James Gunn Confirms THE SUICIDE SQUAD Is DCU Canon and Tells Fans to "Chill Out" About Timelines
James Gunn has confirmed that The Suicide Squad is officially part of the DCU canon, but making everything fit neatly into the new universe isn't exactly his biggest concern. In fact, the DC Studios co-CEO thinks fans might be getting a little too caught up in the details.
The 2021 film arrived years before Gunn took charge of DC Studios, so naturally, its place in the new DC Universe has raised some questions. One of the biggest involves Bloodsport shooting Superman with a Kryptonite bullet, an incident that seems to conflict with what we learn in Gunn's Superman.
During an episode of The Suicide Squad: Is It Canon? podcast, Steve Agee, who plays John Economos in Peacemaker, brought up a fan question about whether Bloodsport really did shoot Superman in the DCU.
Gunn acknowledged that there are a couple of continuity issues to work through: "There's a couple of things potentially that get in the way of being canon. One is time."
The timeline is a little tricky. Superman takes place in 2025, and the movie establishes that the Man of Steel has only been operating as a superhero for three years.
Meanwhile, The Suicide Squad was released in 2021 and presumably takes place around that time. If Bloodsport already put Superman in the hospital back then, the dates don't quite add up.
Gunn's solution is pretty simple. He could move the events of The Suicide Squad forward to 2023 or 2024, he said: "I don't think that's the biggest deal in the world.”
The other issue involves Superman's first defeat. In Superman, which Gunn describes as "most definitively canon," the hero suffers his first loss at the hands of Lex Luthor's Ultraman.
So how does that work if Bloodsport previously shot him with a Kryptonite bullet and sent him to the hospital According to Gunn, getting shot doesn't necessarily count as losing a fight.
"I don't necessarily think that flying around, not only perhaps taking your flying dog out for a walk or whatever he was doing and being taken down with a Kryptonite bullet and going to the hospital is a battle," explains Gunn. "It's not necessarily defeat. He was just shot."
That's actually a pretty reasonable distinction. Superman getting ambushed with a Kryptonite bullet isn't quite the same thing as being beaten in a superhero battle. Bloodsport managed to injure him, but that doesn't mean he defeated him in combat.
Of course, DC fans enjoy picking apart continuity, especially when a franchise is trying to establish an interconnected universe. Gunn seems to understand the curiosity, but he's also encouraging everyone to relax a bit.
"People are always asking me about timelines. I think we have to chill out a little with the timelines," stated the DC boss. "It's not possible to make things perfectly line up."
With characters and stories carrying over from the previous DC era, there are bound to be a few details that don't fit perfectly. Gunn obviously isn't interested in throwing out an entire movie just because a couple of dates need adjusting.
It also means fans can continue treating Bloodsport's encounter with Superman as part of DCU canon, even if the exact timing remains a little flexible.
For now, Gunn is moving ahead with his DC Universe, and the next big theatrical chapter will be Man of Tomorrow, which is scheduled to hit theaters on July 9, 2027.