WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Suicide Squad: King Shark #7, on sale now from DC Comics.
To compete in the Wild Games, King Shark has had to think outside of the box in order to keep ahead of the competition, or at the least listen to his friends. In his latest battle against the favored to win the tournament, King Roach, fellow Suicide Squad member Defacer convinced him to take drastic action to outsmart their wily foe, who is known to cheat during his fights. The play: having King Shark bite off his own arm and lacing it with spray paint, knowing it would poison King Roach. While this may appear to be a drastic action at first glance, King Shark did it with no hesitation, and by the end of the fight he had revealed not only his most brutal attack but also a very powerful ability within himself.
In Suicide Squad: King Shark #7 (by Tim Seeley, Scott Kolins, John Kalisz, Wes Abbott) both King Shark and Defacer ended up tumbling into King Roach's dimension, a literal dump where the cockroaches have thrived in the wake of other life dying off. But Defacer recognized that King Shark already had difficulty battling other champions on their home turf and King Roach always fought dirty. So to win this fight, they would have to come up with a smarter way to fight.
Fortunately for them, Defacer had also lived in something close to the dimension they were in right now. Her experience with cheap, roach-filled apartments taught her how best to kill them. But King Roach was smarter than the insects she exterminated herself, so they'd need bait. To that end, King Shark would have to sacrifice one of his arms to lure King Roach in for the kill.
Heeding his friend's advice, King Shark bit off his own arm, in a testament to not only his brutality but also his durability. Being a roach, his opponent seized the severed arm and bit into it almost immediately. When the duo revealed what they had done, King Roach mocked them for making such a huge sacrifice for nothing. However, Defacer had secretly spray painted the arm and the chemicals poisoned the roach, securing the victory for King Shark.
While the two waited for the portal to open, King Shark's arm began to grow back at an astonishing rate. Within a few seconds it was already the size of a toddlers arm. Even more impressive is that there was no time required to get used to the new limb. King Shark even seemed to be speaking to it in a familiar way, indicating that he had experienced this sort of thing before.
This new power appears to be one of the fastest healing factors in the DC Universe, possibly exceeding the powers of characters like Superman or the Flash, who recover quickly, but have never been known to have the ability to recover lost limbs.
It also isn't surprising that the tournament is bringing out the best in King Shark. His entire life has revolved around this moment, but until he actually started competing he was relying on the same tactic that he has always used, brute strength. Now, with the help of Defacer, he's thinking more strategically, tapped into a level of ferocity never seen before, and has even shown off a rapid healing factor that could be the difference between victory and defeat in this competition.