James Gunn revealed that one of his earliest ideas for The Suicide Squad would have seen Task Force X pitted against Superman, which would have presumably been the Henry Cavill version had it happened. Instead, the closest we got to the Man of Steel was an expositional reference that revealed Idris Elba’s Bloodsport had put him in the hospital with a Kryptonite bullet.
Ben Affleck’s Batman managed to neutralize Kal-El using weaponry infused with his only weakness, so it’s a real feather in the cap of Robert DuBois that he managed to sent Superman to the ICU, when even the Dark Knight could only manage to beat him into a state of semi-submission before they instantly became best friends when they discovered that both of their moms were called Martha.
In a new interview, Elba admitted that he was proud of that moment in Bloodsport’s backstory, even if the actor also happens to be a fan of the Big Blue Boy Scout.
“Bloodsport is one of those characters that’s in the vault for DC. Basically, he’s famous for putting Superman in the hospital, and he’s in jail for it when you meet him in the movie. Call me sick, but I’m kind of proud of that. I love Superman by the way. But, trust me, anytime I can talk about that, I will. Look, this movie is a reinvention from Suicide Squad, which was a good movie also. But, this movie is James Gunn’s take on the new Suicide Squad. It’s quite fresh, it’s very risqué. Very adult, you know what I mean.”
Superman may have ultimately been killed in the DCEU before being resurrected from the dead in Justice League, but it took the monstrous Doomsday to put a stop to the all-powerful alien, whereas Bloodsport is just a very angry man who happens to be very good at his job. Sending such a famous figure to a state of near death with a single bullet would do wonders for anybody’s reputation, so it’s little wonder that Amanda Waller has to resort to blackmailing him with his daughter’s life to guarantee that he’ll report for duty.
Looking at how The Suicide Squad ended, we may not have seen the last of DuBois, even if it’s looking increasingly unlikely that we won’t see Cavill’s Superman out gunning for revenge.