Film

King Shark Is The Hero That 2021 Needs

'The Suicide Squad' has introduced the world's best character: a big human shark with a dad-bod.

by Joseph Earp  29 March 2021
King Shark The Suicide Squad

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Over the weekend, the new trailer dropped for The Suicide Squad, James Gunn’s anarchic quasi-reboot of the doomed anti-hero team.

The trailer is packed with dick jokes, quips from Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), and an astonishing assortment of character actors — Pete Davidson! Idris Elba! David Dastmalchian! — tasked with a violent and anarchic mission. But out of all that colour and chaos, one figure loomed supreme: King Shark.

Voiced by Sylvester Stallone (yes, seriously), the character spends the trailer goofing around, speaking in short, Groot-like sentences, and rending human beings limb from limb. He is essentially the archetype of the Himbo, albeit one with a great deal more blood lust.

And wouldn’t you know it, in the hours since the trailer dropped, King Shark has become a hero, the subject of memes, fancams and more fan art than you could shake a pointy-teethed stick at.

Who Is King Shark?

King Shark has been an quasi-antagonist in the comic book world since the mid-‘90s, making his debut in the very first issue of Superboy. His origins are messy, and he’s been re-written about as many times as you can imagine, but his remit is simple: he’s a shark who walks on two legs, and he’s a God. What more could you need to know?

As with many of the characters in The Suicide Squad roster, King Shark’s morals are ever-changing. Though he was initially introduced as a thorn in Superboy’s side, later graduating to the foil of Mr. Fish himself, Aquaman, he was eventually coerced via explosive belt into doing reluctant good with the rest of the Squad.

So too have King Shark’s character traits evolved over time. Initially a near-mute who liked nothing more than turning his enemies into small piles of gore, after the extremely complicated events of Infinite Crisis, he turned into a more chatty, friendly figure, eventually being forced into taking Aquaman under his wing.

Where Have I Seen King Shark Before?

King Shark’s portrayal by Sly Stallone isn’t the first time that he’s been rendered on the screen: the character is a central figure in the TV series The Flash. His storyline in that show is very different, with King Shark beginning life as a marine biologist who gets into a Fly-style accident that turns him into a giant, uh, shark.

Again, King Shark is something of an enigmatic figure in that show, flipping in and out of the Flash’s radar as both antagonist and as helping hand. His arc ends with an act of heroism; the character permanently gives up his human form in order to help the Flash stop a talking and telepathic ape named Grodd (it’s complicated.)

How is Gunn’s Version Different?

The version of King Shark in The Suicide Squad differs from previous incarnations in a bunch of ways. For a start, in the comics, King Shark was a hammerhead. But on Twitter, Gunn clarified that having the character’s eyes on either side of his head made it very hard to tell what he was actually looking at. “You couldn’t really see him looking at the other person and the shots tended to be too wide,” Gunn explained.

Then there’s King Shark’s aforementioned… slowness. Rather than the talkative character that he became in the comics, the fish speaks only a few simple lines in the trailer, all captured with Stallone’s drawling voice. He’s essentially a friendly murdering machine who takes life as it comes. And how could you not love that?

Oh, then there’s his dad bod. Rather than the rippling wall of muscle that he resembles in the TV show, Gunn’s King Shark is a Hawaiian shorts wearing king.

Like I say: we stan a legend.