Snapshots
Suicide Squad is the quintessential trolley problem story. The anti-heroes have done terrible things to get where they are, but the how can the writer make the reader care about them? Amanda Waller is as amoral as they come, but to a point, she becomes unjust to villains.
The others? The ones who’d died before that, I mean. Farmers. Itinerants… The poor and the uncounted. Not that the killer was targeting nobodies on purpose, mind you. What you’ve got to remember is that if you can go anywhere on the planet… If your business is to pick out folks at random? Well. You’re gonna kill a whole bunch of people – you’re gonna destroy a whole fuck-ton of lives and loves – loooong before you happen to hit someone rich enough or white enough that the powers that be give a fuck. Way of the world.
PROF. PASAGIYAH. And even when a metahuman puts their desires first – robs a bank, say, tries to take over the world – even then, we get it, don’t we? Because these are all societal motives. What I mean by that is, whether they’re heroes or villains, everything these individuals have done – until now – derives from personal conceptual notions of how the world ought to be. So – yes. To return to my point? It was only a matter of time before we saw something like this. A superhuman who doesn’t give a damn about anything except their most basic, primary instincts.
Still – she never used me. Fact is, I don’t think she even realized she was using them. Tanya didn’t think like that. Tanya just acted. People fell in love with the idea of her – with the blur she left as she passed on by – and didn’t stop to worry they were just caught in the wake. Difference is: she loved me back.
GUARD. Ma’am, notwithstanding human rights, as an operational point, we
ought to let them ask qu–
THINKING GUY. You dig down, you’re gonna find these supers’re worth
trillions to them in charge. They’re the guarantors of our version of
what’s right. And that’s before you put a number on national
defense. Point is, when Captain fuckin' Cannibal comes along and gets
everyone thinkin' about how scary the whole concept actually is –
having these fuckers flyin' about willy-nilly…
SUPERMAN. I know how you work, Waller. How many people died for this
information? How much blood was sp–
WALLER. Oh, grow up, you
unbelievable cartoon. Go fight the damn bogeyman and stop pretending to
think.
Stories pretend to fly straight and true because that’s how we like it. No-no, it’s more than that – That’s how we need it. We think in stories. We remember in stories. And… I’ll do you one better… It literally hurts us – doesn’t it? When the nice, tidy version goes all to shit and we’re reminded how messy and pointless the world really is.
TANYA. You’re talking about Superman. You sent him in already. You’re being
cute because you don’t wanna say so.
ELECTRIC GUY. It pulled out his
spinal cord like a churro, lady.
WALLER. …How did you come by
this information?
SHIFTY. We saw it.
MIKE. We all saw it.
WALLER. From now on, any visions you experience will be reported
immediately.
DOCTOR. The, uh. The Blaze organism. A higher-plane
entity. It’s a – a parasite, of sorts. We don’t know exactly what it
drains from its host, but… best guess? Relativistic implosions. It feeds
on the collapse of probability waveforms caused by your choices – it’s all
quite Heisenbergian, of course – so –
WALLER. Doctor. Convicts and
lunatics. Tell them it’s magic, move on.
WALLER. Everyone’s favorite unsanctioned paramilitaries spent the last 24
hours preparing, don’t ask me how I know this – I know this, you’ve been
deployed to arrive at the same time. Despite a woeful lack of intelligence
– and I mean that in both senses – the JL believe their plan of
attack covers every eventuality. Spurred by their hopes that Superman may
yet be alive, their confidence is high. I’m confident they’re all going to
die. A tragedy. A tragedy. At the very least they’ll keep our
friend occupied for a while, you are to use that time wisely. Where they are
thunder, you shall be poison. Where they burn with altruism and
duty to their fallen comrade you will fester with the sewer-stink of
sneakiness, and ooze with the dismal hopes of extending your pointless
lives by an extra day or two.
It eats the collapse of futures. It eats the moments when people choose. (To live. To be at peace. To fight. To be happy. To rest.) It eats certainty. It eats the instants when folks feel complete. It craves endings.
Y’know, I could make the case for this being a kindness. Let her go out smiling, not screaming. Caught in the thrill, not bowing to the fucking reaper. A gift to the one I love. But… there’s an angle here. It has to be me. The mediocre man. The others? All special. They danced their lives at this or that extreme. I like to believe they’d understand it. They’d get it. It had to be me. They would have fought him. They would have howled and clawed and tried. Tried to impose. Tried to seize the prize. They would’ve lost. Not me. I’m something they’re not. I am parasite.
References
- Suicide Squad: Blaze #1. Simon Spurrier; Aaron Campbell; Jordan Bellaire. dc.fandom.com . Feb 8, 2022.
- Suicide Squad: Blaze #2. Simon Spurrier; Aaron Campbell; Jordan Bellaire. dc.fandom.com . Apr 12, 2022.
- Suicide Squad: Blaze #3. Simon Spurrier; Aaron Campbell; Jordan Bellaire. dc.fandom.com . Jul 5, 2022.