Say what you want about the fledgling cinematic universe of DC, it beats the spandex pants off Marvel in its willingness to tackle the subject of faith.
We saw it with Man of Steel and its explicit comparisons of Superman to Christ. We saw it again in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice—complete with an impending resurrection.
And believe it or not, we saw a bit of it in the wildly popular, critically panned Suicide Squad.
For a bunch of no-account do-badders, many of the Squad’s members express an element of faith. Not all these figures point to a Christian understanding, mind you, and some of their spiritual leanings are flat-out messed up. (We’re looking at you, Enchantress.) And yet, many of these bad guys still turn to a higher power on occasion—and the results can be terrifying, transcendent or fall somewhere in between.
Deadshot
Floyd Lawton, the world’s deadliest assassin, is a surprisingly nice guy. The only human we really see him gun down seems to be a pretty bad hombre himself. He loves his daughter and would do almost anything for her (except, maybe, give up his unsavory career). And he appears to be a guy for whom faith means something.
Consider his wardrobe. Stitched on his collar are the words, “I am the light, the way,” which feel like echoes of the Gospel of John. (I am the light of the world,” we read in John 8:12; “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” it says in John 14:6.) And he references Christianity elsewhere. “I’m going to rain down on you like the Holy Ghost,” he says at one point, and he hopes that the Suicide Squad’s exploits will be remembered like “the Bible.”
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