Suicide Squad

About

Suicide Squad, also known as Task Force X, is a team of DC Comics antiheroes made of various incarcerated supervillains who are forced to run difficult black ops missions for the United States government in exchange for leniency.

History

In September 1959, the original iteration of the Suicide Squad was introduced in DC Comics The Brave and the Bold #25, consisting of the characters Rick Flag, Jr., Karin Grace, Dr. Hugh Evans and Jess Bright. The team was revived in 1986 in the DC Comics crossover story Legends to destroy the fire elemental Brimstone and was depicted as a secret government organization employed to perform high-risk operations. On July 25th, 2014, the Suicide Squad was featured in the DC animated film Batman: Assault on Arkham (shown below).

Film

In September 2014, director David Ayer signed on to direct a Suicide Squad film for Warner Bros. As of May 2015, the film’s cast consists of the characters Deadshot (played by Will Smith), The Joker (played by Jared Leto), Harley Quinn (played by Margot Robbie), Rick Flagg (played by Joel Kinnaman), Captain Boomerang (played by Jai Courtney, Enchantress (played by Cara Delevingne), Amanda Waller (played by Viola Davis), Killer Croc (played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Slipknot (played by Adam Beach), Katana (played by Karen Fukuhara) and El Diablo (played by Jay Hernandez). On May 3rd, Ayer tweeted a photograph of the Suicide Squad cast (shown below).

Online Presence

On March 6th, 2012, a Facebook^[1] page titled “Suicide Squad” was launched, gathering more than 60,000 likes in the next three years. On July 21st, 2014, the WatchMojo.com YouTube channel uploaded a video explaining the origins of the Suicide Squad team. On December 4th, the Screen Junkies YouTube channel uploaded video in which several men discuss the Suicide Squad (shown below, right).

On February 15th, 2015, YouTuber Alex Luthor uploaded a fan made trailer for the upcoming Suicide Squad film (shown below). On April 10th, the /r/suicidesquad^[4] subreddit was launched for discussions about the comic book team. On May 3rd, a thread discussing the Suicide Squad was posted on the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[2] subreddit.

Jared Leto’s Joker Photograph

On April 13th, 2015, principal photography for the upcoming 2016 superhero film Suicide Squad, which is based on DC Comics’ anti-hero team with the same name, began in Toronto, Canada. On April 24th, the director David Ayer tweeted an official promotional photograph of actor Jared Leto dressed as the Joker in the film (shown below, left). Within 72 hours, the tweet gathered upwards of 40,000 retweets and 33,000 favorites. The photograph was posted to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Joker’s first appearance in the 1940 comic book Batman #1, with Leto’s manic facial expression alluding to a panel in the 1988 Batman graphic novel The Killing Joke (shown below, right). The photograph subsequently spawned a photoshop meme.