archfiend

Like all flies, I worship Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies, the Prince of Demons, the Archfiend of Lies and Death and Decay, and my faith is very important to me.

A year later, it’s time for audiences to render their own verdict on “Suicide Squad,” the next entry in Warner Bros.’ film series based on DC Comics characters, which makes vicious felons of its all-star cast, including Mr. Smith as a coldblooded mercenary named Deadshot, Jared Leto as the cackling archfiend the Joker and Ms. Robbie as his murderous partner Harley Quinn.

I was reading Frankenstein recently in preparation for a seminar when I came across this: “I, like the archfiend, bore a hell within me, and finding myself unsympathised with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin.”

The Archfiend is by turns genteel, seductive, ominous, despairing and cranky as channeled by Kyd, who adapted the script from a centuries-spanning body of texts.

Even though he seems like an archfiend – he has, after all, killed off a fair few innocent people, and kept Gotham enslaved for several months – we find out near the end that he is only the emissary of pure evil, not the quintessence of evil himself.