Corto Maltese: The Suicide Squad Setting's DC Legacy

Today brought the exciting revelation from Warner Bros. of the full plot synopsis for James Gunn’s highly-anticipated DC Extended Universe standalone sequel The Suicide Squad. While it offered a little more in the way of the titular team’s mission, it also confirmed the story’s location as Corto Maltese, an island with a legacy in the larger world of DC.

The official new synopsis of The Suicide Squad reads as follows:

Welcome to hell—a.k.a. Belle Reve, the prison with the highest mortality rate in the US of A. Where the worst Super-Villains are kept and where they will do anything to get out—even join the super-secret, super-shady Task Force X. Today’s do-or-die assignment? Assemble a collection of cons, including Bloodsport, Peacemaker, Captain Boomerang, Ratcatcher 2, Savant, King Shark, Blackguard, Javelin and everyone’s favorite psycho, Harley Quinn. Then arm them heavily and drop them (literally) on the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese. Trekking through a jungle teeming with militant adversaries and guerrilla forces at every turn, the Squad is on a search-and-destroy mission with only Colonel Rick Flag on the ground to make them behave…and Amanda Waller’s government techies in their ears, tracking their every movement. And as always, one wrong move and they’re dead (whether at the hands of their opponents, a teammate, or Waller herself). If anyone’s laying down bets, the smart money is against them—all of them.

Created by Frank Miller, the island was first introduced into the world of DC with Batman: The Dark Knight Returns No. 3 “Hunt the Dark Knight” and is a small Latin American country with a government backed by the United States. However, with tensions between the US and the Soviet Union reaching a head, the latter decides to back a rebel uprising in the country and delivered a Coldbringer Missile to launch towards American soil, creating a scenario akin to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The US sends Superman in to secretly prevent the attack from happening, but he is only able to divert the launched missile towards an empty desert and is nearly killed by the blast while the warhead successfully disables all electronics and communications in the Western Hemisphere and sends endless debris and dust into the air that deprives Superman of his powers and sends the country, namely Gotham, into an absolute frenzy. Batman’s hometown would eventually become the safest place in the country thanks to his, The Mutants, Robin and Sons of Batman efforts.

Click here to purchase Frank Miller’s classic Batman: The Dark Knight Returns as well as the original Suicide Squad film and Tim Burton’s Batman!

After its appearance in the Elseworlds storyline and references in both canonical and non-canonical DC sources, Corto Maltese (named after the titular character of Hugo Pratt’s fantasy adventure comic book series) would make its big screen debut with Tim Burton’s first Michael Keaton-led Batman (1989) as Kim Basinger’s Vicki Vale is said to have covered a local rebel uprising and had her photos selected for use in TIME Magazine’s coverage of the situation.

The country would later expand to the small screen with the Season 6 episode of The CW’s Smallville, in which Oliver Queen and his team of heroes including Aquaman, Cyborg and Impulse enlist Clark Kent to help break up one of Lex Luthor’s operations targeting superhumans, located on the island. It would later be revisited in the network’s Arrow, with a reference made in the opening season to Deadshot working on the island. Another reference was the Season 3 episode titled specifically after the country seeing Oliver travel to the country to assist A.R.G.U.S. on a mission and bring his sister home after she leaves town from learning of his involvement with the Green Arrow, unaware of the reality he is the vigilante.

With Henry Cavill’s future in the DCEU currently up in the air and Ben Affleck’s time as Batman likely coming to a close after the forthcoming The Flash, chances are rock bottom that Gunn’s team-up movie will set up the franchise’s adaptation of Miller’s celebrated miniseries. However, with Cavill’s desire to don Man of Steel’s cape and being unable to make his cameo in David F. Sandberg’s Shazam! one need not entirely rule it out.

The Suicide Squad cast includes: John Cena, Jai Courtney, Joaquín Cosío, Joel Kinnaman, Maylin Ng, Flula Borg, Juan Deigo Botto, Storm Reid, Pete Davidson, Taika Waititi, Alice Brage, Tinashe Kajese, Daniela Melchior, Peter Capaldi, Julio Ruiz, Jennifer Holland, Viola Davis, Idris Elba, and Margot Robbie.

As we already know, Davis, Robbie, Courtney, and Kinnaman will all play the same roles they had in the 2016 film, reprising as Amanda Waller, Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, and Rick Flag, respectively. Michael Rooker will play Savant, Flula Borg will play Javelin, David Dastmalchian will play Polka Dot Man, Daniela Melchior will play Ratcatcher 2, Idris Elba will play Bloodsport, Mayling NG will play Mongal, Peter Capaldi will play Thinker, Alice Braga will play Solsoria, Pete Davidson will play Blackguard, Natha Fillion will play TDK, Sean Gunn will play Weasel, John Cena will play Peace Maker and Steve Agee will play King Shark.

The Suicide Squad is written and directed by Gunn with Charles Roven and Peter Safran serving as producers and Nik Korda executive producing the movie, which will hit theaters and