*Another* ‘The Suicide Squad’ trailer? James Gunn reveals a surprising character
The Suicide Squad keeps coming and it doesn’t stop coming! James Gunn released another trailer with some more information on this merry, kill-happy band of supervillains coming to your screen this summer.
The Suicide Squad follows a merry band of bloodthirsty supervillains straight of Arkham, including Harley Quinn, as they work for the government to get their sentences reduced. However, as the trailers for The Suicide Squad continuously remind us, one wrong move and a microchip in their brain stems will make their heads blow off with the flip of a switch.
While some information is still under wraps (Starro), some more character information dropped in this new trailer, including a blink-and-you-miss-it reveal about the character Nathan Fillion is playing. Let’s jump right into the action!
Detached arms
The trailer itself rehashes content from the first The Suicide Squad trailer, but with a couple of key takeaways: who does the voiceover in the beginning, and why are Nathan Fillion’s arms floating at his side?
Die-hard DC fans already know what’s what. Plus, casting notes detailed Nathan Fillion would play a character called Floyd Belking/TDK per The Hollywood Reporter. TDK, of course, stands for the Detachable Kid, or Arms-Fall-Off-Boy.
He’s one of the most “random” characters in the DC Universe per THR, although IGN specified The Detachable Kid was an original character of Gunn’s and Arm-Fall-Off Boy was the original DC comics character. Either way, his appearance in The Suicide Squad adds another layer of wackiness James Gunn is expected to deliver.
Who’s the rando?
Seven months ago, a sleuth on Reddit posted a screenshot of members of The Suicide Squad posing in several candid photos on a poster board. One of them, if you look really, really close, has detachable arms floating in the air. One Redditor called the choice “weird” since they appeared to float by his side. They do that in The Suicide Squad trailer, too.
Indeed, Arm-Fall-Off-Boy’s superpowers are just detaching his limbs and using them as blunt weapons per DC’s fansite. While this power could make games of “stop hitting yourself” more interesting with The Detached Kid, they don’t, per DC lore, float.
Also, as IGN pointed out, Arm-Fall-Off-Boy only appears as a gag here & there in DC comics and well after The Suicide Squad takes place. Arm-Fall-Off-Boy’s time is in the thirtieth century as he tries & fails continuously to join the Legion of Super-Heroes because . . . we’re just going to say it – his power is lame!
However, James Gunn is apparently giving Arm-Fall-Off-Boy a makeover, including a less craptastic name and a more bad@ss version of the superpower, taking the limb-wrenching ability from “stop hitting yourself” lame to actually useful. Like, if you can detach your arms and make them float places, it’s 100 times more useful in our humble opinion.
The Suicide Squad cast
The rest of the cast has been mostly announced. Apart from heavy hitters like Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn and the surprise announcement of Sylvester Stallone voicing King Shark, notables in James Gunn’s roster will be seen in The Suicide Squad, including Gunn’s brother Sean as Weasel and Michael Rooker (Yondu in the Guardians of the Galaxy series) playing Savant.
Like Rooker and Sean Gunn, Nathan Fillion has also appeared in James Gunn’s work. The Castle and Firefly star has acted in Gunn’s Slither & Super. Fillion’s known for playing devil-may-care heroes with a small side of silliness like “I swear by my pretty floral bonnet” Captain Malcolm Reynolds in Firefly and Jacques Snicket in Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, so expect to see Gunn play with Fillion’s usual schtick in The Suicide Squad.
Also in The Suicide Squad per THR: “Flula Borg (Javelin), David Dastmalchian (Polka-Dot Man), Daniela Melchior (Ratcatcher2), Idris Elba (Bloodsport), Mayling Ng (Mongal), Pete Davidson (Blackguard), Peter Capaldi (The Tinkerer), Juan Diego Botto (Presidente General Silvio Luna), Joaquín Cosío (Mayor General Mateo Suarez), Jenn Holland (Emilia Harcourt), Storm Reid (Tyla) and Alice Braga (SolSoria).”
