The Joker Shouldn’t Be In Suicide Squad
By Nick Tylwalk
This has been a big week for rumors about Warner/DC’s Suicide Squad. Margot Robbie appears to be a lock to play Harley Quinn, which is cool as she’s one of the villains who makes sense for the movie. The other big rumor was about Jared Leto playing the Joker, and that’s not cool.
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It’s nothing against Leto, who’s a fine actor, and would probably bring his own memorable twist to the role, though he’s following in the awfully imposing footsteps of Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger. The real issue is that the Joker shouldn’t even be in a Suicide Squad film.
Let’s start with the most obvious reason: unless I’m mistaken, Joker has never been on any of the many incarnations of the team. Not the classic, late 80s-early 90s crew, not in the New 52 era, not ever. By itself, that’s not a huge deal, as no one expects Warner to be a slave to the source material. But with so many compelling characters already a part of Suicide Squad history, there’s no reason for a scene-stealing presence like Joker to be in the mix overshadowing everyone.
It’s not like Joker needs to be in the movie to justify Harley’s participation either. Though they’re obviously linked together in many fans’ minds, and she wouldn’t be in position to make her live action movie debut without her history as a unique love interest for the animated version of the Joker back in the day, she’s become a fully realized character in her own right.
We haven’t even gotten to the real issue, though, which is that there’s no way Amanda Waller or whoever is in charge of the Suicide Squad in the movie should want Joker on the team. Though he can be a team player when it suits his own twisted ends, he’s simply too unpredictable to be worth risking on covert government missions. Whatever he brings to the table is buried by the fact that he’s just as likely to take out his teammates or innocent civilians as the target.
When written correctly, Joker is the villain who scares other villains. Waller and company have ways of persuading the bad guys to do what they want, but you’d have to imagine many of them wouldn’t be crazy about taking on any missions with Batman’s arch enemy. Even in a group of psychopaths, there’s something to be said for not doing things to disrupt team morale.
It’s going to be a matter of when, and not if, the Joker shows up in Warner Bros.’ upcoming slate of DC movies. He deserves to have the spotlight to himself, and Suicide Squad should introduce non-comics fans to great characters they don’t know yet. It’s probably too late judging by the Leto rumor, but if the people writing the movie still have any wiggle room, they should reconsider. Keeping the Joker out of this flick is the right thing to do.