Where Batman Is During The Suicide Squad

Despite Batman warning Amanda Waller he’d “shut down” Task Force X if she didn’t, the Dark Knight is nowhere to be seen during the events of 2021’s The Suicide Squad – so where is he? While The Suicide Squad isn’t a complete sequel to the initial film – changing practically everything par the continued existence of Waller, Captain Boomerang, Harley Quinn, and the concept of the Suicide Squad itself – it does clearly continue on in the same timeline, as is evidenced by Boomerang asking Harley how she’d ended up back in the team of government-controlled villains.

As such, the question naturally emerges as to how exactly the group is still operational, given that Suicide Squad closes with Bruce Wayne confronting Amanda Waller about needing to shut down the program, despite the fact the latter revealed an awareness of his secret identity. There is clearly some time between the first and second film, which makes this matter even more confusing, as it makes it even more blatant that Waller has entirely disregarded Batman’s warnings, and yet the matter isn’t really addressed in the movie.

This real-life explanation for this is of course that DCEU Batman Ben Affleck has passed the proverbial torch to Robert Pattinson, and was unlikely to reprise his role simply for a brief cameo, as this would have only confused matters just before the former Twilight star’s first appearance in the role. Similarly, introducing Pattinson in this installment would have been a weird decision, as The Batman is set to have him play a younger Batman, who simply wouldn’t fit with the pre-existing timeline already in place. However, the decision to exclude Batman from this film does also fit with the DCEU timeline itself, as regardless of whether The Suicide Squad takes place when Batman is forming the Justice League – as Suicide Squad shows him preparing to do – in the events of Justice League, or otherwise dealing with the aftermath, it’s clear he has some more pressing matters to attend to. Amanda Waller gathering a series of superpowered misfits into one ragtag team is certainly concerning, but it pales in comparison to many of the other threats occurring in the universe around this point in time, and thus it does make sense in-universe why Batman doesn’t follow up on his threat.

In fact, this may also serve to explain why The Suicide Squad is comprised of far less powerful figures – or at least, individuals that don’t seem as blatantly powerful as the original cast. While Suicide Squad had a mystical otherwordly supernatural entity in the form of Enchantress, and a man capable of burning town a town within a matter of minutes through Diablo, the updated team is far less imposing. This places even less precedent on dealing with the Squad for the Dark Knight, meaning Waller may have intentionally selected a group of more eccentric individuals in order to avoid having to deal with Batman. However, she did also pick Bloodsport, who is famous for having shot Superman with a Kryptonite bullet, so she may have also been laying the foundations for a team capable of dealing with Batman’s allies if it came to it.

This all said, The Suicide Squad arguably benefits from the absence of Batman in the film, as the focus on the largely obscure comic characters that are used would have potentially been undermined by his appearance. Though the movie does continue the personal plots of both Waller and Harley Quinn, its highlight is the way in which it utilizes characters that would have otherwise never been used in a big-budget film, legitimizing the likes of Polka Dot Man and Ratcatcher in a way that previously seemed impossible. There is a nod to Superman in Bloodsport’s introduction, of course, but a story that is so much a love letter to the forgotten parts of DC’s comic roster is better off without a surprise feature of Batman – even if it’d be exciting to see him feature in a potential Suicide Squad 3.

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