One villain featured in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad film had a far more tragic death in the comics than they experienced in the movie.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Suicide Squad, now in theaters and streaming on HBO Max.
The Suicide Squad has a massive line-up of characters comprising it’s titular team. But one member in particular may have been eliminated far too easily in the film. Mongal, the sister of Mongul, was a warrior with equal strength and prowess, yet her death in The Suicide Squad demeans her capabilities and character. But something similar occurred to her in comics when her brother struck her from behind, literally punching her head clean off her shoulders so he could claim the Mongul legacy for himself. Both deaths do an injustice to a character who could have been explored as a massive threat to Superman and the DCU, and by extension DCEU, at large.
In the movie, during an attempt to infiltrate the country of Corto Maltese, the Suicide Squad is ambushed by its military. During the conflict, Mongal leapt onto a helicopter that was raining fire down on them. The situation spiraled out of control when the helicopter lost balance with Mongal holding on. The chopper then crashed, triggering an explosion that killed several members of the Squad including Mongal, something that shouldn’t have been possible.
It was an extremely demeaning death for the character, and the manner in which she was killed made no sense for someone with her level of power. As the daughter of the original Mongul, Mongal has all the same powers and a similar dispassionate and ruthless personality. To die screaming is not true to her character, and an explosion from a helicopter should not have been able to kill her. If anything, Mongal should have been able to tear through a human army singlehandedly.
This dismissive death reflects her comic book death, where she was killed by her own brother. In Green Lantern #8 by Geoff Johns, Carlos Pacheco, and Jesus Merino, Mongul summoned his sister to Earth by using a collection of Black Mercies left by their father. He wanted to take up his father’s mantle, but before the two siblings could settle their differences, they were interrupted by Green Lantern and Green Arrow.
The two heroes managed to divert the Monguls’ attention before teleporting them back to their home world. Faced with a portrait of their father, Mongul claimed that family was a weakness…and that he would have no weakness. With this declaration, he struck Mongal from behind, the blow ripping her head off her shoulders before she had a chance to defend herself.
Both versions of her death were tragic and arguably a waste of her potential. Mongal could have been a major enemy for Superman as well as present an opportunity to explore a unique aspect of the Mongul Dynasty as an exploration of how the family lust for power could create such monsters. Sadly, it seems that she has yet to get the respect she deserves.
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