James Gunn's interviews about the upcoming Suicide Squad film, as well as some of the castings for the film, suggest that one fairly obscure Suicide Squad one-shot might have an oversized influence upon the movie.

Knowledge Waits is a feature where I just share some bit of comic book history that interests me.

James Gunn has been quite vocal about the influence of John Ostrander's run on Suicide Squad in the making of his new film adaptation of the DC classic series about supervillains being forced to go on dangerous missions for the government. In an interview with Den of Geek, Gunn noted, “It wasn’t something to contrast the first movie. It wasn’t about going through a checklist of this is good, this is bad, this works, this doesn’t… but the concept that John Ostrander started with in the comics, that these are B-grade, shitty superheroes who are considered disposable by the U.S. government and are sent out on these black-ops missions, where they probably won’t make it but who gives a shit because they’re pieces-of-shit prisoners without many skills?”

That's obviously a fair description of Ostrander's Suicide Squad setup, but what's interesting is that, for the most part, Ostrander's Suicide Squad was relatively NOT that bloody, in terms of casualties, which appears to be different from both this upcoming film and the previous Suicide Squad film. For instance, when he introduced the characters in the crossover, Legends, Ostrander made sure to have one of the members of the team (Blockbuster) die, as a sort of "proof of concept" death. Similarly, when the Squad debuted in their own ongoing series, another member (Mindboggler) died in that first issue, as well.

After that, though, Ostrander was a lot more sparse with deaths. Characters DID die, of course, but outside of a few major battles later in the series run (the time the Squad goes to Apokolips and the time Black Adam put together his own Squad during a War of the Gods crossover), the deaths came in drips and drags. However, there was one notable exception early in the series' run.

RELATED: How Spider-Man and an Oscar Winner Teamed Up to Make Marvel's '90s Dirt Bags

DOOM PATROL/SUICIDE SQUAD WAS THE NOTABLE EXCEPTION

One of the interesting things about DC after Crisis on Infinite Earths is that the company very much had a bit of a "Go ahead, try it" approach to whatever sort of bold, out there ideas that the writers of the era had. Naturally, as you might imagine, this resulted in a lot of writers going to politics. Ostrander's Suicide Squad and Paul Kupperberg's Checkmate were both drenched in the politics of the era and it worked so well that you can read those comics today and still appreciate the skill without having to really know much about the politics of the time.

At the same time, Mike Baron was doing a similar (although, generally speaking, coming from a different side of the political spectrum as most DC writers) approach with the character of Hawk. Hawk, of course, was the "war" side of the "War and Peace" brother superhero duo, Hawk and Dove. Dove, the peaceful one, died during Crisis on Infinite Earths, so Hawk was a bit adrift before eventually getting a new Dove as his partner in the Karl and Barbare Kesel and Rob Liefeld Hawk and Dove miniseries. Before that, though, Marv Wolfman then established Hawk as a government agent thrilled to be fighting "commies" in the pages of New Teen Titans and Baron picked up on that and sort of had Hawk as this Rambo-like superhero in the pages of Teen Titans Spotlight (with art by Jackson Guice and Larry Mahlstedt).

Ostrander and Kupperberg (who had been friends long before they both worked at DC. In an old Comic Book Legends Revealed, I noted how Kupperberg actually wrote Ostrander into Kupperberg's run on Supergirl as one of the neighbors of Supergirl before Ostrander ever wrote a comic book for DC) then did a crossover one-shot featuring another series Kupperberg was writing, Doom Patrol (Kupperberg had revived the Squad in the 1970s soon after he started working as a comic book writer and this series was a revamp of that revival, with his original revived team of Tempest, Robotman, Celsius and Negative Woman joined by a group of teenage heroes as a sort of All-New, All-Different X-Men riff. It later famously was drastically revamped by Grant Morrison) and the two used Wolfman and Baron's new take on Hawk as the basis for the issue, titled Doom Patrol and Suicide Squad Special #1 (by Ostrander and Kupperberg and artists Erik Larsen and Bob Lewis. Larsen had just become the regular artist on Doom Patrol), as Hawk is captured while on a mission for the government in South America and one side of the government contacted the Doom Patrol to rescue Hawk and another side of the government contacted the Squad for the same reason (although with a side of "if you can't rescue him, kill him so he can't reveal any government secrets").

The Squad in this issue was led by Rick Flag, but it was different than the regular Squad (who were in the middle of a concurrent mission). Instead, it introduced a new team made up of Mr. 104, Thinker, Weasel and Psi.

RELATED: How Spider-Man and an Oscar Winner Teamed Up to Make Marvel's '90s Dirt Bags

THINGS GET BLOODY

When the Squad runs into the Doom Patrol, Mr. 104 can't turn down the chance to attack his old enemy, Robotman. The Thinker tries to stop him and Weasel slices his throat, killing him. Rick Flag then uses the Thinker's helmet to continue the battle. The teams are forced to team up when the Rocket Red Brigade shows up to take Hawk prisoner (the Sandinistas agreed to trade Hawk to the Soviet Union).

During the battle, the Rocket Reds kill both Psi (a character from Kupperberg's Supergirl run) and Mr. 104.

Finally, Hawk is freed and the teams are about to head home before the Thinker's last thought (revenge on Weasel) caused Flag to kill Weasel, as well...

So Flag is the only survivor of his entire Suicide Squad team, a kill rate way above the normal rate for Suicide Squad missions of this era and that seems to match the tone of the new movie.

On top of that, in the upcoming film, both Weasel and the Thinker are part of the team (as is Peacemaker, from Kupperberg's Checkmate series)...

So I think it's fair to say that this little-known one-shot perhaps has an oversized impact on the upcoming film for considering how relatively minor it was in the history of the Squad (the Thinker's helmet, though, becomes a big part of the series going forward). Or maybe it's all a coincidence! I certainly can't speak for James Gunn.

If anyone has suggestions about interesting pieces of comic book history, feel free to drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com.

KEEP READING: Captain America: One Idea Inspired John Walker & the Avenger's '80s Enemies