Suicide Squad’s King Shark: His Powers, Origin, and Sex Appeal, Explained

By James Gunn Suicide squad features a grinning DC Comics villain whose presence dominates the company’s adaptations across all entertainment media – movies, video games, live action, and animated television. He’s in the Arrowverse, he’s in the Harley Quinn cartoon, he’s in Rocksteady’s next Suicide Squad game.

It’s not the Joker: it’s King freakin ‘Shark.

The DC Universe just … has a shark man in it? is that allowed? And why is he in so many DC Comics adaptations? How did you tie into all these disparate projects of wildly different continuities, tones, and main characters?

Once you know the secret of King Shark, its appeal becomes obvious. One is a shark. And two, that’s the only thing you really need to know about him. In reality.

King Shark is a shark man who needs no introduction

Image: DC Comics

It is a universally recognized truth that every comic book villain has an origin story. Maybe it’s full of pathos, like how Killer Croc has a soft spot for the homeless because he was mistreated based on his looks, or how Man-Bat is always searching for a cure for his tragic condition. Maybe he’s a weird but strangely enduring Flash villain like Gorilla Grodd, who hails from a secret African city of sentient gorillas called Gorilla City. But what you need to understand is this: in a genre known for its convoluted continuity, gritty reboots, and decades of history …

There is no explanation for King Shark.

King Shark is just a big, dumb and hungry shark.

It’s just A damned Street shark that exists in the DC Universe without any firm reasoning behind it. When it was given its first full appearance in 1994 Super Boy # 9, Karl Kesel and Humberto Ramos made He set it up with a vague origin story about perhaps being the son of the King of All Sharks and a human woman, virtually no comic has ever wanted to mention again.

King Shark himself doesn’t care why it is what it is, because what it is is a shark. That is a level of self-confidence that we should all be lucky enough to achieve.

Embrace the ineffable mysteries of life, and also, this shark man

It’s that mix of an inexplicable concept with nothing to back it up that has kept King Shark in DC continuity while other unique characters are forgotten. King Shark was not left out of the New 52 reboot – he debuted in his first month as a member of the Suicide Squad. However, if you’re a comic book reader who likes the guy, it’s probably because you read Gail Simone’s book. Secret six, in which a clear personality shines through in his handful of appearances.

King Shark can regenerate entire limbs, but it doesn’t like it if you call its growing little chicken wing a new “dainty” appendage. King Shark thinks all meat is delicious and likes to fight and kill things made of meat and eat them. King Shark wants everyone to know he’s a shark and he loves being a shark. In one story arc, it is established that the most effective torment hell could prepare for him would be to trap him in a vegetarian restaurant for all eternity.

King Shark is a pure distillation of superhero joy

Image: Gail Simone, Jim Calafiore / DC Comics

The superhero genre asks its readers for a certain amount of suspension of faith, with the promise that the reader will be rewarded, with characters and stories that are only possible due to their own willingness to embrace the fantastic. As the genres go, you are not alone in this.

But King Shark takes that deal to its most escapist extreme. After all, even Stray sharks, a cartoon based on a toy line about four anthropomorphic male sharks named Jab, Streex, Ripster and – I can’t stress this enough – Slammu, he devised a backstory for his characters. King Shark has appeared several times since its introduction, in Secret six, in Suicide squad and even in a brief stint as Aquaman’s sidekick. But he’s never been given a backstory that sticks.

Because if you’re a person who’s interested in putting a goofy giant shark in your story as a recurring character, you already understand that there is no way to cool that idea with an explanation for him. A giant and silly shark is already inexplicable.

“Hug this shark man,” the story goes. “He will never make you cry, and the fact that he is a shark will not enter any meta-narrative. But if you but hug this shark man, I promise we will have a little fun together. “

Reader, if you can believe that a man can fly, you can believe that a man can be a shark.

And King Shark is a shark.