The Suicide Squad reveals Bloodsport has shot Superman with a kryptonite bullet in the past, and there is one particularly strong candidate for who hired him. In The Suicide Squad, Robert Dubois a.k.a. Bloodsport (Idris Elba) is recruited by Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) to join Task Force X on a mission to stop “Project: Starfish” in Corto Maltese. While all the members of Task Force X have extensive criminal records, Bloodsport’s skills make him one of Waller’s most valuable assets on the team.
Bloodsport’s off-screen attempt to kill Superman (Henry Cavill) with a kryptonite bullet was what led to his incarceration in the first place, with the Man of Steel, fortunately, recovering in the ICU. While The Suicide Squad keeps Bloodsport’s employer a mystery, Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) immediately springs to the top of the list of potential suspects. Superman and Lex’s history in the DCU was first established in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and based on the movie’s story and Lex’s cameo in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, there is even more reason to suspect Lex’s involvement.
Lex Luthor Has Motivation To Assassinate Superman
Lex Luthor’s determination to destroy Superman is nothing new, but the DCU put a whole new spin on it with their first meeting in Batman v Superman. Jesse Eisenberg’s version of Lex Luthor sees Superman the same way he sees God, intoning “If God is all powerful, he cannot be all good, and if he is all good, then he cannot be all powerful, and neither can you be.” Lex’s plot is meant to put Superman in an unwinnable situation to save his adoptive mother Martha Kent (Diane Lane), showing Kal-El to either be not all good by killing Batman (Ben Affleck), or not all powerful and being killed by Doomsday.
Ultimately, Superman sacrifices himself to stop Doomsday, but the problem for Lex is that the Man of Steel’s death does not last, with the League using one of the awakened Mother Boxes to resurrect Superman in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. From Lex’s perspective, this is far more than simply undoing his victory, it is enough to amplify the existential crisis Superman awakens in him. Lex doesn’t know how to lose, but he cannot win unless Superman is truly dead.
Superman Is Not The Only Hero Lex Is Targeting
Lex has other targets on his mind by the end of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, as seen at the end when he hires Deathstroke (Joe Manganiello) to assassinate Batman, even revealing his identity as Bruce Wayne. Slade Wilson describes his vendetta with Batman as “personal,” and this might be even more true for Lex himself than he is letting on. Through the events of Batman v Superman, Lex can be called Batman’s enemy as much as he is Superman’s, with The Dark Knight throwing him into Arkham Asylum.
More than that, Lex has every reason to regard Batman with an intense hatred for undoing his initial plot to destroy Superman both physically and in the public mind. Not only does Batman spearhead the revival of Superman, but all the other metahumans Lex was tracking assist him in bringing Superman back after forming the Justice League. In Lex’s mind, there is no greater insult to be added to the injury of Superman’s resurrection, which motivates him to hire Deathstroke to take out Batman, potentially in tandem with calling up Bloodsport to assassinate Superman.
Why Lex Would Hire Bloodsport To Kill Superman
As for why Lex would hire Bloodsport in the first place, the events of Batman v Superman shape him into the classic criminal mastermind he is infamous as, and in more ways than one. While Lex had plenty of hired help in manipulating Batman’s distrust of Superman (and maybe even designing Batman’s kryptonite spear), he essentially created Doomsday from the corpse of General Zod (Michael Shannon) on his own. To be sure, Lex probably wanted no loose ends in his plot, and he was able to engineer his subsequent prison escape quite easily. Nonetheless, Lex has first-hand experience with the need to keep his distance from his own crimes.
Hiring Bloodsport for his second attempt to assassinate Superman creates all the cover Lex would need to accomplish his ultimate goal without getting his own hands dirty. Bloodsport, as a skilled professional assassin, is sure to come with a high price and an impeccable record before The Suicide Squad. So it makes perfect sense for the deep-pocketed Lex Luthor to hire Bloodsport to take down his mortal enemy.