One of the more interesting bits of casting amongst that Suicide Squad announcement was the news that Tom Hardy would be returning to do another DC comic book adaptation, having starred as the comically-voiced Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. This time his role is a little more straight, although hopefully having an actor of Hardy's calibre will help to make him a little more engaging. While Deadshot and Harley Quinn have become the figureheads of the current Suicide Squad, traditionally they've been lead by the far more straight-shooting Rick Flag. Flag inherited the name from his father who, incidentally, served on the original Squad, a Dirty Dozen-type unit that ran in the Second World War. Rick Flag Jr went about things a little differently. He appeared as part of the rebooted Suicide Squad, who for a time operate publicly, expressly formed to fight monstrous menaces as a replacement for the Justice Society of America. They were more actual superheroes. Then the rest of the team died, Flag started to get a little unstable, and he resented being put in charge of a new Squad formed entirely from criminals, getting especially antsy when he and Deadshot were compared in any way. Flag is the more obviously good of the team, like the babysitter keeping the rest of them in check, essentially. Here's hoping Hardy still gets to have a bit of fun with it.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
