Warning: Contains spoilers for Suicide Squad: Kill Arkham Asylum #5

Amanda Waller’s surprising inspiration for the Suicide Squad in the Arkhamverse has been revealed. In a flashback to his early days in prison, King Shark — also known as Nanue — gives Waller and the guards an eloquent lecture on the evolution and survival of sharks. Meant to get him out of cleaning the bathrooms, this speech brings Waller to the conclusion that monsters can be used to kill other monsters.

Suicide Squad: Kill Arkham Asylum #5 by John Layman and Jesús Hervás is the final piece in the tie-in comic to Rocksteady’s game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Five years after the events of Batman: Arkham Knight, Brainiac seizes control of the Justice League and Waller forms Task Force X, more commonly known as the Suicide Squad, to defeat them.

In this flashback issue, King Shark seems to give Waller the idea to use super-powered inmates in a specialized squad, as revealed in a brief-but-telling confrontation between the two in an early scene from the issue. As always, Waller is thinking about threats and control — but she’s inspired by King Shark’s desire for greater things in his own life.

King Shark Inspired Amanda Waller to Start the Suicide Squad

Who Is King Shark?

Much like King Shark himself, his view of evolution is eloquent, if violent. The son of the Shark God, Chondrakha, he refers to himself and his species as “the perfect killing machine…pitted against the most terrible and murderous beasts the world has ever known.” Sharks, which are virtually unchanged after 150 million years, are adapted to their environment such that they can’t be outstripped by other predators’ adaptations.

King Shark himself is an apex predator on land and sea, though he prefers a nonviolent approach to conflict whenever possible. It’s this balance that is at odds with Waller’s conclusion about having monsters battle other monsters. King Shark survives to be the most powerful predator by choosing his battles carefully.

The story of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is startling for fans of the Arkham games for a number of reasons. The idea that the Justice League might become irreversibly evil, and should be killed for the safety of others, is a bleak one. This defeatist and paranoid point of view is the one from which Amanda Waller receives King Shark’s speech about the historical dominion of sharks. The heroes of the game, and of Waller’s view of evolution, will be the biggest monsters.

King Shark Is Forced Into Waller’s Idea of Survival

The Suicide Squad Is a Potential Nightmare for DC Villains

While King Shark believes that sharks have emerged as the most powerful ocean monsters over time, it’s clear that Waller views the competitive nature of predators as a pathway to revealing the greatest weapon among them. Their difference in viewpoints has an enormous impact on their methodologies. King Shark sees strength as the way to survival, whereas Waller sees survival as proof of strength.

These clashing priorities battle for dominance as well, but this game is rigged. The struggle among DC’s most powerful monsters is being overseen by a violent “god” whose designs aren’t for the survival of those who prove fittest. Waller only wants the strongest monsters under her control on the Suicide Squad so that she herself can emerge victorious — over anything she considers to be a threat.

Suicide Squad: Kill Arkham Asylum #5 is available now from DC Comics.