The Suicide Squad director James Gunn recently revealed which DC villains, ranging from obscure metahumans to deadly assassins worthy of their own solo outing, almost made the cut for a spot on the rag-tag roster of The Suicide Squad.
Gunn declassified his early Task Force X recruitment notes on July 3rd when asked by a fan on Twitter if he was “able to reveal any villains that almost made the cut for The Suicide Squad?”, to which the director proceeded to make public, “just a few (of many) that didn’t make the cut (for now!)”, starting with Superman: The Animated Series’ electricity wielding Livewire, the pair of Venetian Carnival themed thieves known as Punch and Jewlee, the Johnny LaMonica incarnation of the assassin Black Spider, and the Terminator himself, Deathstroke.
Turning next to disclose the additional near-membership of the aptly named Manbat, the Futures End version of Plastique, the sentient blob of toxic waste known as Chemo, and Soviet cybernetic soldier KGBeast, Gunn stated, “Every character in #TheSuicideSquad was chosen for a purpose, great or small, and although I love many of these other characters, they didn’t serve the story quite as well.”
Closing out the sneak-peek into his development process by further revealing that he also considered Slaughter Swamp resident Solomon Grundy, the South American volcano-borne Rainbow Creature, U.S. army sniper-turned-mercenary Gunhawk, and former Apokoliptan Female Fury Knockout, Gunn wrote, “I am of course open to using them in the future.”
“And there are many more wonderful @DCComics characters where these came from,” he concluded. “See #TheSuicideSquad in theaters next month!”
When asked by another fan if he ever considered using Bronze Tiger in the film, Gunn confirmed that he had “considered him”, but since he “was pretty much only using actual villains (other than [Rick] Flag),” the director noted that he “ruled [Bronze Tiger] out pretty early.”
“Same reason I didn’t use Katana,” he added.
What do you make of these handful of Gunn’s potential The Suicide Squad roster picks? Let us know your thoughts on social media or in the comments down below!