Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie)
In her source material, Dr. Harleen Quinzel, M.D is a former Arkham Asylum psychiatrist, who falls desperately in love with The Joker while treating him. She is driven to psychosis and supervillainy by Batman’s relentless pursuit of the man she loves, and becomes side-kick and lover to The Joker for a time – calling herself Harley Quinn. She is eventually incarcerated because a disagreement with The Joker causes her to go on a homicidal rampage, and it is through this imprisonment that Harley Quinn is co-opted into Amanda Waller’s Suicide Squad.
The positioning of Harley Quinn as a lead character in Suicide Squad marks the first appearance in live-action cinema for this fan favourite – having begun her Batman canon involvement after being created specifically for Batman: The Animated Series. She became so popular so quickly that she was added to the DC stable of comic book characters, and developed into a fully realized supervillain in her own right.
Not only is Harley Quinn the first female supervillain to lead a DC movie, but she’s also the first supervillain in that universe to secure her own movie, which is being added to the DCEU roster. With Margot Robbie on board as producer, the film is set to include a number of other female villains and heroes.
And that’s quite apart from any sequel to Suicide Squad that DC and Warner Bros might seek to develop after the supervillain team burst into theatres on August 5th, 2016.
