Publicity for The Suicide Squad ramps up, with two new Empire Magazine covers for Peter Capaldi’s Thinker
The Suicide Squad arrives in UK cinemas this month, before heading to America in August. And the publicity push for the DC Comics supervillain movie is well and truly underway. This month Empire Magazine devotes five variant covers to the film, as well as a subscriber exclusive. And not only is former Doctor Who Peter Capaldi on one of those five standard covers, but he takes centre stage on he subscriber exclusive drawn by comic book legend Jim Lee.

Suicide Squad writer/director James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) has collected a cast of cult favourites and big name actors. Among them is Oscar winner Viola Davis as Amanda ‘the Wall’ Waller, the notoriously ruthless government agent who conceives a plan to build a team of the world’s worst supervillains as the ultimate line of defence. Offered ten years off their sentence for every successful mission, and threatened with the detonation of the bombs in their skulls if they run, the Suicide Squad are motivated to win by any means necessary. Alongside Davis on the Empire cover is Peter Capaldi as the Thinker. The inventor of a ‘thinking cap’ which augments his brain, the Thinker is the smartest, and also by far most dangerous, man on Earth. And behind them both is one leg of Starro the Star Conquerer, a giant alien starfish with hypnotic powers. No, really.

The Doctor Who star’s new role also gets him the comic book art treatment from Jim Lee
Meanwhile, the Jim Lee art for the exclusive subscribers’ cover gives Capaldi’s Thinker pride of place. He glowers out at the reader from under his infamous attack eyebrows, with the Suicide Squad surrounding him in profile. Plus, in a fun touch, a comic book version of James Gunn himself.
The Suicide Squad is released in the UK on the 30th of July, and in the United States on the 6th of August. Check out the latest trailer below: