Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for The Suicide Squad (2021).
What fate awaits the survivors of The Suicide Squad in the future of the DCEU? While most of the film's sizeable ensemble died over the course of the movie, six members of Task Force X did survive the team's disastrous mission to Corto Maltese. This leaves them available should a third Suicide Squad movie be made, or an additional HBO Max series be commissioned around their adventures.
The future of the Suicide Squad in the DCEU is somewhat uncertain. At the time of The Suicide Squad's release, most of the actors playing the principal survivors of the film's events were not signed on for any future DCEU projects. The one notable exception was John Cena, as Peacemaker, who will be starring as in an eight-episode limited series for HBO Max, which spins off the events of The Suicide Squad.
Another big question standing alongside whether any of The Suicide Squad's survivors might appear in future DCEU projects is whether or not filmmaker James Gunn will return to make a sequel to The Suicide Squad or other movies or television series using the same characters apart from the Peacemaker spin-off. While Gunn would likely be welcomed with open arms at Warner Bros. given the critical and commercial success of The Suicide Squad, he had expressed a desire for a change of pace once he completes his work on Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and an upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. However, with the diversity offered by the DC Comics setting and Warner Bros. newfound commitment to a multiverse model in regards to their films, it's possible that Gunn might have some other ideas in mind outside of The Suicide Squad.
Harley Quinn's Future In The Snyder Cut
The fate of Harley Quinn is perhaps the most uncertain out of all of the survivors of The Suicide Squad. While Harley definitively survived the events of the film and was apparently granted a full pardon by Amanda Waller after she helped to save Corto Maltese from Starro the Conqueror, Margot Robbie is not currently scheduled to play the Queen of Clowns in any upcoming DCEU projects. The Oscar-nominated actress has said that she is ready and willing to play Harley again, but her future in the original plan for the DCEU is not a happy one.
The "Knightmare" sequence at the end of the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League revealed how Harley Quinn was meant to die in the future of the DCEU. According to Batman, Harley Quinn died in his arms and begged for him to kill the Joker and to do it slowly. The exact details of Harley Quinn's death were not explained but it was heavily implied that the Joker was responsible for the deed. More disturbingly, Batman seemed ready and willing to follow through on Harley Quinn's dying wish, suggesting that the two might have grown closer at some point in the future, much like in the reality of the Injustice: Gods Among Us games and comics, where Harley Quinn reformed completely and became a member of Batman's team of allies.
The canonicity of Zack Snyder's Justice League to the DCEU is highly debatable, so there's no way of knowing how certain that this foretelling of Harley Quinn's death will remain, despite the Snyderverse storyline continuing on into the upcoming The Flash movie. Certainly Snyder himself seems reluctant to return to Warner Bros. to continue his plans for further Justice League movies. It also seems highly unlikely that Margot Robbie would want to return to play Harley Quinn only to set-up the character's death as part of the Batman/Joker feud, after all the work that had been undertaken to turn the DCEU Harley Quinn into her own character apart from The Joker.
The Peacemaker Spin-Off On HBO Max
The one character whose future in the DCEU seems best defined is The Peacemaker, who was revealed to have survived the bombing of Jotunheim and a bullet to the neck in The Suicide Squad's final post-credits sequence. The brief scene showed the Peacemaker (John Cena) in the hospital as he was being identified by several members of Amanda Waller's staff, who commented that The Wall was "saddling us with this douchebag" as revenge for their stopping her from killing Task Force X. Unfortunately, the Peacemaker was apparently needed to save the world, for reasons that will be unveiled in his upcoming television series.
Details on the Peacemaker series have been kept tightly guarded to the point that it was unclear until the release of The Suicide Squad if the new HBO Max series would be a follow-up to the events of the film or a prequel detailing the character's origins. It seems now to be the former, but it is possible the show might also reveal the character's DCEU backstory and how he became a man who loved peace so much that he would do anything, even kill, to prevent war. James Gunn has written all eight episodes of the series and will direct five of them, so it should retain an aesthetic similar to The Suicide Squad. While nothing has been said about other actors from The Suicide Squad appearing in the series, there is little to stop it from happening either.
Will There Be Another Suicide Squad Movie?
The future is wide open for Bloodsport, Ratcatcher II, King Shark and the Weasel following the ending of The Suicide Squad. The first three were given a full pardon by Amanda Waller in exchange for their agreeing not to release the information that the United States government had secretly sponsored Project Starfish. The Weasel was revealed to have somehow survived his apparent drowning in the film's opening scene and ran free into the wilds of Corto Maltese in a post-credits scene. There's nothing to stop these characters from being used in future DCEU projects, apart from the availability of the actors. However, at this time, there are no plans for another Suicide Squad movie or a follow-up apart from Peacemaker.
One interesting possibility for a continuation of The Suicide Squad storyline could be an HBO Max series based upon the comic book series Secret Six, which was something of a spiritual successor to the Suicide Squad comics. The series centered around a found family of mercenaries made up of anti-heroes that were too good to be accepted by the Secret Society of Supervillains but too amoral to be heroes. Bloodsport, Ratcatcher and King Shark could easily form the basis of such a group in the DCEU and, it should be noted, King Shark was a part of the Secret Six during the team's final incarnation following the events of Infinite Crisis.
