In the comics, only 3 of them originated as Batman villains - Harley Quinn, Deadshot, and Killer Croc. Croc’s still mainly a bat-villain, Deadshot’s mostly been a Suicide Squad or Secret Six member for the past 20 years, and Harley…is an entity unto herself.
Captain Boomerang started as a Flash villain, but, like Deadshot, is mostly associated with the Suicide Squad now. Slipknot is a Firestorm villain, who quickly dropped to the Z-list.
El Diablo is traditionally a hero. This one’s…not so much.
I think there’ve been 3 or 4 Suicide Squad comics, so far (the current one is called New Suicide Squad).
The basic premise of the Suicide Squad is that Task Force X (a government group, led by Amanda Waller, the woman talking to the army guy (probably Rick Flagg) in the trailer) will recruit villains for the sort of missions they don’t want to be connected with - the villains give them deniability as Waller says in the trailer. Depending on which incarnation of the team, either they’re offered a clearing of their record, or they’re pressganged into it. Either way, they’re outfitted with an explosive device to keep them from going off-script - it’s rare for a Squad mission to be completed without at least one recruit getting his head blown off.
The makeup of the squad is ever changing as the villains die (either during the course of the mission, or by crossing Waller…or in at least one case, by pissing off another member of the team), or finish their tenure and walk away, but there’s a few regulars - Harley (in both of the recent incarnations), Deadshot, and Boomerang (both of them in almost every version of the team). The deeper your knowledge of DC villains needs to be to recognize a character in the Squad, the less likely they are to survive.
Very basic information on the characters used (their comic incarnations as I have no idea on the movie versions) -
Harley used to be Joker’s abused girlfriend. She’s a trained - and quite good - psychologist, but also quite out of her mind, herself…fun loving, but with a rather disturbing definition of fun. No longer on friendly terms with ‘Mistah J’.
Deadshot is an expert sniper with a death wish. One of the few things that keeps him going is his daughter. One of Waller’s go-to guys when she forms a new Squad.
Killer Croc…is complicated, so let’s stick to ‘big, strong, tough, and ugly’. May be dumb, or may be on the bright side of average. He’s all over the place on that note.
Captain Boomerang is a drunken, womanizing Australian with a bad attitude and a penchant for killing people with boomerangs. (What a shocker, eh?)
Slipknot…strangles people…like I said…pretty Z-list.
El Diablo is…probably a gangbanger recruited into the Squad after getting arrested for (attempted) murder. He may also be a former gang-banger possessed by a vengeful spirit with pyrokinetic powers. Depends which version of Chato they’re basing him more closely on.
