What Were The Sea Creatures That Attacked King Shark In The Suicide Squad?

There's an argument to be made that, in the end, maybe "The Suicide Squad" was a story about family — not the family you're born into, but the one that manages to dodge high-calibre gunfire and giant starfish legs long enough to walk away unsquished. Those are the people you can count on. Those are the people you don't have to squeegee off of your boots later.

And nobody, it seems, had a harder time finding their family than Nanaue, AKA King Shark, the enigmatic fish man with an insatiable appetite and a vocabulary just a hair more complex than "I am Groot." Throughout the film, Sharky is seen pining for connection, struggling to understand that friends are a sometimes food, and having the darndest time impressing would-be buds with his plastic explosive sculpting acumen. The final blow to his dignity comes in the tower of Jotunheim, when a moment of comradery shared between the gilled gourmand and a series of colorful jellyfish ends with Nanaue having the nom-nom tables turned on him. The hypercolor aquatic cuteness factories, loosed from their aquarium, immediately start chowing down on King Shark. What kind of creature has that sort of self confidence?

As it turns out, the kind that James Gunn made up.

In an interview with EW, "The Suicide Squad" director The James Gunn gave fans the inside skinny on the critters that went ham on King Shark's meaty bits. Not a dream, not a hoax, not an obscure pull from a 60-year-old comic book story, their something that was made up whole cloth for the movie.

"Oh, the Clyrax!" Gunn exclaimed when he was asked what the "cute murder sea daddies" were called. "Those are some sort of alien life that obviously they've picked up somewhere, that they've been keeping them alive in their aquarium."

Unfortunately, at the moment, that's all we have to go on when it comes to the origins of the Clyrax. Still, in a world in which Baby Yodas, Baby Groots, Porgs, Minions, pups named Scooby Doo, Baby Sonic the Hedgehogs, Baby Mister Peanuts, and generalized Kindchenschema keeps the economy afloat, it would be borderline ridiculous if we didn't see more of these adorable little flesh eaters in the near future.