For all the wild takes about Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League flying around today, there’s one thing we can definitely say about the game that’s very good. That is: whoever wrote the game’s codex entires was kind of cooking.
Suicide Squad delivers each of its codex entries from the perspective of Lex Luthor. In the canon of the game, Lex has found himself defending against the murderous machinations of the corrupted Justice League. In these entries, and in style somewhat ironically similar to Bruce Wayne, he distils his thoughts about each member of the JL and what makes them tick. It recalls a classic DC book from 2000 called Tower of Babel, in which the League discovers Batman has been keeping detailed records on how to defeat each member of the League if he has to. Bruce’s plans are stolen by Ras Al’Ghul, who uses them to defeat the League. Conversely, Luthor doesn’t appear to care what anyone thinks, or if anyone finds his secret diary.
Here’s an example. As noted by @themysciralore on Twitter, the Wonder Woman entry is particularly good.
In case you can’t see the Tweet (or don’t want to give Elon your traffic, fair enough), here’s the full entry:
From the files of Lex Luthor:
I am prone to wild imaginings. As a man of science, speculation is how my brain finds leisure, and the closest thing it knows to “play“.
But there is little amusement to be found in imagining how improved Earth would be if, instead of forcing the Amazons into hiding with our cruelty and avarice, we had instead looked to them as a model, replicable if only we could set aside our baser instincts. They’ve solved so many of our society’s ills: broken democracy, lagging technology, toxic masculinity. And thus they flourish through higher learning, mutual aid, and governance without cruelty. They are a golden society, who deserve to be as secret as they are.
Enter Wonder Woman, so named, I assume, because one Wonders why a Woman of her caliber and ancestry would leave paradise to play in the mud with us. In the League, she is a beacon of rational thought paired with profound empathy, of strength and kindness in equal measure. She is a hero, moreso than any who surround her.
Still … her very presence in the League makes me consider whether, if Wonder Woman turned her lasso on herself, a different story would emerge: One of a person who craves the brutality, crudeness and our world, who left her equitable sisterhood for an exclusive brotherhood, and whose heart is more aligned with the maddened billionaire and over-powered alien than with any of Themyscira’s queens.
Perhaps the Amazons are the golden society … and we have been given their worst.
God damn. He really got her. He roasted her with respect and still managed to get a fuck-you to Superman in there. What a king.
I won’t spoil any of the other entries. You should know, however, that Suicide Squad is filled with similar examples. They’re all great. Every single member of the Justice League cops an incredibly erudite spray from Luthor. He should start a blog. I would read it every day.
There’s a writer, probably multiple writers, at Rocksteady having way too much fun writing these codex entries. Make the effort to read through a few of them yourself if you play it over the weekend.
Image: WB Games
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