Idris Elba Joins James Gunn’s ‘Suicide Squad’ Plus Rumored New Characters

Will Smith is out of Suicide Squad 2 but his character, Deadshot, is still in the film. He’s now being played by Don Cheadle.

Okay, that was a satirical headline based on how he came into Iron Man 2. Variety has reported that it’s actually Idris Elba, the sexy man most famous for being the person your most annoying friend suggests every time there’s speculation about Daniel Craig retiring as James Bond.

Alongside that news, Collider also dropped a rumored list of new characters and it sounds terrible. Mostly. There’s a bright spot.

King Shark is a fucking shark. And he’s awesome.

The other rumored new characters, Ratcatcher, Polka-Dot Man and Peacemaker, are terrible. Ratcatcher controls rats, Polka-Dot Man looks like a loaf of  Wonder Bread and Peacemaker is, and I’m not making any of this up, every word of this is true, is the mentally ill son of a Nazi concentration camp commander who kills people in the name of pacifism and non-violence. The Comedian in Watchmen was based on him and Collider says Gunn is eyeing Dave Bautista to play him. Still, these are terrible characters and unless this rumor turns out to be a hoax, Gunn has a lot of work ahead of him.

I know what you’re typing into the comment box without having read the article already, so chill out. “Didn’t James Gunn make Rocket Raccoon and Groot cool? They’re a talking racoon and a tree, have some faith!”

Well, no, James Gunn didn’t make Rocket and Groot cool. Those characters were mostly fully-formed by Keith Giffen, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning in the 2006 comic Annihilation and its 2008 follow-up Guardians of the Galaxy series.

Also, let’s be realistic, Marvel probably never would have made Guardians of the Galaxy if they had the rights to make X-Men and Fantastic Four. There are lots of better choices for DC here. They can use any villain in the entire DC canon, and they chose a guy who has the power of having polka-dots. I think getting fired by Disney gave James Gunn a complex and he’s overcompensating. “Fire me, will you Bob Iger? I’m gonna make a billion dollars for Warner Brothers with the absolute dumbest super-villains I can think of. And King Shark, that guy rules.”