James Gunn's The Suicide Squad could kill off Captain Boomerang, breaking a key rule that would upset fans of the team. First appearing in 2016's Suicide Squad, Captain Boomerang was played by Jai Courtney, who will be returning to play the character for James Gunn's soft reboot of the franchise.
At DC FanDome, Gunn shared a special first look of The Suicide Squad, which worked twofold to set the stage of a mission tasked to the backdrop of a war movie and additionally to introduce the colorful cast of both new and returning DCEU characters. The full Suicide Squad team consists of over 15 characters, including familiar faces like Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn and Courtney as Captain Boomerang, as well as newcomers to the DCEU such as John Cena as Peacemaker and Idris Elba as Bloodsport. Furthermore, based on the same special behind the scenes trailer, fans have speculated that Task Force X's new enemy is going to be Starro, an extra-terrestrial starfish capable of mind control and cloning.
Gunn has been forthright about the movie's carnage, even mentioning how Warner Bros. has given him full control over who lives and dies. And based on official images, it appears Captain Boomerang is included in Task Force X's first wave against Starro, which could suggest the worst for him. The Suicide Squad images tease two teams on separate missions, and with a high body count for the film all but guaranteed, it can be safe to speculate that one of these teams might not make it, which unfortunately may mean the one that Boomerang is on. After all, he is part of the first wave. Something goes wrong, which is why Amanda Waller sends in a second team.
In the comics, Captain Boomerang has survived reboots and has risen to be a sort of mascot for Task Force X, based on how much he embodies the core ideas of the team of a bad guy begrudgingly forced to do good. Gunn has also strongly suggested that his film takes the most inspiration from John Ostrander's 1980s run of the Suicide Squad comics, which was the first to strongly establish Boomerang as a core member of the team, but those stories also emphasized how disposable each character was. Since then, and in the other adaptations of the team, Boomerang has remained an integral part. He was included in 2014's Batman: Assault on Arkham, 2018's Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay, and will even appear in the upcoming video game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
Despite Captain Boomerang's prominence in all these incarnations of the team, it's entirely plausible that Gunn could use the death of a big name character like Boomerang to firmly establish his point that no one is safe. Harley Quinn would be the only other equally impactful death, but seeing as she just starred in her own spin-off, Birds of Prey, and is one of DC's most popular characters (on and off screen), her death seems more unlikely - though anything's possible. Boomerang's death would surely be shocking, but it's also one that could be met with upset fans who reject it as breaking a rule, that Boomerang is safe. For now, the plot of The Suicide Squad has been kept tightly under wraps, so fans will have to wait and see what happens when the film releases.
