Why People Are Mad About Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s Green Lanterns

Between its live service aspects and a belief that it’s disrespecting Batman actor Kevin Conroy, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has ruffled a lot of feathers online. But that’s not all. Here’s the spoiler-heavy reason why people are mad about Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s Green Lanterns.

Why People Are Mad About the Green Lanterns in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

Players and non-players alike have been grumbling about how the unpowered Suicide Squad manage to dispatch the Justice League, despite that plot point being in the game’s title. Here’s precisely who dies in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, but in the case of Green Lantern the complaint isn’t just that he’s a casualty: it’s that Brainiac is able to control him at all.

Why? It all has to do with the Green Lantern Corps. DC Comics has rebooted and rewritten its continuity over and over again, but one consistency in the comics and other DC-approved media is that Green Lantern rings are incredibly powerful. As one Reddit commentator put it, “The ring straight up should’ve protected him from being controlled.”

But more than that, while the rings are generally considered the most powerful weapon in the DC universe, they are by default blocked from killing. The rings are also semi-sentient, choosing those they think worthy of being a Green Lantern.

So, in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Green Lantern John Stewart still has his ring despite having been compromised by Brainiac. And the Guardians, who make the rings, have yet to take any kind of action.

Why Are People Mad About King Shark Using Green Lantern’s Ring?

But that’s not all. Some fans have been shocked that King Shark is able to just pick up the deceased John Stewart’s ring (which would normally fly off after the death of its user) and use it to fight Brainiac. Like Thor’s hammer, Green Lanterns have to be worthy. As a supervillain, King Shark almost certainly isn’t. The rest of the Squad succeed in yanking the ring off Shark’s pinky finger, but he’s able to wield the power, even if he’s inches away from killing his teammates.

In short, both situations bend or break some of the rules established for the Green Lanterns and their rings. So, what’s going on? The simplest explanation is that the Arkhamverse’s Green Lantern rings work differently than those in other DC universe continuities — that they’re weapons and nothing else.

Or, alternatively, Brainiac managed to hack the rings to remove whatever safeguards were in place. “The lantern rings do not permit lethal force unless authorized by the guardians, it’s plot hole #35433”, adds another Redditor. But, as a superintelligent android/cyborg, it’s not a stretch to imagine that Brainiac could jailbreak a Power Ring.

Another theory from Reddit is that Brainiac’s brainwashing somehow convinces the League that they’re on the side of good and that what they’re doing is a necessary evil. But they take a little too much pleasure in their activities for that to stick.

Some Redditors just want to believe that the Justice League you fight in the game are clones, but if that turns out to be the case, Rocksteady will never live it down. A far more interesting approach would be restoring them to life while having them live with their actions.

That’s why people are mad about Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s Green Lanterns, both John Stewart and King Shark’s brief tenure as a Lantern.