Every DC Easter Egg, Secret & Reference In The Suicide Squad

[banglabhai420]

Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Suicide Squad.

Naturally, The Suicide Squad is packed with Easter eggs, references, cameos, and secret details that give the DCEU not-quite-sequel the kind of depth James Gunn movies are known for. It's easily one of the most entertaining comic book movies ever made, with blistering action, major shocks, and a level of gore Gunn probably hasn't employed since his Troma days. Though it would be easy to assume the movie is DC's version of Guardians of the Galaxy, given the director link, it's fair to say The Suicide Squad is unlike anything the MCU would ever make.

James Gunn has something of a reputation for hiding Easter eggs, with the missing Guardians of the Galaxy Easter egg still perplexing the most seasoned of hunters, and The Suicide Squad has a fair few to spot. It's not quite on the level of his MCU releases on first look, but there are hidden DC comics cameos, at least one MCU cameo, and some clever nods back to the comics that will have hardcore DC fans in delight. It's clear that Gunn knows where his characters come from, and what's even more clear is that he's had a lot of fun taking them on their respective journeys.

With so much breathless action and the invitation to invest in Gunn's signature character moments, there's an awful lot of content in the movie to keep track of, without even getting into the hidden details. But it's the kind of movie that warrants several rewatches to fully appreciate it. Here's every DC Easter egg, reference, and secret moment in The Suicide Squad.

30. The Opening Song Reference

The song that plays over the opening credits as DCEU fans are once more invited within the walls of Belle Reve prison is Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues". Written by Cash after he watched a film on the notorious California institution, the song was famously performed inside the prison for a true Suicide Squad parallel.

29. Weasel's Strange Comics Origin

As confirmed by James Gunn, the strange design of Sean Gunn's Weasel is based on Bill the Cat, a disheveled cartoon cat created by Berkeley Breathed, for the comic strip Bloom County. He was the illegitimate offspring of Garfield and lends his limited vocabulary and protruding eyes to The Suicide Squad's weirdest character.

28. The References That Confirm The Suicide Squad IS A Sequel

In the bloody opening sequence, Jai Courtney's Boomerang greets both Rick Flag and Harley Quinn as at the very least familiar former colleagues. In Harley Quinn's case, it's confirmed that Flag and Boomer were legitimately her friends. The backstory hint of their kinship all but confirms that The Suicide Squad follows on from Suicide Squad 2016. It's not explicit anywhere else really, but this is enough.

27. Savant Is The Weak Link

While Gunn chose to use Savant as the de facto main character of the opening beach assault, the pay off also sees him confirmed as a coward (perhaps understandably) and thus the weak link in Amanda Waller's plan. That weak link status fits with Savant's post-New 52 reimagining, which saw him also confirmed as the weak link in a torture experiment to find out Task Force X's liabilities.

26. Amanda Waller's Belle Reve Support Team

Each of the Task Force X members are all either ported straight from the comics or posed as reinventions of comics characters (in the case of Ratcatcher 2), and so too are Amanda Waller's less notable support team. Steve Agee's John Economos,Tinashe Kajese's Flo Crawley, Jennifer Holland's Emilia Harcourt, and Stephen Blackehart's Briscoe are all characters taken from the Suicide Squad comics. As in the comics, Briscoe is the Task Force X helicopter pilot.

25. John Ostrander's Belle Reve Cameo

24. Corto Maltese

Situated off the coast of South America, Corto Maltese was created for Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, and is the site of a rebel uprising aided by the USSR. In the comics, the US backs the government, which fits with The Suicide Squad's revelation of the US government using the island to hide Project Starfish. The DC Comics version of the island was named in honor of the adventurer character created by Hugo Pratt. The island - and a revolution - was also mentioned as a background event in 1989's Batman.

23. Superman's Kryptonite Bullet

As confirmed as early as the trailers, Bloodsport is in Belle Reve for having shot Superman with a Kryptonite bullet and putting the Man of Steel in the ICU. It's a story taken straight from the pages of DC comics, as Lex Luthor identified Dubois as his means to kill Superman. The weapon of choice was a gun that fired Kryptonite needles, which Bloodsport used to shoot Superman after drawing him out by killing over twenty-five innocent civilians. Superman was also shot with a Kryptonite bullet in DC animated film Justice League: Doom.

22. Crazy Quilt

A couple of notable DC comics villains appear in the background of Belle Reve prison, including a new take on Crazy Quilt, another low level Batman adversary. In the comics, Crazy Quilt is a noted artist and master criminal who is blinded by a gunshot and who can only see bright colors as a result of an experimental treatment. In Gunn's adaptation, Crazy Quilt appears to have her skin transformed into the patchwork design of the original villain's comics outfit.

21. Sean Gunn's Other Cameo - Calendar Man

As this is a James Gunn movie, his brother Sean Gunn pulls double duty, standing in for Weasel on-set (giving him the auspicious honor of playing understudy to both a weasel and a raccoon in comic book movies) and also playing a live-action human character. In Belle Reve, he plays notorious DC villain Calendar Man who appears very briefly to goad Polka-Dot Man. He comes complete with the comic book villain's bald head and cranial tattoo of the months of the year.

20. Double Down

It would appear that the Belle Reve criminal laughing alongside Sean Gunn's Calendar Man as he insults Polka-Dot Man is the DCEU's version of Double Down. In the comics, he's otherwise known as Jeremy Tell, who was cursed by a magical deck of cards when he killed his poker opponent in a fit of rage. As the character design in The Suicide Squad hints, he can peel his skin off after the deck bonded to his body, throwing it at enemies as razor-sharp projectiles.

19. King Shark's Book

The first time the audience is introduced to Sylvester Stallone's King Shark, he's reading a book in an inversion of arguably the most famous modern image of King Shark from DC Comics. As an added gag and flipping the comics character's human-level intellect Nanaue is pretending to be clever and is reading the book - "The Varieties of Religious Experience" by William James. - upside down.

18. The Shark God And Nanaue's Origin

As King Shark is introduced, his backstory scornfully includes the fact that he is descended from the Shark God, which the Belle Reve warden doesn't seem to believe. That fits with King Shark's actual comics origin: he was said to be the son of "The King of All Sharks" AKA the Shark God, but there were doubts over the veracity of those claims. His origins were dismissed as mere superstition, despite the fact that he is demonstrably a walking, talking shark man. Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis finally confirmed that he was, in fact, the son of the Shark God.

17. Project Starfish - The Real Life Inspiration

While Starro's design obviously lends itself to the code-name Project Starfish, there is actually a real-world source for the name. In 1962, as part of the US' nuclear testing program, a Thor rocket was fired into space, where it intentionally exploded trapping radiation in the atmosphere. That test was known as Starfish Prime, and fits with the idea - established in The Suicide Squad - of mankind interfering with space simply because they can.

16. Harley's New Tattoo

Harley Quinn has moved on from her toxic relationship with Jared Leto's Joker, and as a mark of that personal growth, she has had one tattoo on her back changed since the end of 2o16's Suicide Squad. Where it once read "Property of Joker", in The Suicide Squad, the tattoo reads "Property of No-One".

15. Harley Quinn's Jacket

And as another nod to Harley Quinn's... distasteful past with Leto's Mr J, when she appears on the the chopper heading to the first mission, she shows off her new-improved jacket design. Across the back are the words "live fast, die clown" as a nod to her former partner in crime and life.

14. Harley Quinn Is Evita... Kind Of

The whole Harley Quinn Corto Maltese subplot sees Harley press-ganged into a whirlwind relationship and marriage with dictator Silvio Luna (Juan Diego Botto). After seducing her, he tells her that she is popular with his people and he wants to connect with the Corto Maltesians by marrying their favorite and cementing his image as a man of the people. That very much echoes the plot of Evita, in which Madonna's Evita meets Juan Peron and their romance connects him further as a populist leader. Sadly for Luna, his aspiration to make Harley his Evita doesn't quite go to plan.

13. Harley Gets Her Justice For The Joker's Treatment Of Her

While Jared Leto's Joker is not involved in The Suicide Squad, his legacy is felt in Harley Quinn as she finally gets to follow through on her closure on their relationship. When her would-be suitor Luna tells her he will kill his enemies and sacrifice their families (including children) to Starro, she kills him, telling him murder is one of her relationship red flags. She talks up the lessons learned from her past, in which she missed the red flags, clearly talking about Leto's Clown Prince of Crime.

12. Pom Klementieff's Secret Cameo

As well as casting Nathan Fillion, Sylvester Stallone, Michael Rooker, Sean Gunn and Steve Agee from his Guardians of the Galaxy movies, James Gunn also gave a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo to Pom Klementieff, the MCU's Mantis. She plays the singer on stage in the Corto Maltese bar that Task Force X infiltrates to capture The Thinker.

11. Bloodsport's Helmet Is Inspired By Alien

Idris Elba's Bloodsport was given a make-over for the film with his bandanaed look in the comics changed for a more hi-tech armor including his skeletal helmet. The design is clearly reminiscent of Alien's iconic xenomorph, which James Gunn has openly admitted himself.

10. Sebastian The Rat's Famous Voice

He might not say any actual words, but Sebastian the Rat, Ratcatcher 2's beloved sidekick is played by veteran voice actor Dee Bradley Baker. Remarkably, this marks the eighth time Baker has played a rat - a run which includes Rat in Thundercats, Were-Rat in Frankenweenie, and the Ratatouille video game tie-in.

9. Sol Soria's Backstory In DC Comics

Freedom fighting leader Sola Soria may not be a direct adaptation of a DC Comics character, she does link to a Suicide Squad member. She's named in honor of Juan Soria, a low-level Suicide Squad recruit who aspired to be a Justice League member, but was rejected and turned to crime. His powers were the ability to pick any lock thanks to his nanite-infused hand, and he went on one mission, which saw him used as bait against an alien Queen that fed on positivity. His fate is largely unknown, but it's assumed his new cell-mate Killer Croc ate him.

8. Polka-Dot's Origin & S.T.A.R. Labs

Polka-Dot Man's mother is obviously a major part of his story in The Suicide Squad, but she's not really based on anyone in the comics. The backstory of her wanting to give her kids superpowers through experiments is very much like The Boys' take on Homelander's origin story. And there's something of Granny Goodness in her cruelty. More importantly, of course, Polka-Dot Man confirms that she worked at S.T.A.R. Labs - presumably alongside Silas Stone, who was the head of the labs up to the time of his death (or not, depending on which version of Justice League you take as canon). That makes her mistreatment of her kids a dark parallel of Stone's enforced use of the Mother Box to give Cyborg powers to save his life.

7. Jotunheim

Though MCU fans will recognize the name of Jotunheim as the home of the Frost Giants in Thor, its Norse mythology means it's fair game for DC to use too. In the case of The Suicide Squad, Jotunheim is the prison for Starro on Corto Maltese, and is taken right from DC Comics, where it debuted in Suicide Squad #1 and housed a terrorist group (Jihad) hired by President Marlo to attack America. As in the movie, Amanda Waller sends the

6. Ratatouille

It's hardly subtle, but on the mission to bust Harley Quinn out of captivity, Ratcatcher's codename is confirmed as Ratatouille, in reference to the Pixar classic about a main character with a charismatic rat sidekick.

5. Rick Flag's Death

Joel Kinnaman's Rick Flag is probably the biggest change from the original Suicide Squad in terms of characterization and his death is The Suicide Squad's most heartbreaking moment. But it probably shouldn't have come as a surprise as Rick Flag actually died inside Jotunheim, thanks to an explosion during John Ostrander's original Suicide Squad comic run.

4. Starro Is A Freakin' Kaiju

As confirmed by the trailers, Starro is referred to as a "freakin' kaiju" by Steve Agee's John Economos as it attacks Corto Maltese. The term, of course, refers to the Japanese monster genre kicked off by 1954's Godzilla and literally translates to "strange beast", which is incredibly fitting, all things considered.

3. Lloyd Kaufman's Troma-Inspired Cameo

The Suicide Squad is arguably as much of a love letter to Troma Films as it is to Suicide Squad creator John Ostrander, thanks to James Gunn's past as a Troma film-maker. The huge levels of gore are one part of that homage, but there's also a cameo by Troma founder Lloyd Kaufman, who plays a dancing patron in the background of the Corto Maltese bar. So far, he's been in every one of Gunn's movies and can be seen behind John Cena's Peacemaker as he makes some bold shapes.

2. The Suicide Squad Post-Credits Sets Up Peacemaker's Show

Though John Cena's Peacemaker is seemingly killed off in a duel with Bloodsport at the end of The Suicide Squad, the end credits scene reveals that he survived the neck shot and was taken back to the US by A.R.G.U.S. John Economos complains that the A.R.G.U.S. crew are seemingly being punished by having to be Peacemaker's handlers, confirming that the upcoming Peacemaker HBO Max show follows on from the events of The Suicide Squad. The teased storyline seems to parallel Peacemaker's time in the comics serving as a U.S. government agent under the eye of Checkmate, for who he hunted down terrorists before his methods were considered too extreme.

1. The Thanks To David Ayer

As a classy touch, James Gunn added a note of thanks to Suicide Squad director David Ayer in the credits to The Suicide Squad. While it had been claimed that Gunn's film was never a follow-up to 2016's Suicide Squad, it does follow on in several ways - the dynamic between Harley, Flag, and Boomerang most notably - and Gunn owes those characters to Ayer's work, even if the final cut they appeared in wasn't his vision.

[Silent Watcher]

Avoid unnecessary posts such as 'Thank you', 'Welcome', etc. Such posts will be deleted and user will be warned if it happens again. If caught spamming, the following actions are applicable -

• First time - Warning
• Second time - 5000 Points will be deducted
• Third time - Ban for 7 days
• Fourth time - Permanent Ban

If the post helped you, reward the user by reacting to the post like this -