Characters From Suicide Squad With More Meaning Than You Realized

Suicide Squad is loaded with characters and each of them got their own little piece of screentime, but ultimately the movie needed to focus on its main attractions. That that doesn't mean, however, that the characters who weren't front and center are unimportant. In fact, a lot of them hold more meaning in the world of DC Comics, and perhaps the DC Extended Universe, than the movie may have led you to believe. Who are these secretly important characters? Let's take a look.

He doesn't appear in Suicide Squad much, but Jonny Frost, the Joker's lead henchman, is a significant character from a comics storyline. In Brian Azzarello's one-shot graphic novel Joker, Frost picks up the Joker after he's released from Arkham Asylum and the two hit it off. (Odd, considering Joker generally doesn't like anyone outside of Harley Quinn and maybe Batman, and even those relationships are tainted by his insanity.) Frost acts as Joker's chauffeur while the clown Prince of crime attempts to quickly regain control of Gotham. Joker gets into a turf war with Harvey Dent, and Dent retaliates by taking Frost's wife hostage—and then things get really sick and twisted for everyone involved. We won't spoil the story for you here, but you can probably guess things don't end well for Jonny.

And you thought Joker and Harley Quinn were the only primary Batman villains in the movie. In the comics, Killer Croc is almost exclusively a Batman antagonist; over the last several decades, he's made repeated attempts to rule Gotham's underworld, only to run into repeated defeat at the hands of the Caped Crusader. In a single film, DC and Warner Bros. have set up a slew of Batman bad guys from the comics, and Croc's our pick for one of the first that's bound to show up in future Batman standalone movies.

Amanda Waller might look like she's just a tough-as-nails government agent hellbent on assembling a team of psychos to do her bidding, but she's really much more than that. In fact, Waller is one of the most important (and most villainous) characters in all of DC comics canon. Assembling super-teams of scumbags is kind of her thing, as she's done it multiple times, not just with the Suicide Squad. But her power and ability to get things done (albeit in the dirtiest way possible) has taken her places—including Lex Luthor's cabinet after he became President of the United States. Don't expect Suicide Squad to be the last time you see Amanda Waller in a DC movie. She's way too important (and Viola Davis plays her too well) for a single appearance.

David Harbour, the actor who plays Hopper in the Netflix hit Stranger Things, plays Dexter Tolliver in Suicide Squad. His character may seem minor, but he does play a significant role in Suicide Squad lore. In the comics, his name is actually Derek Tolliver, and he blackmails the Suicide Squad to ensure a corrupt Senator retains his seat. He threatens Amanda Waller, telling her he'll reveal the existence of Task Force X to the President of the United States, which would effectively shut down the program for good. Squad leader Rick Flag killed Tolliver before he could do any damage, but none of that has transpired on screen yet—and that's why he may be someone to watch out for if there's a Suicide Squad 2.