As with any comic book movie, "The Suicide Squad" features some comic book deep cuts. A few of these
are villains with larger backstories, a couple have more nuance than is shown,
and one is a big-time important cameo. Here's how these characters mean more than you realize.
Calendar Man, played by Sean Gunn, shows up as a prisoner who mocks Polka-Dot Man.
Given the events of "The Suicide Squad," a little comics know-how shows that this foreshadows
Polka-Dot Man's evolution over the movie. Calendar Man's calling card is that he's
obsessed with calendars and dates, often planning his crimes on days of specific significance.
There's no way or need to sugar coat this: that is an extremely stupid gimmick for a villain. Even
among Batman's rogues' gallery, which includes a man who loves riddles, he may represent the nadir.
Or at least, he represented that nadir until the Batman story "The Long Halloween" which finds
Batman tracking down a mysterious killer who's murdering a new victim every month,
and the only person who knows the killer's identity is Calendar Man.
In a role often compared to that of Hannibal Lecter in "Silence of the Lambs," Calendar
Man drops hints from his cell in Arkham Asylum. Much like the way "The Long Halloween" proved
Calendar Man's worth, "The Suicide Squad" is the vehicle that elevates Polka-Dot Man beyond
joke status. Gunn included Polka-Dot Man after Googling "dumbest supervillain of all time" -- and
proceeded to give the formerly maligned villain a compelling backstory. Calendar Man is laughing
at what he once was.
"I'm a superhero!"
Double Down, played by Jared Leland Gore, joins Calendar Man in his mockery of Polka-Dot Man.
Unlike Calendar Man, however, Double Down has never had a reinvention or reintroduction,
and has remained a throwaway gimmick villain. Whether Gunn wanted another goofy villain to laugh
at Polka-Dot Man or is setting up a potential future Task Force X member is hard to say,
but his goofiness is worth acknowledging. Double Down, in his limited appearances,
has largely been a villain who battles the Flash. He was a con man and semi-professional gambler,
because nothing makes for a good villain origin like three card monte. He encountered a cursed
deck of cards, which gave him his powers -- all of which are weird card gimmicks, most of which
involve throwing them. Listen, we promised interesting, we didn't promise fleshed out.
Doctor Fitzgibbon is one
of the doctors working for ARGUS. Among his many duties are inserting the nanite bombs that act as
Waller's insurance into the skulls of Task Force X members. The character is only glimpsed briefly,
but the role itself isn't important. Rather, it's the person playing him:
John Ostrander, the man responsible for some of the best and most important Suicide Squad comics.
Gunn noted on Twitter that Ostrander is a former actor,
which made the role easier. Gunn is also on record saying that
"Ostrander's Suicide Squad is the biggest influence on the film (along with Aldrich's
"The Dirty Dozen") ... We had a huge poster of this in our production office while shooting."
John Economos, played by comedian Steve Agee, is the warden of Belle Reve. It's a minor role -- he
shows up long enough to prove he's competent at what he does and that he hates Peacemaker.
He has a similar role on the comics, debuting in "Suicide Squad" #1 (1987) with the same job,
and has shown up two or three times each decade since the end of Ostrander's run.
There's admittedly not a ton of depth to his character, but it's not his character that's
important. Rather, it's Agee himself, who pulls double duty in this movie:
he was also the stand-in for King Shark. Agee told ComicBook.com,
"I was tall. [Gunn] needed somebody tall. Like, literally needed somebody tall."
When Task Force X stops by a bar to grab a few drinks, they find a few dozen other people there
with them. One, however, stands out above the rest. There's a man with white hair seen dancing
with several women. Though the character is never given a name, the actor playing him is
one of the most important people in James Gunn's career: schlock horror legend Lloyd Kaufman.
Kaufman is the founder of Troma Entertainment, best known for bringing us the Toxic Avenger.
Gunn's film career started at Troma in the '90s, when he co-wrote the screenplay for
"Tromeo and Juliet." Gunn once tweeted that "Troma was a crash course in everything
about making movies, from writing a script to casting to location scouting to production to
marketing the film. Without Lloyd Kaufman, I certainly wouldn’t have the all-around
education I needed to be a film director." Gunn has repaid Kaufman by giving his mentor
cameos, including a small part in "Guardians of the Galaxy."
Kaufman once told Vice that "[Gunn] put me in all these
movies so far and now he's the number one guy at the box office! Like that Titanic guy,
you know? 'I'm the king of the world!' Only James would never say that cause he's such a nice guy."
The first Ratcatcher only appears in two scenes, albeit two of the most emotional scenes in
"The Suicide Squad." Played by Taika Waititi, Ratcatcher is often spoken of in reverent tones
throughout the film -- or at least as reverent as people can be about an ostensible villain who
controls rats. Like many of the characters in "The Suicide Squad," Ratcatcher is a reimagining of a
low-tier DC Comics villain of the same name. The Ratcatcher of the comics comes from Gotham
City rather than Portugal. He was an actual rat catcher by trade before, like seemingly
half of Gotham City, he turned to crime. He also had the ability to speak with and control rats,
but his most valuable ability was his encyclopedic knowledge of Gotham's sewer system,
which let him move around the city with ease. He's a much less vulnerable figure
than we see in "The Suicide Squad." Check out one of our newest videos
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