Before you ask: no, I haven't played Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League. it's a live-service tag-team third-person hero shooter where the enemies are bullet sponges - if the shooting looks like shit i won't play it, and boy does the shooting look like shit.
Instead, I watched a YouTube video that cuts all the flavorful mission dialogue and cutscenes together into a lengthy yet cohesive narrative to figure out the full plot of the game. This viewing was inspired by a video on Facebook I saw, which declared that this particular scene - where Batman is killed by Harley Quinn on a Centennial Park bench - was "controversial." Knowing the popularity of the Suicide Squad movie, i figured this would be knocked out of the park in context with the narrative. It was, of course. It felt good to watch Harley kill a rich man who bought himself into the role of a super-cop just because he had dead, rich parents. Numerous humans were institutionalized and seriously harmed as a direct result of this white man with an ego.
I forgot one thing, however:
Gamers are painfully white and male.
Many of the complaints I saw use extremely stupid justifications for their hatred of this game. Short of giving them the space to respond to my responses to their bullshit, I thought I'd respond to their pathetic "critiques" here instead.
- THIS IS DISRESPECTFUL TO THE ARKHAM KNIGHT BATMAN!
Okay? So? Batman was infected by Brainiac and turned evil, just like all others in the Justice League except Wonder Woman. Brainiac's infection is incurable aside from a fatal shot to the brain, and the only way to stop Brainiac's destruction of multiple parallel-universe Earths is to kill the infected super-cops. It had to be done, and who better to do that than the villains these "heroes" traumatized with their vigilantism?
Even ignoring the anti-cop perspective, let's argue from the perspective of a bootlicker: The disrespect was the point. It's designed to make you hate the main antagonist of the game, Brainiac. If you love Batman and you watched one of the main characters of the game you're playing kill Batman, you'd also know it was a necessary action to save the universe. Would you kill Batman to save the world, or would you doom yourself and the rest of the planet to destruction because you like his branding too much? Do you actually want to save the world like a real superhero would, or are you the exact type of scumface Batman would polish his outsoles with?
- THIS IS JUST WRITTEN BY SUPERHERO HATERS!
Good. Superheros are just copaganda with capes, anyways. They all perform their own sense of justice as judge, jury and sometimes executioner. They go above the law and soar past red tape - the stuff that's supposed to keep cops from killing indiscriminately, in theory - and punish criminals whether they're low-hanging fruit or the underworld's top brass. Superheros are fucking boring. If I wanted to watch cops beat up bad guys, I'd just watch the Cops TV show instead. and trust me, i don't wanna watch any of that shit.
- THIS IS JUST EDGY FOR THE SAKE OF EDGE!
So was nu-metal, and grunge, and punk. And those genres of music all kicked ass, and continue to kick ass (except nu-metal, you can stay dead thank you). However, the edge is the point; TFX is chosen to save the world against their will because they have what it takes to complete the objective: kill superheros. You're killing fucking Superman for fuck's sake, of course it's going to be anti-establishment and rebellious. If you don't like the edge, maybe you lick too many boots.
- [INSERT MISOGYNY ABOUT HARLEY QUINN HERE]
...honestly i shouldn't have to say anything, but the number of comments I've seen disparaging Harley are just pathetic. It's giving "WHY WOMAN KILL MAN I'M OBSESSED WITH?!" which is like... not worth giving any serious thought.
- THIS IS JUST A LAME LIVE SERVICE GREEDFEST! NOW I REALLY DON'T WANNA PLAY IT IF IT KILLS [NAME OF SUPERHERO]
yup. it's why i didn't play it. but maybe stick to the live service critique, cuz the actual narrative here is pretty fun, and superheros are also pretty lame.
Spiderman's cool tho. I got one of those in my skull with me. he's chill.
- MORE SUPERHERO PARALLEL UNIVERSE BULLSHIT?! BE ORIGINAL!
Superhero comics have been doing this for literal decades at this point. Retcons, reboots, grimdark retellings, whathaveyou. This soil was already blackened by narrative fracking for a looooong ass time. If this is the first time you're making this critique, well... i guess you're just not a superhero fan, are you?
- [NAME OF SUPERHERO] SHOULD HAVE KILLED BRAINIAC, NOT BEEN BRAINWASHED BY HIM!
The Justice League was extremely hostile to Lex Luthor - the only man in each universe who truly understood Brainiac's plans, with the resources to put a stop to them. The League was never, ever going to collaborate with him, thus dooming them to their fates. Beyond this, they also needed to kill their infected colleagues. While some superheros who have tensions with others in the League may find it in themselves to kill their former allies, each hero had a compatriot; a hero they considered a close friend. Batman was never gonna be able to do what it takes to defeat Brainiac. But also, if Batman kills Brainiac then this isn't a fucking Suicide Squad game now, is it?
Overall, a lot of this "controversy" is just white cishet dudes getting mad about their favorite brands getting shot in the face. I've yet to see any legitimate criticism of the narrative. Let me offer my own:
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Why didn't the writers lean harder into the Squad's past trauma with the heroes? Play it straight, not like a joke; the 2021 movie gave Ratcatcher a really gut-wrenching finale that we'd only find so impactful if we knew her past experiences intimiately - which is prominently featured throughout the movie. Just, maybe up the ante on the emotions, and stop doing the typical Marvel one-liner throwaway shit.
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Make Waller worse. Make her more frustrating. She was already pretty damn frustrating as-is, but make her more so. Make her practically fucking evi- well, she did try to nuke the big skull in the sky which would have leveled Metropolis and poured nuclear fallout into the neighboring states, so actually never mind, you got me there.
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Boomerang was just a little bit too annoying. Give him a couple references to VB and bogan culture, maybe.
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King Shark was cute. no notes.
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Also, before i forget: fuck the live service shit. It sucks. It makes your game suck.
other than that, keep doin what you're doing. it's making all the little white boys pee their Batman boxers, and that's what I love to see: quivering little losers sniveling about their lame super-cop action figures.