James Gunn’s 'Suicide Squad 2' line-up features gender-switched villain

The journey to Suicide Squad 2 has already been pretty confusing. First, it was going to be a direct sequel, then James Gunn came onboard and it transformed into a full reboot with none of the original characters. Then Idris Elba was announced as a replacement Deadshot for a ‘schedule conflicted’ Will Smith, and we didn’t know what to think.

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Now, script details have been revealed to Collider and the line-up of Suicide Squad 2 is bonkers, and not just because it contains one of the strangest gender-switched characters ever.

Your new squad will include King Shark, Peacemaker and Polka-Dot Man, but we’ll get to those. We’re interested in Ratcatcher right now.

You see, according to reports, the last new name on the line-up – Ratcatcher – will be a gender-flipped version of the DC Comics villain.

Originally, Ratcatcher was Otis Flannegan, a man who lives in a sewer who controls rats. Yes, rats. Introduced as a twisted take on the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who is able to command an army of rats with a whistle and… Well, it’s never explained, but he seems to have a mutant-power style connection with vermin.

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Created in the ‘90s, during a period in Batman and Detective Comics where writer Alan Grant appeared to be inventing as many new villains as possible, Ratcatcher isn’t the first baddie we’d think of when gender-switching (we’d be more interested in seeing a woman take on one of the top tier villains, like Two-Face, The Riddler or even Joker), but we do trust James Gunn.

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And the line-up would be a bit dude-heavy if it wasn’t for the gender-switch, with King Shark a giant man-shark who’s apparently the son of a Shark God (shut up, they exist!), Peacemaker a deadly vigilante who’s the shamed son of a Nazi, who believes that the ghosts of everyone he’s killed live in his helmet and offer him advice, and Polka-Dot Man a man who *checks notes* uses polka-dots as a weapon. Sure, why not?

The script is still being developed, so could change at any time. We’re also getting a Suicide Squad spin-off, following Harley Quinn, before the sequel lands, so that could change everything again.

But this mix of heroes with daddy issues, ridiculous characters that shouldn’t work, and a strong female ratcatcher sounds VERY James Gunn.