Thanks to his starring role in two Suicide Squad movies, Captain Boomerang is a household name
among countless comic fans. But how did this DC baddie go from obscure rogue to
one of the most recognizable antiheroes in the DC universe? This is the story of Captain Boomerang.
So: Who is Captain Boomerang? The short answer is that he's George "Digger" Harkness, a shameless
crook who will do just about anything to make a buck. He doesn't boast any supernatural abilities,
instead carrying an arsenal of boomerangs that he wields with lethal skill. But Boomer's weapons
aren't just run-of-the-mill boomerangs, with many of them serving specific purposes in combat.
While he acts as kind of a lone wolf in his earliest appearances,
Boomerang quickly becomes more of a team player — even though he's never very good at getting
along with whatever team he's in. He's joined forces with other prominent villains of the
fictional Central City over the years, and more famously, is one of the villains often
pressed into service for the United States government by the tyrannical Amanda Waller.
Digger Harkness isn't the most patient of men, either. He has a short temper and can turn
on his allies with little provocation. Sadly, he's also demonstrated some deeply problematic
beliefs during his many comic book appearances. Particularly in the early Suicide Squad comics,
Captain Boomerang regularly makes racist and sexist comments about his teammates. A native
Australian, Digger sees himself as a patriot to his homeland, though it was later revealed that,
because of his criminal exploits, most of his countrymen are actually ashamed of him.
Captain Boomerang first locks horns with Central City's guardian speedster, the Flash, in 1960's
The Flash #117. While the rogue's blue, white, and black costume wouldn't change much between
his debut and his more prominent appearances in the '80s, the character has changed in other ways.
In Flash #117, Digger Harkness gets the idea to become Captain Boomerang after the W.W. Wiggins
Game Company starts searching for a mascot who can promote their toy boomerangs. Harkness is already
a thief at that point, and he uses his unique boomerang talents to help him in his battles
with the Scarlet Speedster. He's initially able to defeat Flash with one of his lightning boomerangs,
and then ties the unconscious Flash to a giant boomerang and shoots
it into the ocean. Obviously, Flash escapes and puts an end to the crook's plans.
In these early appearances, Captain Boomerang is just as goofy as he is later on. Curiously enough,
however, it's never specified in this era that Digger Harkness is from Australia. The country
isn't mentioned at all, and his dialogue isn't written to reflect his nationality.
What do you do once you've created enough villains designed to bring
down a superhero? You throw them all together in a team, of course!
Flash's villainous team-up is known as the Rogues, who have since gone on to
become one of the most enduring groups of villains in the history of DC Comics.
Captain Boomerang is one of the founding members of the Rogues.
He's there in 1962's The Flash #130 to join forces with contemporaries like Trickster,
Captain Cold, the Top, and Mirror Master, all set against their common enemy. Over the years,
more villains would join, and just about any villain who spent enough time taking their
lumps fighting the Flash found their way onto the team. In some cases, the Rogues have stepped into
more heroic territory, too. Every now and then, the group stands against other villains whose
actions against Central City jump across the kind of moral lines that even the Rogues won't cross.
While Captain Boomerang is one of the first bad guys to count himself among the Rogues,
eventually he becomes less and less associated with the group — as his
destiny brings him to a very different team of villains.
Nowadays, Captain Boomerang is most famous as a regular fixture in the modern line-up of Task
Force X, also known as the Suicide Squad. He's a group member in their very first battle against
Brimstone in 1987's Legends #3 and appears regularly in many of the subsequent volumes
of Suicide Squad. He's also on the team in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Task Force X,"
as well as in 2014's Batman: Assault on Arkham, 2018's Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay, and 2020's
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War. He'll also be a member of the group in the upcoming video
game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, featured on the team in CW's Arrowverse,
and of course, was played by Jai Courtney in 2016's Suicide Squad and its 2021 follow-up.
"Hey, looky here. Ooh, it's fire. Wooooooh!"
Ironically, in spite of how often he works with Task Force X, Captain Boomerang is one
of the most disliked members of the team. He also makes sure to be a constant thorn
in the side of the Squad liaison Amanda Waller, who frequently refers to him as "Boomerbutt."
It's surprising how often Captain Boomerang finds himself working for Waller,
considering what a pain he can be to everyone involved. On the one hand, you could say it's
a testimony to his effectiveness in battle that his presence continues to be tolerated.
There does, however, appear to be a very fine line between the two.
If you had to be in the Suicide Squad, Captain Boomerang is just about the last guy you'd want
to team up with. While the character's portrayal often changes depending on who's writing him,
one thing that tends to remain consistent is that he has no problem backstabbing his teammates.
In fact, Captain Boomerang betrays one of his colleagues in one of the team's earliest
adventures. In 1987's Suicide Squad #1, tired of listening to Boomer mock the other team members,
Mindboggler uses her powers to reveal his biggest fears. In the following issue,
Captain Boomerang sees that Mindboggler is about to be gunned down from behind by the
villain Rustam. He whips out a boomerang to intervene but stops himself, remembering how
Mindboggler humiliated him. He then escapes as Rustam shoots and kills Mindboggler.
In 1988's Suicide Squad #9, Digger betrays a teammate by using him as something of a test
subject. He isn't sure his superiors mean it when they threaten to detonate the explosives
strapped to the squad members' arms, so he convinces Slipknot that they're bluffing.
After a heated battle, Slipknot tries to escape the squad, and he pays for the mistake dearly.
Captain Boomerang's treachery isn't limited to his early appearances with the squad, either.
In 2017's Suicide Squad #13, Captain Boomerang kills fellow teammate Hack
by stabbing her with one of his boomerangs. So yeah — not the nicest guy in the world.
Despite being a pretty unpleasant character in general, Captain Boomerang is actually behind one
of the funniest and longest-running subplots in the history of the Suicide Squad comics.
In 1988's Suicide Squad #21, Amanda Waller is walking around Belle Reve prison
and considering her recent challenges when a whipped cream pie flies into her face.
Suspecting Boomer is the culprit right away, Waller summons him — on his way to see her,
however, a pie gets him, too. It would take years for the pie-thrower to be revealed.
The next victim is Nemesis, in Suicide Squad #23. Then, in 1989's Suicide Squad #26,
Vixen gets a pie in the face while getting frisky with Bronze Tiger, and Bronze Tiger gets one
a moment later. Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane takes a dessert to the nose in Suicide Squad #30,
and Jewelee and Doctor Light fall victim to this creamy bandit in the following issue.
The final pie victim is Major Victory in 1990's Suicide Squad #37.
Captain Boomerang tries to frame fellow squad member Punch by filling his locker with pies,
but he's found out regardless. It's discovered that Boomer used his boomerang tech to get himself
in the face, throwing suspicion off himself early on in the saga. Boomer then quits the squad,
laughing in Waller's face that there's nothing she can do to punish him. So, Waller does what
any sensible person would do when they can’t extract revenge for catching a pie to the face,
she has him abducted and stranded on a desert island.
In 2004, DC Comics released the game-changing miniseries Identity Crisis.
The story unfolds with the violent death of Sue Dibny, wife to superhero Ralph Dibny,
aka the Elongated Man. What follows is a mystery that explodes into many different threads,
including a series of shocking reveals involving misdeeds committed by DC's heroes. One such thread
includes Digger Harkness accepting a high-profile job that eventually leads to his death.
Identity Crisis finds Captain Boomerang having fallen on hard times. He can hardly rub two
pennies together, and among DC's community of supervillains, he doesn't command the
respect he once did. In Identity Crisis #5, Boomer embarks on what proves to be his last
job — the assassination of Jack Drake. While he doesn't have any superpowers or fancy gadgets,
Jack Drake is no standard mark as he's the father of Tim Drake, the Robin of the time.
Terrified that his sidekick will have to experience what he suffered when his
own parents were killed, Batman rushes to Jack Drake's home once he learns of
the plot — but he's too late. Drake mortally wounds Boomer with a handgun, but not before
one of the villain's boomerangs likewise kills Drake. Aside from a brief stint as a zombie,
Captain Boomerang wouldn't return fully to life until 2010's Brightest Day storyline,
just before the rebooting of the DC Universe as part of the New 52 event.
After this, Digger Harkness is recruited to join Amanda Waller's new and improved Suicide Squad.
A couple of years before the first Suicide Squad film was released,
Captain Boomerang made his live-action debut in season 3 of The CW's Arrow.
"Sorry to do this to you, but you have something I need."
He shows up in the final moments of "Draw Back Your Bow" and then gets a lot more screen time
in "The Brave and the Bold." In Arrow, Digger is a former Suicide Squad agent whose last mission
didn't go as planned. Once things went sideways, Lyla Michaels opted to activate the bombs
implanted in all Task Force X recruits' necks, but apparently, the device in Digger malfunctioned.
"The Brave and the Bold" is one of the earliest team-ups between Oliver Queen and the Flash,
and it's clear Team Arrow could use the back-up. Digger proves to be just as formidable
an enemy as his comic book counterpart, though eventually, Queen and the Flash take him down.
Captain Boomerang appears one more time in season 5, when Queen releases Digger and
Deathstroke from their island prisons to help him defeat Prometheus. Proving just as treacherous as
his comic book counterpart, Digger is revealed to have already made a deal with Prometheus.
But Harkness doesn't survive to regret his choice, as he's killed by Malcolm Merlyn,
who willingly sacrifices himself by detonating a land mine when Harkness approaches.
Jai Courtney brought Captain Boomerang to life on the big screen in 2016's Suicide Squad. Courtney's
portrayal of Digger Harkness is the source of much of the humor in the action-packed movie,
and it's clear Courtney and the filmmakers drew heavily from the source material. Still,
there are some significant differences between the comic book and movie versions of the character.
Like the Captain Boomerang of the comics, Digger starts his
criminal career as a Flash villain. Ezra Miller cameos as the Scarlet Speedster,
capturing Digger in a flashback. And just like the source material,
Courtney's version of Digger can't stand Amanda Waller. The film even adapts Digger's
manipulation of Slipknot into unintentionally killing himself from Suicide Squad #9.
“Sorry. It's what I do."
There are important differences between Courtney's Digger and the source material, however.
He's much less cruel to his teammates, ultimately shows himself to be much more of a team player,
and in particular, comes off as a lot tougher than the comic book version.
Jai Courtney subsequently reprised the role of Captain Boomerang for the 2021 movie The Suicide
Squad, making him one of just three members of the original team to return for the sequel. Whether
Digger Harkness has a future in the DC Universe beyond this movie, however, is yet to be seen.
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