I’m a little biased here. I love sharks. Ever since Jaws traumatized me at the tender age of 4 years old, they have fascinated and terrified me in equal measure.
So that goes without saying that the DC comics character of King Shark is a personal favorite. He hasn’t been around all that long — making his debut in the early 90s in the pages of Superboy, and his appearances since aren’t all that plentiful. But I adore the guy all the same. He’s a big walking, talking shark god. That’s really all I need to be endeared to him.
Despite his somewhat limited history, he’s been characterized in various ways. He’s ranged from mostly mindless beast to being highly intelligent.
With James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, we get the lovable monster trope. And it’s probably my favorite characterization yet because not only am I a sucker for sharks. I’m a sucker for the “ misunderstood monster” trope.
King Shark was brought to life with motion capture technology and truly stunning CGI. He was performed on set by Steve Agee and voiced by Sylvester Stallone. With very minimal dialogue and limited screentime, Gunn was able to craft a moving and understated character arc for King Shark amid all of the chaos surrounding him and happening to him. King Shark’s story is one of loneliness and wanting to belong. Yet the film never once tips its hand into overt sentimentality with the character.
In a film chock-a-block full of characters and incident, taking the time out to give dimension to the big CGI monster in your cast is to be praised. Then again, Gunn pulled this off to equally good effect with Groot in the Guardians of the Galaxy films.
What I admire most about King Shark, and by extension The Suicide Squad in general, is the bravery to lean into visual storytelling without settling for verbal exposition.
Task Force X mastermind Amanda Waller gives the characters, and by extension the audience a truncated history of King Shark (birth name Nanaue) and that’s it.
We first meet him in his cell, holding a book upside down as he pretends to read it.
“So smart, me,” he declares when Peacemaker calls him out for pretending to read.
While the team is debriefed on their mission, Nanaue raises his hand as if contribute only to say “hand” as if he’s making a valid point. He even nods to himself like he just offered something valuable to the conversation.
On the surface these are just a funny gags. But underneath it already established how Nanaue is his own being. He wants to fit in. He wants to be perceived differently than he is. He wants to matter. So while he may not be intelligent in the normative way we view intelligence, it’s obvious he’s a thinking, feeling creature.
To everyone on his team he’s the big shark monster. They mostly pay him no mind until he almost eats fellow teammate Ratcatcher 2 while she sleeps.
Nanaue isn’t malicious in his attempt to eat Ratcatcher. He’s still a shark and sharks get hungry. Team leader Bloodsport luckily saves Ratcatcher 2in time by shooting Nanaue a good half dozen times. As the rest of the team debates on whether to kill him so he doesn’t become a liability, Ratcatcher 2, the most empathetic person on the team, holds no grudge. She’s the one character who see’s inherent value in the life of every creature.
Ratcatcher: “Would you eat your friends?”
There is a beat after this question is asked and we see Nanaue mull it over.
Nanaue: “I no friends.”
I’m crying.
This little exchange isn’t Nanaue lamenting his lot in life. He’s not complaining or lashing out. He’s just honestly answering the questions he was asked.
Ratcatcher 2 extends her hand in friendship and Nanaue takes it. It’s from this moment on he seems to be a more active participant in the group. He pulls his weight by eating the bad guys when he needs to, but because he’s still a 7ft shark monster, he’s not exactly inconspicuous.
One of the funnier gags in the film see’s Nanaue wanting to help out for an upcoming part of the mission where the team needs to disguise themselves.
“I wear disguise!”
Ratcatcher 2 indulges him while the others balk.
He proposes wearing a fake mustache to blend in only to be told he would still look exactly like a big shark. Angered at not being taken seriously, he yells “fuck!” and storms off.
Again, just another funny gag on the face of it, and it is funny. But it’s also another character building moment that reinforces the fact Nanaue wants to make friends and be accepted. If wearing a fake mustache to blend in on their mission will help, he wants to do it.
Later on the team is in a van on their way to their next objective. We get a brief but beautifully understated scene of Nanaue looking with curiosity and wonder out of the van window at the streets outside. He see’s people mingling and a couple kissing. Again, no dialogue, just visuals. Nanaue is experiencing new things, seeing a part of the world he wasn’t privy to before. It interests him but he’s not a part of it.
A lesser film would have leaned on the crutch of everyone running in fear from the terrifying shark monster and rejecting him outright for being scary, thus creating resentment and angst in Nanaue. Gunn doesn’t go for that obvious a trope here. Sometimes you don’t realize you need a twist on a well-worn formula until you see it. This is a world of child-eating weasel men and dudes who have rainbow colored polka dots eating him alive from the inside out. A walking shark monster isn’t all that nuts and if King Shark was gonna fit in with anybody, it’s gonna be the Squad.
At this point in the film the team still pretty much ignores Nanaue. Everyone is in a bar having a great time and bonding while he is left in the van. We cut from the group having a blast to see him bobbing his head to the music, looking a bit forlorn.
These little asides the film takes to check in on him do so much in building sympathy and pathos for him. The aforementioned CGI work captures every little nuance of emotion. Sharks in the real world don’t have the most expressive faces, but somehow The Suicide Squad manages to inject King Shark with every emotion on the spectrum throughout the course of the film without him ever coming off as cartoony or not diluting his sharkiness.
The theme of the team just kind of ignoring Nanaue continues all the way up into the third act (although I do love the fact they apparently gave him a radio during the Harley rescue attempt scene, indicating they wanted him to feel included) as he is left to wonder the Jotunheim facility the team is tasked with blowing up.
After making Peacemaker a cute little doll made out of plastic explosives (“Peacemaker!”) and being scolded by the jerk for doing so, Nanaue is forgotten during the the scramble to complete the mission.
The third act cuts back and forth between two factions of the team doing their own thing and takes a time out to once again show us what King Shark is up to. He’s found an aquarium, which immediately captures his attention. Accompanied by a gorgeous bit of score by John Murphy, Nanaue meets a bunch of colorful and odd looking jellyfish-esque creatures with big, friendly eyes. Enraptured, the creatures begin playing with Nanaue from behind the glass.
“New dumb friends!” he exclaims as he runs and chases them with playful glee.
I’m crying again. He did it. He finally found some friends! He’s happy!
But no. Gunn has to rip my guts out a bit more.
As plot stuff happens and the building is now collapsing from the explosives, the aquarium bursts and fills the floor occupied by Bloodsport, Harley, Polka Dot Man, and Nanaue. His “new dumb friends” made it out alive, but aren’t as friendly as Nanaue thought. They quickly go about attacking him with razor sharp teeth we weren’t privy to before.
The betrayal! Why, Gunn, why!?
King Shark’s role in the final battle is brief. We get some good action beats with him before he’s taken out of commission by Starro (oh yeah a giant alien starfish is the big bad guy at the end) and Ratcatcher 2 ultimately saves the day.
The completion of Nanaue’s story is just as touching as his journey has been this whole time. After getting a big ol’ hug from Ratcatcher 2 (his look of surprise at the gesture is hilarious) when she see’s he’s alive, she falls asleep leaning against him on the helicopter ride home. Nanaue looks over at her and smiles, happy to have a friend.
And I’m crying for a third time.
We can’t analyze any of the character’s arcs in this film without also commenting on Ratcatcher 2. As I said before, she’s the emotional anchor of the entire cast of characters and her arc is what informs all the rest. The character gets her namesake from her brilliant inventor father who created a device that controls rats. The two lived in poverty with only themselves and the rats for safety and comfort. Despite being a loving father, he was an addict and it ended his life.
“Why rats, papa?”
“Rats are the lowliest and most despised of all creatures my love. If they have a purpose, so do we all.”
Without Ratcatcher 2 taking the time to care for these people who have their own issues and hang-ups and trauma, they would have failed the mission and they wouldn’t have built a sense of comradery.
Ratcatcher 2 doesn’t see a monster to be feared or despised or ignored in Nanaue, because she grew up with the value of seeing beyond the surface to the good in us all. Nanaue might be a little too eager to eat people from time to time, but at the end of the day he’s just another creature society has deemed lowly and thrown away. Yet only among other lowly creatures like himself did he find acceptance and belonging.
It’s been a hot minute since a huge blockbuster film has so thoroughly charmed me in the way The Suicide Squad has. King Shark and Ratcatcher 2 are the two biggest reasons for that.
