Everyone’s “favorite” looter-shooter Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League shocked audiences when the playable eponymous team…well, killed the Justice League. It was all right there in the name, and for as many faults as the game might’ve had, it was at least always honest. However, that may not be the case anymore, because according to the game’s latest plot developments, we may not have actually killed the Justice League. Now how’d Task Force X fuck that up?
Suicide Squad’s second season has apparently revealed that the previously thought dead superheroes are maybe very alive. At least, one of them is. In a cutscene following the conclusion of the second season’s story, and yet another Brainiac boss fight, The Flash miraculously manages to escape the villain’s clutches and is in fact saved by the Suicide Squad.
The Flash had one of Suicide Squad’s more dramatic arcs, so it’s only fitting that he be brought back to kick off this latest wave of its story. At the outset of the game, he’s actually one of the few members of the Justice League that hasn’t been corrupted by Brainiac, and he even helps the team get out of a mind-controlled Green Lantern’s clutches. Eventually, he’s captured by a brainwashed Batman who then converts The Flash into another one of Brainac’s minions.
Considering he was one of the holdouts, and was only captured due to his heroics, players felt especially bad about having to kill The Flash, whose underwhelming death is further ruined by the scene’s tacit confirmation that Captain Boomerang is packing a huge dick. This fucking game, man…but at least folks don’t have to feel too bad about it anymore, since it turns out The Flash that died was a clone!
This latest twist seems to confirm the fan theory that the versions of the Justice League in the game were clones. If The Flash is any indication, the other Justice League members—save for Wonder Woman, who never gets mind-controlled/cloned and is actually offed in a fight against Superman—seem like they’re being held captive by some of the multiverse’s Brainiacs. Considering the post-game DLC has been following the Squad’s attempts to kill the rest of the 13 Brainiacs that are working in tandem to control the multiverse (this game is a lot), you can bet that we’re probably going to run into the rest of the Justice League and actually save them this time around.
That means that at least Superman, Green Lantern, and Batman are due for returns in the near-future. That last comeback could be particularly noteworthy, due to the passing of Batman’s most famous actor, Kevin Conroy, who voiced the character since Batman: The Animated Series premiered in 1992. After his death, fans of Conroy and Batman got uncomfortably weird, combative, and possessive over his performance in Suicide Squad, which they quite rudely deemed unworthy of being Conroy’s last turn as the Caped Crusader. They were especially upset at the very unceremonious and abrupt way in which Harley Quinn executes him.
Though Suicide Squad is Conroy’s final video game performance as Batman, his actual final words are apparently much better and are in an animated movie which released earlier this month. Now, fans are wondering if Conroy didn’t record more dialogue that they might hear in a DLC if Batman is also revealed to have survived the events of the game.
The game’s remaining players seem on-board for this twist in the narrative, though some have expressed they might’ve preferred it being delivered upfront rather than post-launch. After a muted reception to the first season, which introduced an alternate universe Joker as a playable character, the second season’s done little to win players back outside of this potential plot twist.
Will this twist be enough to save Suicide Squad, which disappointed its publisher earlier this year? Absolutely not, but it’s an interesting (and very comic-book-inspired) wrinkle that should freshen things up while Rocksteady closes out this story. Hell, this move got me to reinstall the game and dedicate part of my weekend to it, so it’s doing something right. Sure did take it long enough.
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