Oli Davis thinks he’s figured out who Suicide Squad’s main villain will be…

Warner Brothers have now released three full length trailers for this August’s Suicide Squad, yet – because the teasers have focused on conveying a general sense of theme over any significant story elements – we’re still none the wiser on who or what the movie’s chief antagonist is.

Reports have proclaimed it will be everything from The Joker in full Hannibal-Lector-prison-consultant mode to Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor running a superhuman trafficking scheme. Even smaller names have been rumoured, like classic Suicide Squad foe Antiphon and his terrorist cell Onslaught…who I had to Google because I’ve never heard of them.

But the more and more I watch the three Suicide Squad trailers, the more I come to believe Enchantress – played by Cara Delevingne, who has the very real world superpower of ‘amazing eyebrows’ – is the big evil that Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang and Co. must battle in the final act. But first, let’s start at the beginning.

ENCHANTRESS’ ORIGIN

The wickedly devious Enchantress doesn’t start off as Enchantress. She starts off as regular lady person June Moon. In the comics, she’s a photographer, who’s invited to a costume party at an old castle. There, she stumbles upon a secret chamber where a magical being bestows on her the power of The Enchantress – changing her into a black haired, very powerful sorceress – to defeat a minotaur from a tapestry. Because this was written in the 60s and on acid.

We do see pre-Enchantress June Moon in the trailers. She hangs out in a hoodie. She’s romantically involved with ARGUS agent and government-installed commander of the Suicide Squad Rick Flagg. And she also goes into a deep, dark cave. Which is kind of like a secret chamber where a magical being could bestow on her the power of The Enchantress.

So that’s Enchantress’ origin story. It seems inconsequential for now, but it’s going to provide quite a big part of our argument later.

NO ENCHANTRESS IN DA SKWAD

The odd thing about Enchantress in the first three Suicide Squad trailers – besides the way the special effects artists confused mystical with smelly – is that she shares not a single scene with any of the Suicide Squad team. There’s no shots with Deadshot, no shots with Captain Boomerang. She’s not in any of the ‘shizzle just got real’ team shots. Even Katana’s in the ‘shizzle just got real’ team shots, and I’m not sure she’s even part of the Suicide Squad.

Instead of hanging out with the crew of bad guys turned kinda good guys, we see her having a floor bath underneath a pentagram (presumably during the early Enchantress transition stages, where June Moon is still putting up a fight), full on Enchantress telling you to “shhh” and standing by a mirror, and – most interestingly – telling a man in a suit, “let’s do something fun.” Not because of what she says or does, but because the screen behind her in that shot has the White House emblem on. And there’s nothing DC villains like to do more than go after the president. Kneel before Enchantress!

INCUBUS AND THE MONSTERS

This ties into a ‘hot rumour’ Heroic Hollywood reported on back in September – that the Suicide Squad’s final act mission is to take down the Enchantress when she tries to resurrect her dead brother to destroy the world. Unfortunately, they’re also the site who have reported practically every other DC character as the main villain at one time or another. Remember Antiphon? No. Nobody does.

But the trailer supports this in the blink and you’ll miss it shot of a strange metallic armoured looking person – who we’ll call Metal Groot for now – destroying a train.

About a month before the second Suicide Squad trailer was released, Heroic Hollywood got something definitively right – an exact shot by shot breakdown of the teaser that was proved completely true. In this, they describe Metal Groot as follows:

“Incubus destroys subway train (he is a character that Enchantress creates, and is completely CG)”

So, according to Heroic Hollywood at least, Metal Groot is actually a character called Incubus. In DC mythology, the evil Enchantress is eventually revealed as a being called the Succubus – an old name for a female demon that seduces men through sexual activity, most recently manifest in Miley Cyrus. Succubus’ brother is called Incubus.

Looking at other shots in the trailer, you can see how this Incubus attack has caused destruction in the city. The first wide shot of the Suicide Squad’s soldier support tracking through the streets shows what looks like a subway carriage burst through the ground to their right. Later on, the Squad carefully track through the Incubus destroyed subway station, covered in the entity’s trademark black spikey goo. The same black spikey goo that has ripped through a truck in another shot.

What else is black and weirdly shaped? No, not Will Smith looking like Uncle Phil. The scores of monsters that attack the Squad in the city. It isn’t a big jump to say these monsters are creations of Enchantress and Incubus.

And then, later on, when the team step up to face what looks like the final fight, there is a black and green cloud of energy with a crowd of monsters dancing around it. And you know who shares that same black and green colour scheme? Enchantress.

ROMANCE AND CONCLUSION

Yes, the reasons got increasingly tenuous as we went on there, but if that wasn’t enough, how about the simple mechanics of story telling.

Remember Enchantress’ origin story, back when she was June Moon and conoodling with Rick Flagg? Well, before Joel Kinnaman was cast in the Suicide Squad leader role, and before The Revenant massively overran in production and sent everyone mad, the character was to be played by Tom Hardy – a much bigger name befitting of a far more substantial role; a role like the woman he loves turns into the final act villain he must kill to save the world.

So there you have it, the reasons why, based on Suicide Squad’s first three trailers, that the Enchantress will be the film’s big final act villain. What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

And if you prefer your articles in video form and accompanied by YouTube’s copyright-free classical music library, enjoy the below…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUGnM460Waw

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Suicide Squad hits theaters on August 5th 2016 and sees David Ayer (Fury) directing a cast that includes Will Smith (Focus) as Deadshot, Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club) as The Joker, Margot Robbie (The Wolf of Wall Street) as Harley Quinn, Jai Courtney (Terminator Genisys) as Captain Boomerang, Joel Kinnaman (RoboCop) as Rick Flagg, Viola Davis (The Help) as Amanda Waller, Cara Delevingne (Paper Towns) as Enchantress, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Thor: The Dark World) as Killer Croc, Ray Olubowale (Resident Evil: Afterlife) as King Shark, Jay Hernandez (Hostel) as El Diablo, Adam Beach (Flags of Our Fathers) as Slipknot, Jim Parrack (Fury) as Johnny Frost, Ben Affleck (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice) as Batman, newcomer Karen Fukuhara as Katana, and Common (Selma), Ike Barinholtz (The Mindy Project) and Scott Eastwood (The Longest Ride) in as-yet-unconfirmed roles.

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