‘Suicide Squad’ Game Debuts Delightful Poison Ivy Scene for Gamers to Complain About

Suicide Squad Insider Episode 2 came out today, offering more details about Rocksteady Studios’ upcoming Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. SPOILERS AHEAD.

In the video, we learn that Batman villain / Arkham Trilogy alumna / Harley Quinn partner-in-crime Poison Ivy will have a very special role in the game, probably in the crafting area. We also learn that this iteration of Poison Ivy is, as Deadshot delightfully puts it, “an eco-terrorist middle-schooler.”

Previous versions of Ivy in the Arkham games are adult and dangerous and, well, kinda sexed-up. So, this mean-Miyazakian-teen take is decidedly different, and, I’d opine, cool.

Fans of Harley Quinn know about her romantic partnership with Poison Ivy throughout various media, perhaps most memorably in the Harley Quinn animated series; in the Arkham games, they didn’t have much of a specific relationship, whereas Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League apparently makes allusions to a past Quinn-Ivy romance. (By the end of Arkham Knight, adult Poison Ivy sort-of dies, or is sort-of consumed…? Anyway, she’s a magical plant person.)

*Harley and Ivy are a hilarious power couple in the* Harley Quinn animated series.

But what I want to talk about is leaks (and spoilers, somewhat), and the words that people say, or rather type, about leaks.

This official reveal of SSKtJL’s Poison Ivy seems a response, in part, to recent leaks about the Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League story details, deriving from the game’s recent closed Alpha test. Across the superhero game aisle, there were also very recent leaks of content from the Insomniac Games camp, regarding that studio’s Spider-Man 2 game and their upcoming Wolverine game. Previously, no one knew anything about this Wolverine game, so the leak is kind of a big deal for the X-Men/gamer fandoms.

*Up until a few days ago, the only images from Insomniac Games’* Wolverine came from their knives-out teaser trailer.

In both cases, discourse got weird. (When I say, “discourse,” I’m charitably describing “people posting words on social media platforms.”) Suffice to say: there was ransomware, there was a leak of Insomniac’s content, the leaked images and video clips got online, and then people started complaining about them. I won’t amplify the leaks by linking to them (if you’re search-savvy, you can probably find ’em) and I absolutely refuse to give oxygen to the complain-y discourse by reposting it. “This game looks like garbage,” yadda yadda, and a hundred un-clever variations on “This Thing Looks Bad, GAAAAAH.”

Let me ask this, certain people in the gaming community: When you go for a haircut and the hairstylist finishes one side of your head, do you tweet “this haircut looks terrible?” Do you look at a bag of flour and say, “you’re a terrible cookie?” And do you ever happen to watch behind-the-scenes clips of say, the Marvel films, when they’re on set wearing mo-cap suits in front of green screens, and remark with entitled incredulity, “this movie looks terrible!” Do you? Because that’s what it sounds like you do.

Wolverine and SSKtJL are both games in the process of development. The game/film/haircut is a work-in-progress. Everything looks janky while it’s being made, including art, including cute babies. Negative comments on a work-in-progress are literally meaningless. There is this whole concept called “constructive criticism,” but maybe we’re too far gone in the social-media scream-o-sphere to attempt that.

I’m not even talking about the leaking scandal itself, that’s beyond my pay grade; I’m talking about fandom’s response to leaks. One could be grateful. One could be appreciative of a leak, as in, “I’m excited to know this is being worked on!” When we anticipate an upcoming movie or game or new content drop, we are psychically aligned with the artists who are in the process of making it, who are also anticipating its completion. “I can’t wait!” is a hyperbolic phrase — you can wait. You wait for the craftspeople to complete their work.

Anyways, back to SSKtJL, and Poison Ivy. I’ve already offered an optimistic listicle about the Suicide Squad game. Leaks are a drag for the company involved, but as fans, we could choose to offset the drag by adopting a posture of gratitude. For example, I’ll resist the urge to close this screed by observing that Marvel Comics’ Boomerang still has a way cooler costume than Suicide Squad’s Captain Boomerang. Oh, wait.