Warning! Spoilers ahead for The Suicide Squad
In James Gunn's The Suicide Squad, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) wields a javelin, an all-new weapon she's never used before in prior films or the comics. Given to her early on at the film's start, a lot of significance is placed on this javelin during the film's first act, and Harley spends the rest of the movie trying to figure out what she's supposed to do with it. Here are the origins and powers of Harley Quinn's javelin, given to her by the aptly named Javelin (played by Flula Borg) just before his death among the first Suicide Squad sent to the island nation of Corto Maltese.
In The Suicide Squad's first act, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) sends the Suicide Squad on a mission resulting in several character deaths, serving as a distraction to the Corto Maltese forces so her real Task Force X can infiltrate the island undetected. However, Harley and Rick Flag would both end up surviving, with Rick being saved by resistance fighters and Harley herself being arrested and taken to the president of Corto Maltese. However, before she was taken into custody she was given Javelin's javelin as he lay dying on the beach. The two of them had been flirting on the flight over, and he told her that she was the only one fit to carry his javelin. However, he died before fully explaining why she had to carry it, leaving Harley frustrated and trying to figure out what the javelin's purpose was throughout the rest of the film.
As far as the origins of Flula Borg's Javelin and his javelin in DC Comics, not much is known about the obscure villain. Despite never being given a real name, it's known that Javelin was once a German Olympic athlete being incredibly skilled in the sport of javelin throwing, though for some reason he turned to crime somewhere along the way. Eventually joining the Suicide Squad on multiple occasions, Javelin formed an entire arsenal of javelins for his use, and some could even explode on impact. However, it seems as though the DCEU version seen in The Suicide Squad only has the one javelin, with its primary significance and power coming from Harley after his death.
That being said, Harley Quinn's use of the javelin ended up getting her out of quite a few dicey situations, such as her escape from the Corto Maltese forces and her survival as the Jotunheim lab fell apart around the Squad in the film's final act. That being said, Harley finally discovered what she was meant to do with her new javelin when the squad decided to ignore Waller's orders and face Starro, believing that she was meant to use it to stab the giant cosmic starfish in the eye to save the day.
All that being said, Javelin's javelin seemed to be just a regular (though durable and sharp) javelin, though the meaning he and Harley Quinn placed upon it made it a very significant tool for Harley as the film went on. In any case, she certainly proved herself to be quite capable with her inherited weapon, and it will be interesting to see if Javelin's javelin ends up replacing some of the other weapons she's used in the past, like her baseball bat. Perhaps the now-iconic weapon could be featured as Harley Quinn's primary weapon of choice going forward in a possible sequel for The Suicide Squad.
