a human face barely sticking to a metal exoskeleton impacts with Atrocitus’ force-field; it’s Metallo, thrown by Superman. “I wouldn’t start with that one,” Flash says. “I’m pretty sure it’s artificial. I’m sure it would do lousy things to whatever your equivalent of a colon is.”

“Fast-men, stress his shield,” Batman says. Superman and Flash run circles around Atrocitus, pummeling his force-field. “Diana, put the squeeze on him.” She lassos his field and tightens it.

“Lantern, let John in; make sure he can’t surprise us.” We zoom in. Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern are, in effect, standing on the sheath of energy around Atrocitus’ body (the one that’s inside his larger force-field bubble). They see armies of red energy monsters form and unform.

John explains that, “The rings anticipate you; they try to be prepared for whatever you might need. I have connected you, so that whatever he attempts you will counter, automatically.” Another army rises, but this time, they’re joined in battle by a tiny green one.

“Cyborg,” Batman says. “I need the opposite of what you did before- a frequency that will cancel his field. I need a hole.”

“Then call me Dr. Stone,” Vic says, before adding, “kidding, ‘Doctor Stone’ is my father.” He blasts the field, slicing a hole in it.

“Shuck him like an oyster,” Batman commands. He manages to get a batarang in the hole, and pulls, himself, as the others grab on the hole in the field and pull. Atrocitus tries to create a red energy tentacle, but it’s caught by a green glove, he creates a battery of missiles, only for a green ramp to aim the missiles directly into his own face.

“John? I’m pretty sure he’s not fire on the inside,” Batman says.

John smiles. “You terrible, clever man.”

John oozes through the hole into the force-field, then phases past the energy sheath around his body, poring into his mouth and disappearing. “Would you like to do the honors?” John asks in Batman’s head, as Atrocitus’ sheath dissipates.

“John knows everything about your species that you or the Green Lanterns do. Like where to put pressure to bisect your spinal cord.” Atrocitus’ legs go limp, and he crashes onto his stomach. “Drop the ring, and yield, and it stops. Or John and I start getting creative.”

“Bastards,” Atrocitus yelps, peeling off the ring.

“Lantern?” Batman asks.

Hal picks up the ring in a green energy box, and his ring tells them it’s an authentic ring, that Atrocitus is unarmed. “You can come back out, John.” Manhunter phases out of Atrocitus, which lets him leave all of his bodily fluids where they had been.

“I thought he smelled bad on the outside,” John says. “Is that a reference humans still make? I’m… making a list.”

Quinn arrives with the Squad Members, and Waller in tow. Waller has a boomerang sticking out of her forearm. “Tell them what you told me, B-man,” Harley says.

“I can disarm the bombs in their necks, Waller. But you’re going to let them go.”

“Really?” Waller asks, shoulder-checking Harley as she steps to the front of the group. “From where I’m standing you’re holding an exceedingly weak hand. I know who all of you are, under the masks. Two of you are aliens. Two others aren’t human. One is in thrall to an alien military force, another a threat to modern society, and the other a threat to the very fabric of reality. This is one fight you can’t win, B-man.” She leans on the “B” in a way to make clear she considered calling him “Bruce.”

“That’s your problem. You don’t realize you’ve already lost.” Batman has footage from her control room, played holographically. Harley breaks in. Waller is nearer to the door, and tries to slow her down.

“Her bomb is disabled,” Waller barks. “She stops, or we start blowing the other Task Force members.”

“I’m not killing random people for you, Amanda,” Flag says, stepping away from the control panel.

She hits Harley with her gun, and pushes past him, “Then I’ll do it.”

Boomerang hits her with a boomerang in the arm (the one still embedded in the meat), and Harley punches her in the face. Flag puts up his hands.

The footage cuts to Waller training a gun on Cyborg, shooting Flash, shows Waller ordering Atrocitus to attack them.

“I’ll spell out for you what I have, Waller: it’s an agent of the government weaponizing a criminal army on US soil against citizens, none of whom have been accused of a crime. Worse, two of your targets are diplomatic envoys from sovereign nations. And,” documents flash across the screen, “here are the contracts for the tech you hoped to steal and then have replicated. So door number 1 is the end of your career, and your seedy little Suicide Squad.”

“Then what’s the carrot?”

“You live to fight another day. But your indentured army goes free. And so do we. An end to hostilities against anyone in this room. You still get to operate in the shadows, you just stop using us as your proving ground. There will be no reprisals- not from any of us, and not from you, or I go public, and the chips fall where they may.”

“You trust them?” she asks of the Squad.

“I trust that they understand their situation. Right now, I’m the lesser of two evils. But I’ll worry about that. This agreement is between you and me. Of course, you can always try to renegotiate with them.” Flag and Harley in particular are staring daggers at her, but Cheetah understands she could have been the one Waller tried to kill despite their agreement.

“Fine.” She shakes his hand. Waller leaves. Flag stays behind.

“You sure I can’t just kill her on her way out?” Cheetah asks.

“No,” Batman says. “But I do have an offer I’d like to make to all of you.”

“I should make sure she doesn’t make a beeline for the control room,” Flash says, zooming away.

We cut to later. “I’m not sure how I feel about you hiring yourself a mercenary army,” Superman says.

“We’ll have plenty to talk about that, though I view it more as an unorthodox rehabilitation program,” Batman says, but holds up his hand. Batman says, “Mask of Zorro,” into a bit of rock wall, and a piece of cave slides away, revealing a number pad. He removes his glove, and taps in a code, his fingerprints providing the biometric portion of the lock. The cave wall slides away, revealing a sleek black train. “All aboard.”

The ride is smooth, and doesn’t last very long, before they arrive in the Batcave. Alfred has prepared a feast for them, and set a table and chairs out for them to eat. “What is all this?” Superman asks. “You said yourself we aren’t a team.”

“No,” Batman says, “but maybe we need to be. Waller isn’t going away. I’ve known her kind. She may not be this brazen again, but she isn’t done testing us. And she’s far from the worst threat waiting in the wings. I haven’t changed my mind- not completely; I’m not ready to build a hall of justice and schedule regular meetings of our justice…”

“Family,” Superman suggests.

“Corps,” Green Lantern tries.

“Titans,” Cyborg adds.

“Legion?” Wonder Woman says.

“League?” Aquaman offers.

“Avengers?” Flash asks.

“I’m regretting this already,” Batman says. “But for tonight, we endured. For tonight, I need to say,” he removes his mask, “thank you for coming.” He can’t quite bring himself to admit that they came to his rescue, that they saved him, but they did, and they all understand- and understand that each and every one of them would have done the same for them, but also for anyone. That whether or not they say it tonight, they have built something, something that will endure.

We roll credits.

Mid-credits scene: “There’s a bloody morals clause?” Boomerang asks.

“And a death waiver,” Harley adds.

“It’s a liability waiver,” Flag says. “Death, dismemberment, other injury. Benefits are generous; life insurance if we’re killed, full disability insurance if we’re injured on the job. The morals clause just says we punch who we’re supposed to; looks to be modeled on a military code of conduct.”

“It was,” Batman says, walking into their midst. “But like I said, you don’t want to sign, you’re free to walk. You stay, you work for me. I put a team of high-priced lawyers on any prior issues you’ve had, and compensate you handsomely for your time and talents. Unlike Waller, I don’t view any loss of life as acceptable- especially my people’s lives.”

“How handsomely?” Quinn flips to a different page for Boomerang.

“Monthly?”

“Annually.”

Boomerang scoffs. “I got that much in a single day from hitting Central City Bank.”

“And how much of it did you get to keep?” Batman asks. “Scratch that. How deep in the hole were you, between boomerangs and dental work after Flash was done with you? 10 thousand? More?” He pivots away from Boomerang, who is a little pissed, but Harley puts her hand on his arm and he chills. “There are also bonuses. I anticipate us hitting criminal enterprises. Drugs and weapons we destroy, but we keep cash or anything else. Fifty percent goes towards operating costs- with the hope of reaching sustainability- the rest is yours to split evenly. So that figure is guaranteed base pay; you step on a landmine two steps into your first mission and lose a foot, you get that to live on- maybe more, if the rest of the team keeps paying out your portion of the bonuses. Oh, and if you stay on, you train.”

A woman with short red hair and military workout gear drops her bags. This is Batwoman, though we aren’t going to see her in costume for a while yet.

More credits, then one final end credits scene. Bruce Wayne is walking Ace on the grounds of Wayne Manor. He bends over to pet the dog’s head as a gust of wind blows, and the dog whimpers. “It’s okay, boy,” he whispers. “What are you doing here?” he asks without turning around.

“There’s someone I thought you needed to meet,” Superman says, before floating aside, revealing his flying dog, Krypto! The dog lands beside Ace, and they smell each other. “And you must be Ace,” Superman puts his hand out, and Ace sniffs it. Ace looks to Bruce for approval. Bruce gives a little nod, and the dog responds happily, and rubs his face into Clark’s hand.

“Krypto, meet Bruce.” Krypto floats in front of him.

“Does he shake?” Bruce asks. Krypto shakes like he was covered in water, and stares at him with a dopey dog smile on his face.

“Told you he was smart. And yes. If you put out your paw, he’ll shake.”

“How smart?” Bruce asks, putting out his hand. Krypto shakes it.

“I don’t have a precise answer; smarter than an Earth dog, not as smart as a human. The sun affects him the same way it has me.”

“Strong as you?” Bruce pulls the dog forward by the paw, and it rolls, flipping him over. He rolls, landing gracefully.

“Proportionally, at least.”

“Hmm,” Bruce says, eyeing the dog. “That might make him, pound for pound, the most dangerous thing on the planet.” Bruce turns back towards Ace. “I hope he’s a good boy.”

“You said the magic word,” Clark says, as Bruce is mauled by Krypto’s tongue, giving him dozens of slightly too-fast face licks. “Who’s a good boy?” Clark asks, and Krypto flies to him next.

“I think that depends on what you value,” Bruce says, snapping, and Ace sits at attention. Bruce gives him a treat. An instant later Krypto is sitting next to Ace, sitting just as behaved and attentive. “Touche,” he says, and tosses Krypto a treat of his own.

“Wait,” Superman says, “what’s he got in his mouth?” Ace is holding a small plush of an impish figure in an ill-fitting Batman costume.

“Damnit,” Batman says. “That’s his Bat-Mite.”

“Bat-Mite?”

“Alfred found it on a trip to India. As far as we can tell, the name is a corruption. One of the meanings of ‘man’ is ‘value,’ which can translate to “mite” in Urdu. I’m not sure how he keeps finding the damn thing; I keep hiding it.”

Ace holds it out, and Krypto sniffs it, before licking the doll’s face. We don’t see it, and neither do our heroes, but Krypto notices the imp wink at him, and tilts his head in that confused way dogs do.

End

DC Ten Year Plan

Introduction

For those of you who may not have heard, James Gunn and Peter Safran, new heads of DC’s movieverse, are putting together a ten year plan. So I thought I’d pitch my own.

Assumptions

1. We’re playing it where it lies. That means no rewriting 2023’s The Flash to get rid of Ezra Miller, or assuming he’ll be killed in the final five minutes (he might be… but that’s a much easier thing to fix in my pitch than the reverse).

2. Budget is now one of the names of the game. So we’re a lot less likely to see the kinds of big-budget ensembles I prefer for my comic movies, (as you can tell from my other pitches). But I still expect team-ups and duos to be the norm.

3. Covid makes some movie failures an open question. WW2 could have been a winner at the box office, even if it wasn’t a great movie. For that reason I expect sequels to be greenlit that wouldn’t otherwise (you wouldn’t normally do a Suicide Squad 3 after that kind of a box office drop… but the pandemic creates this odd uncertainty- so I expect sequels to happen if only to keep the talent happy).

4. We’re assuming none of these balls get dropped, which is a big assumption. No one expected Black Adam to thud quite as hard as it did; it was supposed to build out the Justice Society, but it won’t get a sequel, and I suspect the Society won’t get a spin-off, either, at least not in its current state.

5. I’m assuming 3 movies per year. I know next year will have 4, but I think that’s entirely because DC blinked and moved Aquaman off of Avatar 2’s weekend- no reason to give up $100+ million just to play chicken with Disney- maybe a lot more, if Avatar is well-received and Aquaman isn’t. I expect 3 movies is the max DC will try to do on average; anything else risks glutting the market and stretching their producers too thin. It’s possible that changes; if they can consistently produce 3 per year without major duds, they might step up to 4… but I suspect savvy executives would recognize Marvel’s quality has slipped somewhat due to Feige being stretched thin, and try to avoid that.

6. I’m assuming we stop at trilogies. Marvel are experimenting with Thor 4 and Cap 4, but that happened later; for now we’re assuming after trilogies that things evolve.

7. You could read the statement about not having 4 Batmen as meaning literally that… but I think it points to a collapse of the multiverse- a Crisis on Infinite Earths as dictated by corporate fiat. Which we can work with.

TWIST

Given that reports have put Wonder Woman 3 as getting the ax, Momoa being out as Aquaman and Gunn rebooting Superman without Cavill… it looks like they’re aiming for more of a tabula rasa than I initially assumed. Because my procrastination is an onion of infinite leaf, I will still pitch my original version below, and then also pitch a wide open, blue sky version after that here. Honestly, I think a clean slate is the way to go… but I’m frankly a little shocked Warner/Discovery are moving ahead with it.

2024

I figure this is kind of a rebuilding year. So I’m only pitching one project, the only one I think has a chance of getting greenlit and made in time to come out in the same year as Joker 2.

Wonder Woman 3: War of the Realms

I’ve seen the reporting. I don’t believe the sequel is dead; the first one made $800 million, and the sequel suffered because of the pandemic. So it’s getting a sequel, and it’s one of very few projects that might make a 2024 deadline at this point.. To me the main question is whether or not Patty Jenkins will be involved. The next is whether or not they want to recast Gal Gadot- which is far riskier (most people don’t know Jenkins, but they know the actress in the role).

I think 1984 got made largely because after the first one blew up, Jenkins had too much clout. They thought the Wondertrain could never be derailed, so they might as well keep milking prequels, and if it ever did, you could just start making modern sequels. I think it’s time to pull that rip-cord.

This one takes place in the aftermath of Justice League. Wonder Woman has come full-circle, rejoining the world as well as now essentially leading the League. So it’s going to involve at least a little of her role as part of the world. I’d lean into it, make her ambassador from both Themyscira and also from the Hall of Justice- so she represents her people and the Justice League to the United Nations. That also neatly sets up an arc for her, in that there’s bound to be tension between the League and her nation.

The other big narrative thread we have lingering is Steve. She needs to get over Steve. Personally, I prefer the Frozen route; she’s the world’s premier superheroine, so it’s not great if her movies are all about the boy she likes (and we can’t even lean into her sex-positivity of the first film because she’s been portrayed at this point as being an emotional shut-in after Steve’s death). So I’d introduce Artemis. I’d make her literally Diana’s little sister, bratty, brash, spoiled and snotty, in all the ways a second child to the perfect first can be. She’s also incredibly hurt that Diana abandoned her, and the Amazons.

Perhaps that’s why, when there’s a minor territorial scuffle with Atlantis, Artemis fans its flames into outright war. Now, obviously, this sequel would be more financially viable if you get Momoa as Aquaman. But you could also do Mera, running Atlantis in his stead while he attends to League business, perhaps settling up a cool, strange superheroine cat fight. Or you could have it be Orm, Black Manta, the bench of, “briefly took over Atlantis to cause trouble” villains is reasonably deep (this pun is intentional).

Regardless, it becomes clear to everyone, the Amazons and the world, that she can’t both be their ambassador for peace and a part of the world’s unofficial superhero justice department. She has to choose. I’d have her speak to Athena (because again, the Gods are real in her world), and the Goddess of wisdom says that she can be a true and faithful sister to her people- or she can embrace the world as her people, and be faithful to them, and leave rule and representation of the Amazons to those without a foot in both worlds.

So she helps put an end to the conflict, first, then resigns as the Amazonian ambassador, because she can’t be both a peacekeeper and a peacemaker- and her heart and her skills are more in the one than the other. And at the same time she reconnects with her love for her sister- with her love for all of her sisters- and realizes that at some point Steve became a symbol for the loss of all of them, as well.

2025

The Batman 2: Hush

I’m assuming Matt Reeves maintains largely full control, but I can’t pass up a chance to pitch some Batman, and it’s taking up space in my schedule, anyway, so loosely tracking the comic story, in the same way that The Batman loosely tracked a few different stories; Joker is treated like Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs in the original story. We could go a step further, keeping him in shadow for most of the runtime. That would allow us to, if Joker 2 makes anywhere near what the first did, have a cameo from Phoenix, canonizing his Joker as the post-Flashpoint Joker (or at least one of them). Because we’d need Dick around, and because I think the idea of Robert Pattinson trying to foster a child would be funny, one of the segments of the story involves the death of the Graysons and Bruce taking Dick in- then immediately realizing he’s an emotionally stunted adolescent, and in no way ready for a kid.

The Suicide Squads

Sequel box office is usually a referendum on audience enjoyment of the previous film; it can be helped by marketing, but only so much. People were intrigued by Squad 1, then let down, so they were less keen to be bit a second time- even by a superior product. But this superior product was also the baby of the new boss of DC, or at least one of them, so I expect it to get a third entry.

I assume James Gunn would be writing and likely directing this one himself. As the name implies, it’s Squad 1 vs. Squad 2. Amanda Waller re-recruits her first squad to go after her rogue squad, headlined by Redemption Tour Will Smith. She wants them dead or back on her leash, and their leverage destroyed. How can you not salivate at the idea of Deadshot vs. Bloodsport, King Shark vs. Killer Croc, Harley and her Spear vs. Kitana and her Kitana? It might even be fun to do Ratcatcher 2 vs. Enchantress.

Given the casualties 1 suffered, we could either add characters. My preference would be to recruit Clayface, but a brainwashed Clayface who believes he’s Steve Trevor, and that he’s been serving as a deep cover black operative since his ‘death,’ with the aim of eventually putting him and Wonder Woman together for some emotional fireworks. Or you cold just have Peacemaker show up and join their squad. Either way, 2 is outmatched and things look dire… until Harley cashes in a favor from the Birds of Prey! Waller is lead away in cuffs (handed off to General Wade Eiling), and Task Force X is officially disbanded, with both squads freed.

Of course… that just means Waller and her special project go deeper underground… but that’s a concern for another day.

Green Lantern Corps.

Not to be confused with my more pie in the sky version I pitched before, this would be smaller.

Given that Ryan Reynolds was essentially doing a variation on Guy Gardner’s personality, and I’m assuming we’re going to be doing this as small-scale as you can do something like this, we have two human main characters, and they’ll be John Stewart and Kyle Rayner. John’s been around the block, and Kyle’s the rookie.

We play the GL Corps. almost like a police department, that kind of bureaucracy, codes of conduct, etc. Assuming we want to make this as cost-effective as possible, we can do it almost like Men in Black, that there’s essentially a sector house stationed on Earth, that they work out of. The front office is staffed by humans, or at least shapeshifters and humanoids. As they get deeper in, their coworkers get weirder. Then John leads him into an interrogation room.

Stewart tells him they’re at war. One of their own, Sinestro, has been recruiting. Their rings run on willpower. Sinstro’s runs on fear. His theory, the same of many petty dictators, is that fear is more powerful than will. And Kyle’s there because, right now, they’re losing that war, and doesn’t want to talk about what happened to Hal. He asks Kyle to tell him how they got there.

Kyle was a graphic designer. Mostly freelance. Hard to keep a single gig going in this economy. Between gigs he liked to station himself at a coffee shop and sketch, to keep his design skills limber.

A Sinestro member crashes through the shop. Kyle’s slashed with a piece of broken glass. The Sinestro is blasted by green light, and we see that he landed on a Green Lantern. It holds out its ring to Kyle, and tells him to take it- take it and run.

We see Kyle running down the street as yellow energy flies past him. Someone vulnerable is frozen in his path, a child, maybe a stroller or an elder person. Kyle turns, the ring clutched in his hand, and holds up his arms and closes his eyes- he can’t let someone else get hurt because of him.

We’re back in the interrogation. “For the record, that blast would have incinerated both of you. For the same record- I’ve never seen a civilian activate a ring, let alone one they were only holding.” We’re back. Kyle opens his eyes, and sees the green bubble he created. The Sinestro starts to punch it, and the bubble cracks. Kyle tries to reinforce it with his mind, a flurry of motion as he imagines intricate defenses, but they’re too weak to hold the creature back, it’s going to break through.

A green burst of energy knocks him down and back, and Stewart lands in front of Kyle. In the interrogation room, Stewart asks for the ring, and says they can’t be taken. Kyle says it was given to him. “Be that as it may, the odds of you getting it to work again are astronomical, and even if you do, you won’t have a way to recharge it. Unless I swear you in.”

They talk about what joining the Lanterns means, and eventually has him repeat the oath after him, then has him slide on the ring, and he transforms into a Green Lantern.

We meet Sinestro. We’re going to do something different, here. The Sinestros are mostly working on Earth. They’ve taken over a Central American cartel- converting some of them with rings, killing others. They did this for access to their chemical processing and networks. And the reason is that they’ve partnered with a human with expertise in creating fear chemically, Dr. Jonathan Crane, and they intend to use his chemicals to amplify their strength a hundred fold and crush the Green Lanterns, first on Earth, but eventually on Oa.

So you can do a lower key, earth-based crime story with the Lanterns for a lower budget, but with the promise of potential space-based chicanery to come- but depending on box office you can keep the action mostly Earth-based- so it doesn’t have to be a Star Wars to justify sequels.

2026

Flash 2/Earth 2

I’m assuming that with as risk-averse as WB-Discovery has been, they don’t want to keep Ezra Miller around. In light of that, I expect they’ll recast- maybe a cameo of Ezra, but replace him, maybe with Wally from a different universe, the future, whatever.

So at the end of Flashpoint (I’m assuming they keep him through that- if only because they want him around, at least theoretically, for press), Barry emerges on Earth 2. At first he doesn’t understand it- he’s never emerged in the wrong universe before. We play up the similarities between this world and the Snyderverse, hinting hard in promo material that Flash will actually be returning to Snyder’s DCEU.

I’d honestly keep that going as long as possible. Flash is captured by people who look a lot like his Justice League… only they aren’t. And they’ve also captured another Flash, a Wally West. He came with his Barry here, summoned by some kind of mad science that pulls those in touch with the Speed Force there. Because this Earth is dying. It’s a wrong Earth. They want to use the Flashes to escape it before it’s destroyed.

The two Flashes are able to escape together. They have a conversation at superspeed, Wally at first thrilled to see Barry, before the realization hits him- he isn’t his Barry, which means his Barry really is dead. The Crime Syndicate are just behind them. Barry realizes they can’t both get away- and sacrifices himself so Wally can make it out- because I’m a sucker for the classics, I’d have his death happen like it did in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Suddenly Wally is our lead.

He’s found by Lex Luthor- this planet’s greatest hero. They team up with a heroic version of the Joker, called the Jester, to destroy the stolen LexTech that is drawing Flashes. While the Syndicate were distracted looking for their own way out, Lex evacuated the rest of the Earth- but he and Jester stayed behind to make sure the Syndicate didn’t follow- or escape to some other unsuspecting Earth.

The pair fall fighting the Crime Syndicate, and Flash both manages to destroy the Flash lure, and escape back to Barry’s original timeline. If we can wangle the cameos, Flash goes to the Justice League. Most of them just assume he’s Barry. But Batman sees through him. He waits until the others have given them distance. “You aren’t Barry. Just who the hell are you?”

Aquaman 3: Return of the King

I’ll assume James Wan (or at least his bank account) are pissed at the cancellation of The Trench. But that was a silly idea- an unbranded Aquaman spin-off designed around… Black Manta? But there’s no reason the concept, and the production design has to go to waste. I’m assuming from the synopsis that it’s Black Manta Aquaman will be teaming with in 2, otherwise he would be the main villain here. If he’s in 2, then we’ll swap in Charybdis… and we’re going to do a lot of foreshadowing about severed hands- but we’re probably not going to chop off his hand… no matter how big of a fan of the Evil Dead movies I am (though if we do, we aren’t giving him a hook- we’ll give him a turbine hand). But if we do do Charybdis… I’d have him claim to be the rightful king of the seven seas, with the Trench’s legions at his back to enforce the claim.

This would be, overall, a much darker story. The creatures of the Trench have been riled by a new leader, promising that their old foes, the Atlanteans, the Amazons and the Lost Kingdomians can no longer hold back their strength. And… they win, around the halfway mark. The terrible creatures of the Trench overrun Atlantis, which is forced to evacuate, half of their forces going to Paradise Island, the other to the Lost Kingdom. I’m just… going to assume that Arthur’s arc is accepting his role and responsibility as Atlantis’ ruler, which means Atlantis falls in part when Arthur refuses to lead, expecting the generals and army to handle things. He fights with them, even at the head- but he is not their figurehead.

I’ll assume including Aquaman, or at minimum Aquaman elements, in Wonder Woman 3, will have both cemented a connection between the two places, and helped juice box office. So I’d say the reverse would work here, and also, Wondy sort of owes Arthur a return of the favor. The Amazons sustain casualties as part of the evacuation, leading Diana to lead the Amazon forces. She’s a natural at it, something that awes Arthur (it’s one thing to command seven heroes, another to command an army and a nation without breaking stride). She gives him the tough love pep talk he needs, inspiring him to be the leader Atlantis needs. As part of that he pleads to let the Atlanteans take the first line- they were beaten back, but not broken. They need to reclaim their dignity nearly as much as they need to reclaim their home. The Amazon generals are reluctant; if their front line doesn’t hold their defenses overall weaken- the Atlanteans could lead to the fall of the Amazons if they can’t hold long enough. Arthur is adamant they’ll hold. He gives his warriors a Braveheart speech, and they drive the Trench warriors back into the sea.

They continue the fighting all the way back to Atlantis, and retake the city. Atlantis’ generals argue for driving them back into the trench, then mining the cliffs; that will close the passage, and collapse the trench, killing most of them, and sealing the rest away. But Aquaman, during the evacuation, saw some of Atlantis’ worse-off, those left behind by previous regimes, and sees the parallels. At first he resists, and the generals press harder, assuming, from his inexperience, that he can be cowed, until finally he bellows, “No. They are angry because we have, again and again, made them lesser. We are not their betters- we are their brothers. I am not the king of the beautiful parts of the ocean, I am king of the seas, and they are my people, too.” So Arthur sues for peace, and with a little humility, is able to end the conflict without bloodshed, reuniting the two kingdoms under his rule.

Shazam vs Black Adam

Yes, this essentially functions as Shazam 3 and Black Adam 2, and is probably the smart bet whether or not Shazam 2 is a breakout sequel. Black Adam is one of his big antagonists; one of the other two is a telepathic caterpillar… so I’m going with the one played by the Rock (although I now desperately want Vin Diesel to voice Mr. Mind at some point).

Now… I’ll admit, I haven’t seen Black Adam yet. I don’t know whether or not he retakes his country in that film or not… but that’s a minor detail, because that’s how this movie begins. He remakes the ancient city-state of Kahndaq. This bugs the crap out of Shazam, because people assume it’s him, because they both have a lightning bolt chest. I just imagine Zachary Levi, exasperated, telling an old woman he saved from being hit by a truck and is now beating him mercilessly with her purse pointing to a TV in a shop window bearing news footage of Black Adam rampaging, telling her, as she hits him, “I look nothing like the guy. I have hair. And a cape!” She starts swinging underhand, and while the swing goes off screen, we can tell she’s whacking him in the crotch. “Stop that,” he says, catching the purse.

Shazam convenes the rest of the Marvel family. They discuss; most of them argue for cooler heads; but Billy’s really struggling, here. He wanted to be like Superman, but he’s becoming, “Thanks for saving me, I guess, but screw you, man!” So Billy goes off on his own to fight Black Adam… and has his clock pretty thoroughly cleaned.

I imagine there’s a lot of comedy to be had, excitable Zach Levi trying to convince Black Adam that his relatively naïve and idealistic morality is superior… and Black Adam just really not having any patience for this child in a man’s body.

The Marvels arrive to rescue Billy, and they start to have a big superhero fight… before Billy realizes the damage they’re doing, and all to salve his ego. He realizes what’s really important- the little people, the ones who can’t stop tank shells. Billy convinces the Marvels to stop fighting.

Just then, the warlords Black Adam took Kahndaq back from, counter-attack, seeing the Marvels’ intervention as an exploitable crisis. And they’ve upped their game, getting some magically infused tank shells that actually do hurt him. Billy recognizes that the warlords are the worse of the two evils, so they team up with Black Adam.

At the end, the Marvels tell Adam to leave Kahndaq alone. “No.” He tells them the only way they can pry his home from him is with a war that will level the country- and he knows they wouldn’t do that.

Billy’s angry, but recognizes Adam has a point. “Today, you’re the lesser of the evils. The day that changes, I’m dragging you out of here myself.”

Now… if Shazam 2 is a breakout sequel, you might be able to get money enough for a Justice Society cameo. Say the tanks, given that they’re specifically designed with Shazams in mind, could be a problem for all of our heroes… until the Justice Society show up to help out. This could foster good will with the Marvels, and pave the way for Shazam to continue as a part of the Justice Society.

2027

Justice League: Dark

Okay… this one is wild, even for me. It starts as we’d expect, Constantine, Zatanna, Swamp Thing, and Tim Hunter, dealing with a magical threat. Because I’m trying to save Justice League movies the way Marvel does for Avengers events, and Wonder Woman’s series ended at 3… she ends up here, to add some star power to the line-up. The magical threat ends up shunting them off into a different DC Universe- essentially a thinly veiled Snyderverse. Something is deeply wrong with a world where Batman is gunning people down on the streets from the safety of his own personal tank. Flash (paralleling Ezra Miller’s real-life problems) is having mental crises faster than anyone can think up solutions. Superman, after the death of Lois Lane, is going full-on fascist. So the characters are caught in this dark, increasingly dystopian world, and have to figure out if they can save it, and if they can’t, whether or not they can at least escape it. Depending on how it plays, this could lay the groundwork for Injustice Lords or the Injustice universe. This exists both because the concept has been a high priority for adaptation, and because elements within WB/Discovery really want to bring back the Snyderverse in some capacity, and presents an opportunity to have your cake and eat it, too. When they finally escape, the end up in the Batcave.

The 3 Jokers

Okay… assuming everything is going to plan, we need to square why we have 2 Jokers running around, and also multiple Harleys. So here’s how we do it, by roughly adapting the 3 Jokers story. Phoenix has a run-in; depending on whether or not a Batman shows up in Joker 2, it can just be with police or a rival mob. Harley saves him, narrowly. She’s concerned for his safety. So they hatch a plan to create more Jokers. He starts experimenting with psychoactive drugs on people they kidnap.

One will, eventually, be the gangster version from Suicide Squad.

This also involves Batman, who at the end of the story captures the Joker, and puts him in Arkham- where he is in Hush.

Personally, I’d also make the original Joker the only one aware of the shifting timelines, first after Flashpoint, then after Wally takes Barry’s place (time rewrites, so that Wally was always their Flash- Batman seems to be the only one who remembered Barry).

Blue Beetle 2: Justice for All

Similar, but distinct from my Justice League: International pitch.

Assuming Blue Beetle does well, it will likely in part be attributed to it catering to the Latino audience in the way that Black Panther’s success was partly attributed to the underserved Black audience (and given the success of Coco is likely a savvy move). So the next logical step is to put him on the International Justice League. Wonder Woman resigning her post as dual Amazon ambassador and Justice League ambassador leaves the UN feeling vulnerable. She’s still their liaison, but in effect it has made the League more independent. So they request the right to build their own League, an international one that can cater to the world’s needs, not just whatever the gods among them deign to intervene in. Some of this is prompted by Russia fielding their own hero team, the Rocket Reds, think a team of Russian Iron Men, and China their own. The world is getting nervous.

Given Blue Beetle has already had one success, and he’s both an American with Latin American roots, he’s viewed as an ideal candidate to lead the team. We want to be as international as possible, so I’d bring in Fire from Brazil, Ice from Iceland, Vixen from somewhere in Africa, Dr. Light (Dr. Hoshi version) from Japan.

I’m thinking a goodly portion of the story is assembling the team, finding and convincing them to work together. Then a crisis occurs, as the Chinese superteam and Russian one combine forces to take over Mongolia, with the stated aim of dividing the country between them. Just as the JLI are about to go fight the good fight, their new handler, Max Lord, pulls Beetle aside. They’ve been waiting for this eventuality. They had warning. From a visitor claiming to be from the future.

He’s been kept in a bunker, a UN safe house that’s essentially its own little Gitmo in New York. Beetle goes to the heart of it, and meets Booster Gold. He told them three things would happen, and two have come to pass. The third is the combining of the Russian and Chinese teams. He’s told them that without him, the conflict will escalate to a full-scale nuclear war. As part of his intake, Max asked Booster why a man from the future would let them catch him. “You’ll let me out. When you need to.”

So the JLI fight the combined forces. They’re tough, but the JLI prove tougher… except Booster stops them. He knows the Russians and Chinese can’t lose face like this- if they can’t compete in the next arms race, they’ll rattle their sabers in the old one… but their fear will lead to launches, and nuclear devastation. But the real truth is they aren’t the aggressors here. Someone is pulling their strings.

There are a lot of directions you can go from here. Any number of telepaths, mind controllers, etc. Whoever it is, I’d make their plan a part of the Anti-Monitor’s plan, meant to soften the Earth up so it provides less resistance- in the same way he guided Sinestro to Earth to weaken the GLs, and eventually Oa. Despero might be the best option, because he can both control some of the characters, but also provide a good boss fight at the end.

Booster’s future tech is able to detect the hidden adversary, and he attacks them, freeing the 3 super teams to fight together and end the conflict.

2028

The Batman 3: Knightfall

I’m pitching this one as much because I get the sense that Reeves just kind of wants to play with all the toys, and this would let him put his imprint on whoever was left. Bane cracks Arkham wide open. This sets up a gauntlet for Batman, who has to capture as many of the inmates before they hurt innocent people as he can. All the while, Bane keeps taking shots at him, to weaken him more and more. But unlike prior, crappier adaptations… Batman doesn’t get his back broken. You could do that in the comics and spend a year on that storyline. But for a film, even a 3 hour one, that makes for a lousy story. So instead… Batman figures out Bane’s plan. It takes a toll on him, true. But he prepares for the moment Bane’s going to attack him, and puts Dick Grayson in the costume; he’s been champing at the bit the entire movie, wanting to help while Batman held him off. It’s for this moment. Bane trashes Dick. He’s brutal, and with the venom Dick can’t win. Bane hoists him over his head, and we hear the sound of a bataring whip through the air. It doesn’t stop Bane from smashing his knee into Dick’s back, but it does cut him off from his venom supply. The real Batman emerges from the shadows, and beats Bane, who slices open his veins to jam the venom line directly into his arm. This fight’s harder, but Bane gets tripped up by Dick from the floor, and Batman knocks him out. Batman asks Dick if he’s all right. “First thing they teach you in the circus is how to fall…ow…”

Green Lantern Corps: Parallax

The Green Lanterns managed to beat Sinestro. As he’s being transported to a launch facility for escort back to Oa, his convoy is attacked. It’s part of a series of raids and attacks the Lanterns are dealing with from a terrorist group calling themselves Parallax. They’ve been targeting Green Lantern support staff and allies, those without rings themselves, bombing their cars, their homes. Energy signatures at the crime scenes indicate presence of both Sinestro and Green Lantern rings- leading to paranoia about who among them have turned, causing Kyle and John to not be able to trust anyone.

What takes them longer to understand is that the terrorists are also targeting remainders of Sinestro’s cartel. This is somewhat hidden, because they take their rings after death, a missing finger being the only indication there was ever a ring there to begin with.

The leader of this ring-powered terrorist organization turns out to be none other than Hal Jordan. He blames both the Green Lantern Corps. and the Sinestros for the destruction of his home town of Coast City. He’s holding Sinestro prisoner, and using his ring as part of the attacks as he makes Sinestro watch his empire crumble.

Kyle and John find and free Sinestro, but are caught by Hal. They prove incapable of defeating him, until Sinestro puts his hand on Stewart’s, adding his will to John’s ring. Together, the three are able to forcibly extract Parallax, the fear entity, from Jordan, and he’s horrified about what he did under its influence.

Sinestro testifies in Jordan’s defense, telling them that under the Parallax entities’ control there’s very little a host can do to resist, that while he certainly aided the entity willingly, Jordan did not.

Batgirl and Supergirl: World’s Finest

We’re at the point where extrapolating from what is to what could be gets… interesting. Because I’m trying to pull together what nearly got made as a gauge of corporate interest… despite management changes wildly altering that interest several times over.

But presumably, there’s confidence in some kind of a Batgirl project. We’re also, if we’re building towards a Crisis, going to need a Supergirl. So I figure combine the two. Give it to whoever the current equivalent to Juno-era Diablo Cody is, maybe Emerald Fennel.

Kara Zor-El arrives on Earth. Jor-El sent his brother on the colony an identical ship to launch Kara, and he did so. But her ship was damaged enroute, and had to use orbital sling-shotting to arrive at Earth. Because she spent more time at near-light speeds, she incurred more time dilation, and Clark’s older cousin is now his younger cousin.

What neither of them know, however, is that the Kandor colony didn’t suffer Krypton’s fate. They were bottled at the last minute by Brainiac… but he considers the city incomplete, given that one survivor managed to escape. He tracks her to Earth, intent on shrinking her down as part of his collection.

Meanwhile, Batman tasks Batgirl with being Supergirl’s handler. He figures she’s good at blending, but can also protect her in a pinch. This leads Batgirl to training Supergirl to fight; she’s only absorbed a small amount of solar radiation, so she’s a lot more vulnerable right now than she will be.

I’m assuming it would kill the budget to actually show the Justice League, but we could have a news broadcast showing that the League, including the entire Hall of Justice, has been frozen in a solid block of ice. The ice seems to be mildly radioactive, so attempts to break free would spread radioactive dust across the city- Batman confirms to Batgirl via radio that the isotope is Kryptonite, that someone knew about the League and how they would be vulnerable. Batgirl doesn’t think it’s a coincidence this is happening right after the arrival of Supergirl.

Their paranoia proves correct, when both girls are kidnapped and brought aboard Brainiac’s ship. He largely ignores Barbara, thinking her to be a human, and of absolutely no consequence, casually threatening her before ignoring her completely to monologue at Kara. Batgirl manages to break the encryption on Brainiac’s computers, waging technologic war on him as he tries to fight Supergirl. It’s a tough fight, since she’s still mostly relying on the self-defense Barbara taught her. Eventually they force Brainiac to flee, and get into an escape pod back to Earth.

2029

The 3 Flashes

Wally keeps getting shunted to alternate worlds. Whatever the Crime Syndicate did, it continues to pull him from reality to reality. He meets another Flash, an older one, named Jay Garrick. Garrick postulates that, as Hawking theorized, there’s a cosmic editor, putting things back to where they were, fixing impossible paradoxes- that the multiverse is trying to send him home.

Both Flashes get pulled to another dark timeline. During their down time, Wally reflects on his Barry, and how he was the better hero, and he would be able to save them. Jay tells him that he was one of the first heroes on his world- he didn’t have anyone to look up to- he had to be the hero he wished he could look up to- and just as crucially, learn to forgive himself when he fell short of that ideal.

They’re met by one of the Monitors. He explains that his people are ethe editors Hawking theorized- that when a tear in reality threatens all existence, they fix it.

This dark reality, however, is actually the future, or at least a possible one, run by Eobard Thawn, the Reverse Flash. His connection to the Speed Force is artificial. He created it with technology, forcing himself into it. He can only maintain that by draining the life of other Flashes, recreating tech created by Lex Luthor to do so. So presuming that Reverse Flash is the antagonist of the first Flash movie, this serves as his origin.

So we get a pretty wild superspeed fight, during which Zoom absorbs enough of the Speed Force to have a legit connection, leading to him going back in time to attack Wally (accidentally attacking Barry, due to the continuity bending that attack created).

The Monitor appears at the end, sheepish over having used them. Reality is safe, for the moment… but they’re also a step closer to a Crisis point. Because the existence of Monitors means the existence of Anti-Monitors, anti-matter, opposing forces from the dark multiverse. They feed on matter, converting entire realities into energy- and one has set his sights on their Earth.

Justice League: Dark Multiverse

Justice League Dark thought they were home- thought they finally found their own universe. We start in the Batcave, where the last film ended. Batman tells them that he’s glad to see them, he could use their help. Joker’s won. He united all of Gotham’s villains under his banner, killed half the police and forced the remainder to disband. With the help of a mysterious, ragged stranger, he erected a magical barrier that’s keeping Gotham separate from the other heroes. Worse, he systematically killed all of Batman’s allies, all his Robins, Batgirls… he’s the last one left. Now he’s executing parents. Every hour, on the hour, he’s killing parents in crime alley, orphaning their children. He says the only way he’ll stop is if Batman kills him. He’s been up for days, at this point, trying to figure out a way to beat Joker. He’s a shell of a man, but he’s terrified that if he kills Joker, he’ll never stop. He knows Joker’s a singular threat, but how do you justify drawing that line? He already crippled Joker… but he still won’t stop.

Wonder Woman offers to do it. He reveals that he knows Joker has a failsafe, that he’s secreted a more virulent version of his toxin in his body that will transform whoever kills him into him. Batman is just a man- he can be beaten- but a Joker with the power of Wonder Woman might not be.

Batman’s plan is to wage an all-out assault on Joker’s compound, hopefully long enough to distract the ragged man and let them remove his magical bubble. They barrier is pouring from a giant bat totem, and is protected by dragons with the Joker’s face. They fight their way to the barrier, as Batman fights his way to the Joker. Batman tries all kinds of things, but he just can’t outmaneuver the Joker. Turns out the Joker isn’t even there, he’s doing all of this by remote. But there is a teleporter, that takes Batman to him. They’re locked in a cage, with a minute to go before the next parents die. They’re related to some member of the Batcast, and the resemblance shakes him. He tries to find a way out of the cage, some way that he can escape after he kills the Joker, biding time, hoping the Dark League can manage to bring down the barrier in time to let the League rescue the family. They only need a second, a fraction of a second, for Flash or Superman to arrive. We watch the clock as he tries desperately to escape, with seconds left. We cut back to the Dark League, destroying the barrier. They realize the ragged figure is behind them, and in a haunting voice he tells them, “Too late,” before disappearing.

We cut back to the cage with Batman and the Joker in it. We can see that the timer stopped, and the family is still alive. We pull back, to see the cage is filled with gas, and the Joker, his neck snapped, hangs limply from Batman’s hands.

An instant later, Superman is there, about to punch a hole in the cage. “Don’t,” Batman says. “Can’t risk you getting exposed to this gas.”

Now… dependent on budget, I’d have the full League and Dark League with him in the cave, still sealed inside the cage, running diagnostics on him. He seems to be fine, and convinces them that he feels fine, and that if they’re going to counteract the poison he needs to be out there, with his equipment. It’s Superman who makes the call, because he’ll always trust Batman. The second he’s out, Batman activates the Babel protocol, countermeasures for the entire League as he systematically murders his way through them. He hadn’t planned on the Dark League being there, and being magic, they survive him a little longer- long enough to open a portal away. But he hitches a ride, coming through with them back into their universe (though that fact will only be revealed in the end credits).

Lobo

The Main Man takes a contract in a hive of scum and villainy. Seems that someone’s special captive got loose. She’s armed, extremely dangerous, and hiding out on Earth. During their first fight, she kicks his butt. Badly. Embarassingly so, to the degree the he never even manages to peel her out of a cloak. The last thing he sees is red glowing eyes.

In their second fight, he bushwhacks her, having finally read the brief provided by his employer. This time he brought kryptonite to the party. For a moment we’ll assume he’s after Supergirl… and you’d be half right- he’s caught Power Girl. Now… to try not to give you a nosebleed, but also tie her into the multiversal shenanigans we’re building up… she is originally from an alternate Earth. However, when her rocket managed to shatter through to a different universe, the Monitors rewrote her history, to be a clone of Kara created by her parents in the bottle city of Kandor to replace the daughter they lost. During the fight in World’s Finest, a little of Earth’s radiation managed to break through into the bottle city, giving Kara enough power to escape, vowing to marshal forces to free them all.

Lobo returns to Brainiac with his prize. Brainiac notices something amiss, and accuses Lobo of playing a fast one. Her signature is wrong… but she is genetically the Kara he was seeking. He deems it worthy of further study, then turns his attentions to Lobo.

See, Lobo is the last Czarnian, a worthy addition to Brainiac’s collection. He captures him, and houses him in a place he doubts very much Lobo will want to escape from.

It is a civilization consisting entirely of prostitution, gambling, liquor and cigar production. Lobo’s eyes light up, and we fade to black. We put up white text. “Fifty black-outs later…” Lobo is drinking alone. An alien prostitute makes a pass, but he’s melancholy. It’s a world catered entirely to his whims… except for his lust for violence and conflict. He’s getting restless. Even tiny, Lobo is able to crack his bottle. But once free, he realizes that without being able to fly, he’s not going to be able to make himself big. On the one hand, that means he can get hammered for pennies. On the other, it means only insect hookers for the rest of his days. He decides to bust out Power Girl. They make an uneasy alliance. She grows him first. He considers reneging, until she starts smacking him around as a superstrong fly- which should be very comical to watch. Finally he grows her. Lobo takes the shrink ray and the bottle he was trapped in. Kara takes the bottle city of Kandor.

I’m assuming Kara had been searching for Ray Palmer, the Atom, to help her try to regrow her city. He tells them that the cities have been shrunk too long; Brainiac’s tech can be reversed over a short period, but after that regrowing becomes impossible. But he promises to keep searching for a cure.

2030

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths

The World Forger has been a busy little bee, creating a nigh-infinite multiverse. Feeling slighted that less attention seems to be paid to his dark, anti-matter universes, the Anti-Monitor devises a plan to consume the positive multiverse’s energy and usurp the World Forger, creating only dark universes.

With each destroyed universe, the Anti-Monitor becomes stronger, leaving the heroes with a single possible path to win: merging the multiverse into a single reality. They manage it, and then beat back the Anti-Monitor. Supergirl and Jay Garrick die in the offing.

Brianiac reports on the failure of the Anti-Monitor. Darkseid smiles. Brainiac doesn’t understand. “We exist beyond any universe While the wall between his realm and the universe remains intact, there is now a crack, through which we may directly influence events. Desaad proclaims, “Darkseid is coming. Darkseid is.”

Beyond

I mapped out three phases, the first ending in the Crisis, the second in defeating Darkseid, and the third ending in a fight with the Dark Knights.

Supergirl would have survived, encased in Kryptonian crystal and eventually revived by the Legion of Superheroes. The New Gods would have lost to Apokalips, as would the Greek Gods, before Darkseid laid siege to Earth

Batman would have paid Lobo to form the Outsiders into a nonlethal black ops team from remnants of Task Force X, who would eventually rebel against him, not realizing his plan was to convince them to use nonlethal means, not keeping them as Waller had.

Next

I’m going to work on my own DCNu movie universe, mostly because I’m jealous Gunn and Safran got that much leeway. Could take me a couple of weeks, but check back soon.

Relevant Review: The Suicide Squad movie

It’s pretty good.

Crap.

You want to know more than that, don’t you? It mostly works.

First of all, I’m new to this, and I’ll likely spoil things, because I don’t have a good handle on what constitutes a spoiler to the broader audience. So if you want to go in fresh and covered in placenta like a newborn, don’t read further (I can’t help you with the placenta part, sorry); if you’re on the fence, trying to decide whether or not to watch it, well, I already told you your answer. I’ll try to be light on spoilers, but I’m going to discuss what works in the plot and the characterization, so I’m sure I’ll cross at least someone’s line about details. You’ve been warned.

What Doesn’t Work

I’ll start with the things that don’t quite work: the movie kills half its misfits within the first fifteen minutes. That means that you don’t get enough time with them to care about them, it means you don’t even really get to see what makes any of them tick. These characters function as a mislead, one that at least borders on mean-spirited. To be fair, I laughed a lot; for the first chunk of the movie, its black, bleak little heart was beating in time with mine. But ultimately at least some of these deaths feel flat; better executions of this part of the concept like Rogue One or the Dirty Dozen make you spend enough time with the characters to start to care about them, to make it hurt more when the characters meet an ignominious end. But there are worse executions, too, and it’s a balancing act: make us care too much and we’ll never forgive you for murdering our faves, and it’s probably better to cut their time short than break our hearts.

The other big, grinding piece is that the movie doesn’t quite congeal. There’s lots of really great little character beats and emotional moments, but it’s missing a pass or two on the script to have really made it feel like cohesive parts of a whole. I’m probably grading on a curve, here, because James Gunn is really good at this: every meticulous detail in his Guardians movies feel lovingly placed and necessary (aside from maybe the Gamora ‘whore’ ‘joke’ and possibly the odd prosthetics fixation of Rocket). It all flows together nicely, like a well-designed lazy river. And maybe that’s intentional; maybe as a war film this is supposed to be messy and chaotic, and what I’m noting is a design choice moreso than a flaw, so your mileage may indeed vary from mine.

I don’t think the face turn certain characters take work as well as they could have, too. The remaining characters are literally moving in the opposite direction and just kind of… stop, and decide to do the right thing. This could have been done through dialog, or through the parallels of team dynamics with their explicated family dynamics. Or relating the native Corto Malteseans to those families (Polka Dot Man seems explicitly formed for this, he literally sees his mother everywhere, and is a lunatic, so him stamping his feet in the dirt and emotionally bleating out, “I’m not letting her do to them what she did to me,” would have been a hell of a transition). It would have taken twenty seconds of snappy dialog* to convince the characters and the audience that this was a reasonable course, or even that it was the necessary one from a self-preservation standpoint, a “There’s no way this horror stays on this island” combined with an “and Earth is where I keep all my stuff.” Maybe Gunn didn’t want to belabor the point, and there are plenty of reasons (which may differ character to character) to choose to save the day. But it is a choice, one made at great personal risk of Waller’s immediate wrath, to say nothing of a fight they are almost certainly not all up to.

I’m not sure that Harley’s interlude works all that well, either; sure, it gives her kind of a quasi-arc, dealing with fallout from her relationship with the Joker… but the movie kind of grinds to a halt for it. It involves the nicer, more reasonable Presidente, and I even get that his exit from the movie is likely meant to be the ratcheting up of tension, as his less-hinged brother takes the reigns, but it feels like the movie makes you do that calculus yourself, in a way that didn’t feel paid off to me (maybe Gunn has started to believe his audience is smart enough to follow along, but if that’s the case, he forgets we’re also rats pressing buttons looking for the plot to reward our obsession with the occasional pellet or scritch on the head; an implicit part of the creator/audience dynamic is rewarding us for putting ideas together- while also delighting us with swerves we didn’t, but still add up). And it has its own pretty neat little action scene… but I don’t think it feels like it does enough, either for Harley or the movie’s plot, to justify the time it takes away from the central plot. I’m not saying you couldn’t have done something like this, but it feels like its own little Hobbs and Shaw in the middle of a larger Fast movie.

Polka Dot Man’s… condition. I can roll with him being screwy (even if his screwiness seems to overlap with Harley’s in ways that make both less unique). I’m even on board with the ways his relationship to his mother warps his relationship with his abilities and the world at large. But twice we see the ways his power seems to impact him physically… and it feels like it’s building either to pathos or a joke; it leans more towards the former, but it still doesn’t quite arc in a satisfying enough way to cash the substantial checks this character writes in the trailers (or maybe I just really wanted more Polka Dot Man).

Amanda Waller somehow not being in a straightjacket. Look, I adore the version of Waller in the Timmverse (I know Diniverse is a more clever/phonetically pleasing name, but it was Bruce Timm guiding it all those years, whereas Dini only worked in it sporadically). In that universe, Waller was cruel and efficient, Bond’s M if she’d been operating in black ops so long the lines between the good guys and the bad guys blurred to the point where she made no distinction, and accomplishing her mission was the only relevant conversation. Ayers’ version (at least in the released films) is a cartoon. She shoots half her staff because “they didn’t have clearance.” If they didn’t have clearance it’s because she let them work on a mission for which they didn’t have clearance… her fuck up, so her mass-murder is purely to cover her incompetence. It takes a character who was a “finish the mission at all costs for the greater good type” and makes her a petty, scheming bureaucrat. Which this movie, to its credit, hones in on like a laser. She spends lives pointlessly; fully half the deaths in the movie can be directly attributed to her being bad at her job while also refusing to loop in those better at it who are literally on the mission. Fully three of our leads have military experience, and yet her plan was to throw people into a woodchipper because that makes for a good distraction, right?   

What does work

Okay, so maybe starting with what doesn’t work makes me sound too negative on the movie, because overall I enjoyed it. I’d probably put it behind the two Guardians movies, and probably just ahead of Slither for his third best to date (sorry, Super, but it’s a strong filmography, and someone has to take up the rear). Some of that is honestly just what’s on the tin: Guardians is a feel-good found-family operatic-space/action movie set in perhaps the most cohesive shared universe around (sorry Star Wars). Suicide Squad is meaner and leaner, a war movie set in a DC Universe that kind of hates us for existing at this point, but still has some heart, and enough of that found-family vibe is earned to make it a lot better than the first one, and even better than most films in the genre overall.  

King Shark. Full stop. I loved the rendition of the soft-spoken but sweet-natured King Shark as voiced by Ron Funches on the Harley Quinn show (go watch it, damnit), but turning him into a full doofus (but just smart enough to be self-aware and want more) makes him basically Hulk if Hulk were interested primarily in eating those he smashes. His friendship with Ratcatcher feels adorable and genuine, and Sylvester Stallone asking, “Nom nom?” of vanquished foes is delightful in a way that I never thought I’d feel about cannibalism.

Peacemaker: he’s an extremist, but played completely to the hilt by John Cena. He feels like he’s going to be just another obnoxious ultra-right-wing d-bag- and he is also that- but he is the most glorious version of that that even though you should hate him, you will find yourself seriously considering watching his up-coming TV show, even knowing they are likely to turn the ultra-right-wing d-bag dial up to thirteen (from eleven, obviously). And his rivalry with Bloodsport is one of the highlights.

Ratcatcher’s paternal bond with Bloodsport. In the first movie, Harley and Deadshot had a weird relationship. Half of it was Deadshot warming to Harley as a surrogate for his daughter, but the other half was setting him up as a quasi-love-interest for her post-Joker life. I don’t think this was an Oscar Isaac in every scene of Star Wars, “wait, so now he’s going to be a love interest for whatever character he’s in this scene with, too, including his ball droid (no pun intended)?” or even leftover chemistry from the pair working together as a romantic partners in Focus. Quinn, as a shrink, would all but certainly have turned up her nose and diagnosed that confusion as an Elektra complex. But this movie makes Ratcatcher and Bloodsport work; she’s just sweet and naïve enough we understand how he’d see his daughter in her, and he’s just damaged enough that she can see her father in him, and both want to save the other, in more ways than one (just not that one, because it would be icky- and, no, I don’t mean in a taboo hot way, either , you weirdos).

The chapter breaks. Not only are they visually interesting, sometimes even beautiful, but they’re fun and keep the movie’s momentum going in ways that are inventive and entertaining.

The way the movie treats Waller. This one is likely the most spoilery I’m going to get, but when the movie finally steps back from Waller and basically says, “Maybe the real villain is standing in this room,” it works for the plot, it works for the characters involved, and it does the most heavy lifting bridging the continuity between movies as this quasi-sequel, sort-of reboot does. I wish it had gotten there earlier, but it happens when it needs to, in a way that might well have been forced by the very structure set up for it in the first Suicide Squad. Seriously, though, there’s no reasonable way a third movie happens after this; Waller’s mismanagement makes her casualty rate way too high. Either Waller needs to be full rogue at that point, and she’s the one the Squad goes after, maybe for running her own even more black ops variant of the Squad even further off the books and more corrupt, or they need to be offering a full pardon. Because ten years off what are for most of them multiple life sentences isn’t worth it if you’re told to walk through a wall of bullets, and increasingly that seems to be the case (her murder of Savant in particular seems exceedingly cruel and pointless).

But I want another Nom Nom. When?

*The snappy dialog that could have bettered the movie

You waded through my whole self-important, half-baked criticism, so you deserve a treat. I’ll warn you, just knowing who is alive at this point in the film is probably the biggest spoiler I’m posting, so don’t continue reading if that’s a problem for you.

***

***

***

***

***

The remaining members of the Suicide Squad are walking away from the menace, with a, “way above my paygrade” look on their faces. Close on the mud, as Polka Dot Man stamps his little white boot down.

POLKA DOT MAN
I’m not letting my mother do to them what she did to me.

Ratcatcher leans into Bloodsport.

RATCATCHER
It won’t stay confined to this island.

Bloodsport sighs, turning back towards the threat, glancing at the hard drive literally up his sleeve.

BLOODSPORT
It isn’t really saving my daughter if she gets her face eaten by a starfish.

The pair turn together and walk towards Polka Dot Man. King Shark realizes everyone but him and Harley have turned around and are walking in the opposite directions.

KING SHARK
Friends?

He runs towards them, with all the bounce of a child on a playground, despite his size.

HARLEY
You’re all nuts.

Harley chokes back emotion.

HARLEY (quieter)
I feel like I’ve found my people.

She runs after them. They line up for a dramatic shot, and exchange knowing glances.

***

And scene. I was ballparking 20 seconds, but that’s…. probably about right (might expand to a minute or so, depending on how long you let moments breath). Everyone gets a line, everyone gets their character beat in the moment… and the found family vibe only gets stronger.

If you want a little more from me, I reviewed the Jim Lee/Rob Williams Suicide Squad comic, or if you’re looking for more original fare, I pitched a sequel to Birds of Prey. And I should be back next Wednesday with another Relevant Review, this one about some What If issues.

Relevant Review: The Suicide Squad comic (2016)

“If Polka-Dot Man can have meaning, any of us can.” -James Gunn, to Fandom.com

James Gunn, the man whose career is single-handedly proving there are no bad ideas, only crummy executions, was given the Suicide Squad to retool at a low ebb, having temporarily lost the reigns of the Guardians of the Galaxy (it was a whole crappy saga of right-wing crybaby pants-wetting)- or maybe his talent is limited to alliterative comics thing. But his ‘secret’ really seems to be giving a crap about his characters in a way a lot of us don’t feel cared about, and in making his misfits loveable, he makes all of us misfits in the audience feel like we can be loved, too. But this isn’t a review of a movie I haven’t seen and isn’t even out here, yet.

This is a review of similar/related, “You liked X, what to try next” stripe. Everyone knew the idea behind Suicide Squad was cool, a supervillain deniable ops unit run by the shadiest of government operatives, oh, and always with a body count of colorful has-beens. Note, the 2021 Gunn film really shouldn’t be mistaken for David Ayers’ much less polished, We Really Wish This Hadn’t Been Suicide Squad from 2016 (in the year of our simulation crapping the bed 000001).

Suicide Squad Rebirth Deluxe Edition

There are certainly newer Suicide Squad things to cover, but both being budget conscious and being a book I snapped up a while back on sale, I’ve been looking for an excuse to read the Rob Williams/Jim Lee book, which is on Comixology Unlimited as well as DC Universe (no word yet on when it might be coming to Marvel Comics Unlimited- and yes, I will likely continue to make variations on this joke until forced to stop, so write my congressperson).

Okay, it’s genuinely bizarre that this book starts (after a prologue) with Obama shutting down Waller’s black ops supervillain ring (obviously it doesn’t take, or we wouldn’t have a book). But it’s hard not to imagine what would have happened under the other guy… imagine Orange Thanos with a More Pornographic Chin with his own villain hit squad; he’d basically become doughy and less honest about his comb-over Lex Luthor (and way, way dumber). There’s a plot bunny* there, is what I’m saying, one on super-steroids with cybernetic components (this plot bunny might have a further, nested plot bunny- Russian nested plot bunnies- which might in itself constitute another plot bunny).

Sadly, the interlude doesn’t last; I could genuinely have gone for a slightly angrier Obama getting pissy that his supervillain smart bombs were just as messy as drone strikes, maybe even build in an arc about how people were starting to protest, after their origins got leaked, and you could have done a version of the drone debate, but for the ethics of using supervillains as an elite strike force with a justifiable body count (both civilian and their own). I’m… really not sure if it’s a sign of quality that a work like this creates plot bunnies just as quickly as actual rabbits procreate, or if it’s a sign that it’s not fulfilling its promise that there seem to be so many of the little bastards.

But to the squad. This story introduces Hack, a Harley fangirl, which seems… dumb, at least within the world of DC Comics, because the horrific crimes of the Joker make her a party to mass-murder and potentially genocide, plus the abuse inherent in their relationship is on pretty stark display, and lionizing the Quinnpin of Crime because she’s ‘free,’ while showing she’s also free of the constraints of sanity… it just doesn’t serve to do anything other than make Hack seem either stupid or thinly written. She’s also massively overpowered; she’s a technopath, meaning she can talk to/control tech, can download the contents of secure computers into her memory, oh, and teleport groups of people across massive distances over the internet, but in doing so effectively scans them, allowing her the ability to basically xerox people and (potential spoiler) recreate them if they die. It’s… not great.

The team in the 2016 book seems like a less colorful version than even the ones we got in the Ayer movie- like the roster is similar, but they’re all doing variations on quipping action hero stereotypes whose butt-cheeks remain permanently clenched so tightly they can’t actually be witty or interesting, and Harley Quinn, who’s doing a nonsequitir but also not terribly interesting Coocoo’s Nest. 

I think even then, I might have liked the book if it was sticking the landing on serious realism (within the four-color comic reality), but it misses both the possibility of interpersonal drama and the pathos of the intrapersonal. Like, Enchantress and Killer Croc have a burgeoning relationship, largely because they both are treated like monsters but on the inside just want to be normal, decent people. They don’t deal with this in any real way, where June is kind of horrified that what is technically not bestiality but is really really close to it for comfort is part of that equation; it’s basically missing the interesting subtext of the beauty and the beast story it’s doing. And you might have even been able to justify it, if their eventual hook-up was played for a joke, even, the equivalent of a drunk one-night stand and waking up to someone you would not have chosen sober. But instead it just kind of… happens. It lands with a thud, no dramatic payoff, no pathos, no character having an interesting character moment, no romance, it just… exists. Story as shit happening, people quipping, but no one really caring (also known as the overly superficial read of the MCU’s house style).

Another example happens during the same story. Belle Reve prison (also the Squad’s HQ) has, through contrivance, had all of the people within essentially reverse polarities. That means most nice characters turn nasty, most sane ones turn homicidal, and Harley Quinn puts down her Coocoo Puffs. As essentially the only member of the Squad still capable, saving the day falls on her thin shoulders. This should have been a really interesting story for her, think Flowers for Algernon, but if, at the climax, the rat had to sacrifice his intelligence to save a bunch of people; it could have been both tragic and heroic, and cemented her as a character to be reckoned with (and Williams, too). And instead it’s mostly an excuse for Harley to put her hair up, wear a white coat and glasses, and use a little more strategy than her usually chaotic plans allow for. There’s if memory serves a line that tangentially mentions that another character is aware that she’ll be sacrificing something, but Harley isn’t even really conflicted, let alone devastated at what she’s about to lose.

I’ll spin this out into a separate blog, since it’s getting wordy, but the comic isn’t living up to its full dramatic potential. But it’s got good bones. Recognizing the story potential, and getting it most of the way there, isn’t the default. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rob Williams grows into one of the better comic story-tellers around. And of course, Jim Lee’s art, as always, is beautiful. High-tech, expressive, detailed and always very consistent.

I’d say at a minimum flip through it. If you’re looking for a place to start on Suicide Squad… I don’t know that I could suggest it be here. Maybe it’s just that, four years later, it feels very much like what it was, a companion to Ayer’s movie version: not as fun as it should be, not as smart as it could be, but also nowhere near as dark as is should be, either. Better, unequivocally (I made the mistake of rewatching the extended cut of the movie to prep for the sequel, and it’s… worse than I remembered, even though I remembered not liking it). For now, go see Birds of Prey, instead. I liked it enough I pitched a sequel, which no one will make, but hopefully you’ll get a kick out of. You’re welcome.