Sword-wielding soul-stealer Katana makes a memorable, if brief, impression in Suicide Squad 2016, but here's why she sat out The Suicide Squad.
Katana was introduced in 2016's Suicide Squad, but didn't return for James Gunn's The Suicide Squad sequel. Katana, played by Karen Fukuhara, was one of the coolest characters found in David Ayer's critically panned, studio-compromised DCEU effort, and even had a backstory akin to her comic book counterpart. The character wields a sword called the Soultaker, which traps the souls of those it kills—including Katana's husband, who had been struck down with the blade by his own brother.
As far as superhero backgrounds go Katana's is pretty epic, but sadly, her story is such a small part of David Ayer's Suicide Squad that it's easy to miss. Beyond her bloody past, Katana is also interesting due to being the only member of the titular team to volunteer, which she does out of loyalty toward Squad leader Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman). In that role, Katana is also setup to be Flag's enforcer, used to keep the Suicide Squad in line, but unfortunately, really didn't end up doing much of note in the movie.
Katana didn't disappear completely from Suicide Squad's theatrical cut, and did play a part in Enchantress' defeat, but she receded mostly into the background as characters like Harley Quinn, Deadshot, and Flag himself took the spotlight. When it first became clear that James Gunn's The Suicide Squad would bring back some characters from Ayer's film, many hoped Katana would be among them. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. For his part, Gunn said on Twitter that he only wanted to bring back villains from the first movie, outside of Flag himself, so Katana was ruled out.
While that's a vague statement by Gunn as far as his reasoning behind not having Katana return for The Suicide Squad, there's another possible conclusion that can be drawn when looking at the two films. Gunn's Suicide Squad is much, much lighter in tone than Ayer's movie—not completely dissimilar to his own Guardians of the Galaxy—which did have some humor, but was made before the DCEU really began to incorporate more MCU-style jokes into the proceedings. While much of Gunn's humor is indeed dark, it's also pretty silly (see: John Cena's Peacemaker, Weasel, Polka-Dot Man and more). Katana just isn't a silly character. Flag himself was lightened up considerably from his 2016 characterization in The Suicide Squad, but it's hard to imagine Katana getting drunk with the team and cracking lowbrow one-liners without removing a lot of what's cool about her in the process.
Outside of Katana not fitting Gunn's new ultra-violent tone and direction for The Suicide Squad, it's hard to imagine where she could've fit in the actual plot. Flag has his own subplot going on with fellow military veteran Peacemaker, who is in some ways what 2016's by-the-book Flag might've become had he flipped to the dark side. Katana being in that mix would've added an unnecessary complication to the proceedings. That said, even if Gunn had wanted to use Fukuhara's Katana in The Suicide Squad, he may not have had the option, as Fukuhara was working as a series regular on Amazon's The Boys while Gunn's sequel was in production. Still, hopefully Suicide Squad's Katana hasn't been seen in the DCEU for the last time.
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