Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leagueis set to pit the titular anti-hero team against Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.The title takes place inthe Arkhamverse, a connected universe that includes developer Rocksteady Studios’Batman: Arkhamseries. InSuicide Squad, Brainiac has taken control of the Justice League, corrupting and enlisting them in his efforts to take over the world. Batman is among those affected, with pre-release footage showing him as a major enemy. However, fans know that Batman always has a plan, often preparing a means of defeating an enemy long before they make the first move. Despite being a villain, Batman’s biggest contribution toSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leagueis already clear, and will likely be the key factor to Brainiac’s defeat.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguewas announced in August 2020, premiering its first trailer at DC FanDome. Originally slated for a May 2023 release date, after a quick initial delay, the title has been further postponed to 2024. The game was heavily featured in a PlayStation State of Play presentation, which proved surprisingly divisive for fans. Despite having no pay-to-win system, the appearance of something similar to a battle pass caused an uproar in a subset of the gaming community. The delay, however, was so the game could be further polished, meaning the battle pass will remain at release.
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Batman’s Justice League Contingency Plan
Suicide Squad’s Batman has a complicated history. The end ofBatman: Arkham Knightsaw the character fake his own death and destroy both Wayne Manor and the Batcave. However, Batman certainly still has backups to his most important files and plans. In comics, one of Batman’s most controversial creations is the Justice League contingency plan. Despite being a member of the League himself, Batman has accrued files and folders with detailed instructions for defeating each member of the Justice League.
Batman’s Justice League contingency plansextend to even himself, with the world’s greatest detective taking direct measures to ensure that he can be defeated if compromised. While Bruce originally listed the Justice League itself as his contingency, his true plan was revealed in 2022. An alternate personality of Bruce Wayne called Zur-En-Arrh, who was himself created to defend against psychological attacks, built a robot AI called Failsafe. Failsafe was built for the express purpose of incapacitating a rogue Batman. Following its completion, all memory of its existence was erased from Bruce’s mind, so that he would not know how to defeat it. Failsafe was recently unleashed in Batman issue #126, after Bruce was framed for the death of the Penguin.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguetakes place five years afterBatman: Arkham Knight. As such, the game will need to lay a firm groundwork for the events leading up to a fully-reinvigorated Batman’s corruption. One way the title could do this is by centering the Suicide Squad’s efforts around finding Batman’s new base of operations and securing the contingency files. By retracing his steps and discovering system caches, the team could unearth additional files that detail Batman’s mental state followingArkham Knight’s events.
In its most recent trailer,Kill the Justice Leaguerevealed that Wonder Woman will assist in defeating corrupted Justice League members. She uses the lasso of truth to force the Flash to reveal a means of ending Brainiac’s control of Earth’s heroes. To her horror, the Flash reveals to both Diana and the Suicide Squad that they will have to kill the Justice League. The Justice League contingency files are the obvious choice for accomplishing this task. Fans will need to wait until the game’s eventual release to see whether this plan, or any for that matter, can stop Brainiac’s successful conquering of the Earth.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguereleases on June 25, 2025, for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
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