Production for Director David Ayer’s Suicide Squad is in full swing and so is the mighty marketing machine of Warner Bros. and DC. Just released this past Sunday, Ayer has revealed the first official image of Suicide Squad’s cast of costumed mercenaries and villains.
For the comic book uninitiated, Suicide Squad follows a group of dangerous criminals and psychopaths who are tasked by a shadowy government organization to complete black-ops missions. If they manage to complete these “suicidal” missions, they get time shaved off their extensive sentences. If they die, well, who’s going to miss them anyway?
From left to right, the characters pictured above are Slipknot (Adam Beach), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), Katana (Karen Fukuhara), Rick Flagg (Joel Kinnaman), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Deadshot (Will Smith), Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and El Diablo (Jay Hernandez). Although confirmed to also be in the film, Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller, the team’s chief handler, is not included among the line-up of characters.
In addition to the cast photo of the team, Will Smith has posted the first image of himself as Deadshot (Floyd Lawton) on his Facebook page. Like the comic book character, Smith’s Deadshot is sporting an assortment of firearms and his iconic red-eye scope. Though unfamiliar to general audiences, Lawton is a professional assassin in the DC universe. Often claiming he “never misses,” Deadhost has fought against many heroes and villains, including Batman, Green Arrow, Deathstroke and the Joker. Since his comic debut in 1950, Lawton has often been portrayed as a villain, though he’s fought on the side of good on a handful of occasions. 
Though I can’t say I was a fan of the first picture of Jared Leto’s Joker (which has since been claimed to not be the actual look of the character), I’m very impressed by these new images for Suicide Squad. I like how certain characters’ looks don’t seem to mesh with others, which has always been a common theme in the history of the Suicide Squad. Like the comics, the characters in the photo appear to be plucked from different places and times in the DC universe. Sure, you have your mercenaries and assassins, but you also have your murderous psychopaths, mutant crocodile people and whatever the hell Jai Courtney is pretending to be. These new pictures show that Ayer knows how the Suicide Squad should look. Everything needs to be weird, gritty and chaotic because that’s what the characters in the photo are. They’re the ugly broken people of DC comis and that’s what makes them work so well.
What’s also so exciting about the Suicide Squad itself is that it has an ever expanding and changing roster of characters. There have been countless heroes and villains that have joined the team over the decades, and if this film proves to be a success, we might be seeing a few more unfriendly faces over the next few years in a sequel.
Suicide Squad will be released in theaters on August 5, 2016.
What about you reader? What do you think of these new images for Suicide Squad? Let us know in the comments below!
Interested in picking up some books and films about the Suicide Squad? Please use our Amazon links to do so!
