Home Comics/Books Trailer Trash: Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice/Suicide Squad

Trailer Trash: Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice/Suicide Squad

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Warner Bros made the very wise decision post-Hall H panel at SDCC to release both the Suicide Squad and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice trailers into the world. Conventional wisdom would dictate that releasing the footage officially rather than allowing fans to trade on dodgy camera phone bootlegs is better for all involved, but this clearly isn’t convention wisdom (Fox!). Not only did this mean that fans were getting a clear look at the trailers, but it served to quell fan cynicism on the movies – something DC and Warner Bros are in some need of as their expanded DC cinematic universe hasn’t inspired a lot of confidence conceptually. Between questions over how they’re going to execute a battle between Batman and Superman, to how the newest Joker, Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn, amongst others, would fit into what looks like a very crowded narrative, healthy skepticism and sporty predictions were given way to outright worry and almost disdain for the creative decisions being made.
Thankfully, the first reactions to both trailers has made everyone give each other internet high-fives in raw anticipation and relief. Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice looks like it actually has a really tight grip on the kind of conflict forcing Bruce and Clark to clash, while Gal Gadot looks to be kicking all the ass as Wonder Woman. The tone of Suicide Squad set many minds at ease, my own included, with the almost horror feel to the characters and the big, but grounded, glimpses of action. Most of all, however, these trailers have cooked up a frenzy of fan theories and discussion over what will happen in either film and, more interestingly, how they will overlap, both directly and indirectly. I’ve got a few myself that I hope you’ll find interesting!

Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice


The first minute of the BVS trailer is something crucial because we’re finally given direct context for how and why Batman and Superman come to be on opposing sides. Though the foundation text for the movie is Frank Miller‘s The Dark Knight Returns, it’s been uncertain as to exactly how much of that would figure into this story and how the picture would account for Batman entering the fray at all. Finally, we have some clarity; Bruce Wayne was in Metropolis and witnessed the Superman/Zod battle. One of the buildings destroyed was owned by Wayne Enterprises and, from the looks of things, he, much like the American government, want Superman controlled. In Miller‘s TDKR, Superman has become a government lapdog while Batman resents him for it. As the trailer moves on, it looks like BVS will have shades of that, with Superman wanting to attest for the damage caused and work with the government (even possibly being assigned soldiers to help him), but if the story is less Superman being a gun for hire and more him wanting to make right by the world while Batman is consumed entirely with a biting anger to put him down, then things are a lot more complicated. My gut instinct is leaning on the idea that Batman might be the aggressor in the battle, though neither side is objectively or fully morally ‘correct’ or ‘right’ in how they handle the situation.

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Of course, this isn’t to forget the third superpower that will be entering the fray at some point – Diana Prince, otherwise known as Wonder Woman. It’s obvious she’s both a person of interest for Bruce and a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, which is a relief as I was worried she might be pushed aside in the story, but it’s unclear where she’ll figure into Bats and Supes’ squabble. This leads me to believe that she won’t be a part of their fight at all, or at least, not directly. The big Justice League villain, Doomsday, is making his debut in Dawn of Justice, and it stands to reason that he’ll be entering into an already-difficult situation with Bruce and Clark going mano e mano. Therefore, the Amazon princess may be the one attempting to deal with Doomsday until the other two sort themselves out. One of the later shots in the trailer speaks to this as well, when Superman rips open the batmobile and stands off with Batman. He doesn’t look like he wants to fight him, he looks like he wants Batman to see sense and to realise the situation they’re in.

Lex

Which begs the question: what the hell is Lex up to in all this? Honestly, I don’t have all too solid an idea outside of the fact he is definitely gunning for Superman more than Batman. The trailer places a lot of emphasis on Lex having a chunk of kryptonite and, with Superman already being the driving factor for Batman, he could be the driving factor for Lex joining in too. I’m not entirely sure Lex will be a major player in BVS; it may just set him up as an ongoing presence in any movie in the DCCU that’s set on land on Earth. Aside from Magneto in the X-Men films, there’s not been a super-villain that exists and appears as regularly as the heroes in each movie, and if this is how Lex is played, it’ll open some cool avenues for him being a behind-the-scenes kind of mastermind, similar to Amanda Waller in Suicide Squad (more on that in just a bit).
The only negative I took away from the Batman V Superman trailer is that, once again, we’re getting Bruce’s parents being killed and a retelling of how he discovered vigilante justice. This ground is so well-trodden we’ve built a pavement, fence, small allotment of houses and a bench on it for old folks to feed the ducks – we don’t need another iteration of the Wayne parents getting murdered. It’s especially irritating here because it contrasts with an actually fresh, meaty story in the fact that Robin not only exists in this version, but has already been killed by the Joker. Why add to that already gripping emotional crux for Batman? It’s needless and feels like a slightly bizarre unfunny industry joke that just wastes money.

Suicide Squad


That Robin spot in Dawn of Justice does bring us nicely over to the Suicide Squad trailer as that’s where we actually see the Joker in the flesh for the first time. Jared Leto‘s Joker spawned an entire wave of outcry itself when his look was first revealed, but he has most definitely had the last laugh with that menacing closing line “.. I’m just gonna hurt ya reeeeeal bad.”. The Joker has killed Robin by the time Batman V Superman has happened; what we don’t know is when exactly that happens and where Suicide Squad finds the Joker because, although he’s wearing Arkham pants, the scene we see in the trailer is widely agreed to be where he tortures Dr. Harleen Quinzel, creating the dripping psychosis that is Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) – which means that scene, at the very least, is before the actual story of the Suicide Squad takes place (until we hear differently).

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Harley Quinn remains the biggest question mark for me, and the trailer did quell my fears, but only slightly. In order to do Harley right, both Robbie‘s performance and the script will need to do a lot of little things really well in order to capture Quinn’s complexity. She’s not just a psychotic killer; she’s incredibly intelligent (a trained psychiatrist entrusted with the most complicated criminal minds in the world), completely deviant (chews gum while mowing through anyone in her way) and very, very efficient, if anarchic in her methods. Harley Quinn alone could be the star of Suicide Squad and, if written with the right respect for her short but impactful history, she could become a legendary movie villain. Even though she’s seen being the ruthless weapon we know she can be, and there are hints we’ll see her dualitous look at some point during the movie, how they handle her being mentally unhinged and how they handle her relationship with the Joker remains to be seen.

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Amanda Waller, however, has no such shade on her. Viola Davis completely dominates the screen as the orchestrator of the entire team – at one point being considered the devil by a caged Harley Quinn, which I hope is a reference to some of the dastardly tactics that must be used to entrap the squad. Waller is in conversation at the start of the trailer, basically pitching the idea of the Suicide Squad to some military and government-minded folks. Waller basically spells out that they need to rely on the ‘bad guys’ to get the job done because all other lines of defence are either out of action or being used right now. This is very telling for where that world is post-Batman V Superman, and it’s one I think Lex plays a big part in. I’m not sure how big a part, but the sense I got of Lex being this kind of constant Earthly force in BVS leaves me thinking that he’s a major investor in the Suicide Squad. Perhaps he becomes a political powerhouse following the events of Dawn of Justice and Amanda Waller is one of the other political figures he sides up with.
I’d do a full write-up on who each of the squad will be but, honestly, Susana Polo of Polygon has already a more efficient write-up than I would, including some interesting musings on the stories that these on-screen versions will be drawing from. A more interesting line of thinking to me is what brings the Suicide Squad together and what state the world is in that compels these villains to, as Will Smith‘s Deadshot puts it “save the world”. There’s little other than pure speculation to go on for that much, but since Batman V Superman is bringing in Doomsday, the plot of Suicide Squad could be the direct aftermath – a world that’s plunged into chaos where all the biggest and best heroes are needed to deal with planet and race-threatening issues, so we need the villains to do the other, smaller stuff. If this ends up being true, then DC/WB have truly committed to the darker edge of their cinematic universe and are employing a very different style of story-telling to the MCU (though that has been a criticism up to this point).
These are just my gut instincts on the trailers and the information at large – what do you think? Have any theories on how these movies will go? Or am I over-thinking everything and should leave speculation out of it? Let me know in the comments!

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