Deadshot Costume Does Not Miss

Left Photo by mcpotatoecun/CC BY-ND, Right Photo: Warner Bros
By Shrey Sankalp

I don’t need to reiterate how buzzed about Suicide Squad is (and yet I just did), and one of the reasons for that, is the stellar star cast, especially Will Smith.

While every cast member is a huge celebrity with a string of awards and acclaimed films behind them, none of them is a bona fide star like Will Smith is, so when you hear it is he that is going to don the iconic Deadshot costume (well, his costume is the eyepiece and the sleeve guns primarily, but you get the idea), it’s hard not to get excited. 

Unlike the Joker, Harley or even Enchantress costumes, there’s nothing overly controversial about the Deadshot costume. There’s one very small niggle, but that’s what it is – a niggle.

Still, as someone who loves to nitpick everything from the characters themselves to their costumes and hold everything to an unreasonably high standard of comic book accuracy, I must point it out.

But we’ll get to that in a minute.

Photo: Warner Bros.

I understand most viewers aren’t overly familiar with characters like Deadshot, so I’ll give you a brief lowdown on him. He’s a man named Floyd Lawton, an expert marksman who could blow the tip off of a needle from miles out, and while he was a villain initially, he’s been more of an antihero lately. Aside from these two traits, he’s been known to have a ‘death wish’ and has rather amusing reactions to making it alive in comics. He’s been a mainstay in the Suicide Squad for the past few years, so his presence is most definitely welcome here.

This isn’t the first time Deadshot is appearing in a live action adaptation, he first made his appearance in Arrow and he was well received. He didn’t ever wear his traditional costume (or even parts of his costume) but had a captivating screen presence before he was killed off.

As for Suicide Squad, I would say Deadshot is more or less wearing his traditional costume because characters like Deadshot don’t have a fixed costume the way heroes like Batman do.

There’s usually a color scheme (maroonish red in Deadshot’s case) and that color scheme extends to any kind of armor the character might be wearing in the adaptation and that’s the costume.

The film seems to be taking a similar approach as well, with the costume retaining the usual color scheme, but being a practical and believable armor here.

Deadshot used to have a mustache to go with his costume, but that has been ditched lately, so Will Smith having a goatee is not a necessity, but fans are glad he does.

Now coming to the niggle I mentioned.

Every Deadshot costume has retained two things – the sleeve guns and the eye-piece, except the eye-piece is a part of the helmet Deadshot wears along with his costume.

The version of costume in Suicide Squad keeps the sleeve guns, and he most definitely had the mask on in the firs promotional still from the film and a couple of shots in the first trailer, but now that mask has gone suspiciously missing.

Deadshot is still seen wearing the eye-piece in some scenes, but it’s without the helmet, and while it’s not a huge departure from the traditional costume like say, Joker’s, it’s still odd.

It's like the studio asked Will Smith to keep the mask on in the film, and (to borrow a line from the Suicide Squad trailer), he said, “Y’all jokers must be crazy!” and walked away.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Will Smith is a good-looking and charismatic actor, but was his face being visible all the time more important than maintaining comic accuracy?

I don’t know, it’s like I said, costumes are a tricky business.

Still, Will Smith seems great as Deadshot so far, and his departure from costume isn’t make-or-break severe, so I think we should be fine.

Either way, we’ll find out August 5th.