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How do you keep a misfit gang of criminals in line when you send them on a black ops mission to stop a titanic alien starfish from taking over the world? In The Suicide Squad, that problem is solved by injecting a tiny bomb into the neck of anyone recruited into Task Force X. Is that kind of instant behavioral modification possible in real life? Sort of, but it’s going to be a lot less ergonomic than what you see in the film.
Speaking to Fandom, medical doctor Boris Vaisman explained how the primary problems for a Suicide Squad-style head bomb would be to figure out its power source, where to implant it for maximum damage, and finding space for it.
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Unlike the pea-sized bomb used in the film, anything using today’s technology would be the size of a wristwatch at the very least, and finding space for the bomb, its trigger mechanism, and power source isn’t exactly easy when the biology of a human subject doesn’t feature much room to spare.
“You could put something small in the brain,” Vaisman explained. “Would it blow your head off? Probably not. But you could create a small explosion that–you don’t want any kind of explosion in the brain. Any kind of explosion in the brain is probably enough to do you in [in one way or another].”
Another problem comes down to where the bomb would go if you placed it directly in the brain, as any pressure on your grey matter could have side effects such as paralysis, blindness, or even a loss of how to understand speech. According to Vaisman, the technology is theoretically possible, provided that it was inserted into the right place that won’t damage the recipient in the process.
“All you need is a small reaction in the wrong place to cause major damage,” the doctor concluded.
The Suicide Squad opened in the US this past Friday, pulling in $26.5 million across 4,002 screens on top of the $72.2 million it has made so far from international markets. While the film is the direct inverse of David Ayer’s Suicide Squad–critically successful with a poor box office opening–it’s hardly surprising as the current surge in coronavirus delta strain infections has had an effect on ticket sales and the movie is available for streaming on HBO Max.
Warner Bros. hasn’t yet shared numbers on The Suicide Squad’s performance on the streaming platform or if the movie managed to convince more people to subscribe to the service.
For more on The Suicide Squad, you can check out comments from director James Gunn on review bombing, find out just who it is that Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi cameos in the movie as, and you can see who owes you money in case you placed a bet on who lives and dies.
In our The Suicide Squad review, critic Michael Rougeau described it as “one of the most fun, heartfelt, and surprising modern DC movies we’ve seen yet.”
