SPOILER WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for "Suicide Squad," in theaters now.
Warner Bros.' "Suicide Squad" has already been the subject of rampant debate in its first few days in theaters. Whether you liked it or you hated it, two things are clear: 1) Despite mostly negative reviews, the film's opening still broke the August box-office record with a $135.1 million weekend, and 2) It plays a major role in shaping the still-young DC Films franchise going forward.
DC's shared movie universe began in 2013 with "Man of Steel," and continued earlier this year with "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice." While those two films featured some of the biggest superhero icons -- Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman -- David Ayer's "Suicide Squad" explores considerably less-mainstream characters on the DC roster, including Deadshot (Will Smith), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and El Diablo (Jay Hernandez) along with introducing a new -- and rather polarizing -- Joker, played by Jared Leto. Given the central concept of the film -- Waller gathering Task Force X, a team of disparate super-powered criminals acting on behalf of the government in exchange for reduced sentences -- viewers get to see new territory of DC's big-screen world.
Whether "Suicide Squad" goes down in history as a commercially successful misstep or an underappreciated fan favorite remains to be seen, but it already has relevance in how its helped to shape the DC Films universe, along with some significant surprises within the movie itself. The film leaves comic book movie fans with plenty to consider -- and here are the 10 biggest revelations from "Suicide Squad."
GOTHAM CITY IS IN NEW JERSEY?
Where DC Comics' many fictional cities -- Gotham City, Metropolis, Central City, etc. -- are located is rarely specifically established. After all, once you tie a fictional city to a real state, it permanently links a fantastical setting to a real-world environment, and can potentially limit the types of stories you tell. For the most part, these DC Universe cities could conceivably be in various spots on a map, which gives creators plenty of flexibility.
"Suicide Squad" reveals, through multiple shots of dossier files introducing characters like Deadshot, that the Gotham City of DC Films is in New Jersey, meaning that Bruce Wayne's governor is Chris Christie and that he probably owns at least one Bruce Springsteen album. This is far from the first time Gotham and New Jersey have been linked -- multiple comic books over the years have also placed Gotham City in the Garden State, although it's usually ultimately still open to creative interpretation.
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