The most recent trailers from James Gunn's upcoming The Suicide Squad have shown that the giant alien starfish Starro is potentially the film's main villain. A group of captured supervillains coerced by the government into going on what they deem to be suicide missions, the Suicide Squad has appeared in DC Comics with varying lineups since the 1950s. The Suicide Squad will be a loose sequel to 2016's Suicide Squad but will only feature a few characters from the first film, including Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn and Viola Davis's Amanda Waller, but notably excluding Will Smith's Deadshot.
During his separation from Marvel and Disney, James Gunn was tapped by DC to direct and pen the Suicide Squad sequel, with its filming becoming one of the factors that pushed back the production of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 following a reconciliation. Thanks to more trailers, fans now know that Starro will indeed be a chief antagonist for Idris Elba's Bloodsport and the remainder of the team.
Properly titled Starro the Conqueror, the large extraterrestrial is a unique hybridization of two alien species, one parasitic and one psychic. Starro is able to control people through the use of starfish-like spores, which can be seen in the trailer. Initially a Justice League villain, Starro's ability to invade the dreams of humanity once saw it pitted against Dream of the Endless, from Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. An encounter with the Suicide Squad, however, has yet to take place. Considering that Starro's spores can expand and transform into various sizes, it makes sense that the creature's first major appearance in The Suicide Squad footage just so happens to be an overgrown, building-sized being.
Trailers have revealed that Starro is almost certainly a direct result of an experiment known as Project Starfish, and his needing to be dealt with likely arises from problems with the experiment. They have also shown Peter Capaldi's The Thinker, who can also control people's minds, potentially having a key role. Perhaps The Thinker is recruited specifically to aid the others in stopping Starro. Mind-controlling villains always come with the potential for inter-party conflict, which is already on the cards with a volatile team of villains and antiheroes. Starro also seems like a perfect fit for the approach that James Gunn's Suicide Squad character selection seems to indicate, with a distinctly pulpy, retro flavor.
Regarding why the Suicide Squad is fighting the villain, an incident in the comics makes such an obscure choice of antagonist a surprisingly appropriate possible answer to this question. During one of its more progressed invasions, the Justice League hesitate to fight Starro lest it should manage to control them and use their exceptional powers for its own gain. Following this logic, it makes sense to deploy a bunch of D-list villains for the job because, in addition to the expendability that gives the team its name, Starro would have little value to gain from them.
James Gunn has shown his interest in extraterrestrial threats in his previous films. Apart from the obvious Guardians of the Galaxy series, his directorial debut, Slither, also dealt with alien parasites. The Suicide Squad villain Starro, with its pseudo-Lovecraftian inhumanity, is poised to take this to new extremes and will likely be bereft of any kind of sympathetic qualities. The frightening versatility of its powers, alongside its sheer size and power, which can create both large-scale violence and smaller, more personal dilemmas, make Starro a fitting antagonist. Truly matching the film's bizarre lineup of protagonists, Starro looks set to double down on the pulp that The Suicide Squad already promises to bring in spades.
