Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League: I might be in love too soon

I’ve had a weird relationship with DC related games. I’ve played all of them, but with the exception of the first Arkham Knight game, I haven’t beaten any of them.

They are all interesting and some of them — like The Adventures of Batman & Robin on the SNES — were absolute masterpieces. But they never held my interest for too long. They tend to take themselves way too seriously and forget to just have fun.

Honestly, the most genuine fun I had in gaming via the Justice League in a long time was the DC Online game before they absolutely ruined it by making it free to play and putting everything behind a paywall. I’m not complaining about free-to-play but I bought the legendary edition with a statue when the game came out and had purchased all the expansion passes so when I logged on one day and found out I was going to lose some of my characters unless I paid for more slots, I was miffed. But long story short, it feels like DC games, much like the movies, are just so dark and brooding that everything seems to blend together and it just gets boring for me.

Then, DC released the story trailer for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and, oh boy, I got chills.

In Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, you and up to three other players take control of the Suicide Squad. In this case, the foursome of Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Deadshot and King Shark. Weirdly, it’s a version of Captain Boomerang that’s the old one but with his son’s speed powers which was surprising but I’ll live.

Anywho, Brainiac has completely taken over Metropolis, flooded the streets with his mechanical miscreants and completely taken over the Justice League, turning them into evil, violent, and warped versions of themselves all while retaining some of their personality. Flash is still making quips while trying to kill you, Green Lantern is using a bit more of his military mind frame to create constructs, Diana is full on a war machine, Batman is in a pile of gadgets and Superman is power incarnate. And you four have to take them down.

This is one of the best parts about this is that our subconscious does a lot of the driving for a story like this. For years, comics have helped reinforce this thing in our head that Harley, King Shark, Deadshot and ESPECIALLY Captain Boomerang are good at what they do; but, they don’t do that much. They’re very well-armed (in King Shark’s case, literally) but that’s about it.

Comics have also spent years reinforcing the fact that the Justice League is unbeatable. Flash is the end-all of speed. Green Lantern, creativity. Batman, intelligence. Wonder Woman, strategy. Superman, power. They’ve taken these characters that we know and if given a hurdle, no matter how high you place it, they will leap it in a single bound. They’ve taken these super heroes and given us control… of the hurdle. And I absolutely love this.

The idea of controlling Captain Boomerang and teaming up with my friends to somehow take down the Justice League makes me so excited.

Now, here’s where it gets sticky. I say all this because I KNOW my subconscious is making this feel so cool. It’s a beautiful concept that plays off years of reinforced lore. But there’s one thing that this trailer doesn’t show and that’s gameplay.

This game could, theoretically, suck. We don’t know yet. It could be an absolute stinker. Just because it features cool concepts and all the characters we wanted to see doesn’t make it great by default. Hell, if it did, Justice League Heroes would have been the ultimate DC game.

So I know I’m absolutely buying a ticket for the hype train when I’m preordering Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. But the concept of being able to team up with my friends and take down the (in Mark Hamill voice) Justice Losers is too much for me to fight against.