If Joker was the villain of Suicide Squad

[Roderick]

Food for thought.

[SicariiDC]

Probably woulda been better

[Frontier]

Probably woulda been better

I dunno, I don't think I needed anymore of Jared Leto's Joker in that movie then what we got .

[HandofPrometheus]

A grounded villain and not some goddess would've made the movie way better.

[FishyZombie]

cara delevingne's Enchantress or jared leto's Joker. Why trade one stinker for another?

[Spencermalley935]

Would've been so much better

[Frontier]

cara delevingne's Enchantress or jared leto's Joker. Why trade one stinker for another?

Well, I guess both are equally easy on the eyes, depending on how you look at it .

[batnbreakfast]

A grounded villain and not some goddess would've made the movie way better.

This. Also the Joker should never be on the Squads radar. He's just a minor threat outside of Gotham.
The armchair director in me would use the SS sequel to explore Apokolips or fight a Mexican Cartel. All the members would be new: Bronze Tiger instead of Flag, Count Vertigo, Duchess and somebody like Black Manta tieing DC movies together.

[kcomics]

I don't know. In the animated series, Joker is way more than a minor threat; he's held the world hostage and threatened the government more than once. With dangerous chemical weapons, crime bosses, and whole countries at his disposal, Joker is more like a terrorist than a gangster. These huge master schemes, though, aren't Joker's usual thing, as he is content most of the time to just terrorize Gotham and mess with Batman. What I think would have worked in Suicide Squad is if they would have continued the "bad guys aren't really bad" theme they started with and somehow made Amanda Waller or Rick Flag the responsible villain and then had the whole squad and company, including Waller/Flag and the Joker take him/her out. That would have been satisfying, because it would have had a huge plot twist--the Joker actually being the hero? Who would have ever expected that?

They could have set it up something like this.

The first half of the story progresses as normal.

About half way through, the group discovers that Joker sabotaged the whole system as revenge for Harley.

Joker makes an appearance, smiles, grabs Harley with his joy buzzer hand and disarms that bomb in her head, sticks a chip in Waller, says something crazy yet profound, like, "now you'll know what it's like to be one of us!" and then literally throws her on the mercy of her own team of super criminals.

Of course, Deadshot intervenes and rescues Waller from becoming toast, on the condition she lets him see his daughter again. Then, he smashes the detonator.

Rick Flag offers to detonate the bombs, but Waller stops him ,explaining she has one in her head now, too! (and Joker's men somehow scrambled the signals, so there's no way for them to tell who they're actually executing)

Meanwhile, Harley is a little upset with Mr. J, explains that she wants to be with the squad, not him, and then we get all of the true Joker / Harley relationship moments, such as Joker abusing her and slapping her around, making the helicopter scene pretty different. The helicopter is shot down in a bit of dark comedy, Joker flings Harley out before falling to his apparent "death" and Harley drops to safety.

Enchantress takes control of Rick Flag as retribution, and the story continues as normal but this time it's Flag getting more and more corrupt and the team has to go rogue to stop him from destroying the world. Harley and Deadshot come up with a plan to disarm the bombs before Flag realizes they're trying to double cross him. This way, the "hero" Rick Flag becomes the villain, and the "villains" Waller and the Suicide Squad become the heroes.

We later find out that Joker and Enchantress were in cahoots, and Joker cuts out Enchantress' heart for betraying him, leaving her for dead. That way, we get a classic Joker "even evil has its standards" moment without making the Joker any more OOC than Leto has already made him. June Moon later reappears and rejoins the squad.

At the end of the movie, Harley gets a text from the Joker, freaks out, and gets rescued like in the end. Joker says something out of context that kind of still makes sense, like, "I told you there were no heroes, baby." The story ends.

Notes:

Without highlighting Joker's dangerous intellect, he does come off as more or less a jerk when you introduce the abusive relationship. Joker is a criminal mastermind, not a run-of-the-mill gang banging jerk, though, and any film focusing on the relationship should highlight his use of abuse and mind games to control Harley and others not just hurt them. He doesn't want to love Harley, so he treats her poorly to deny his feelings toward her, for example. This way, hopefully she'll stop loving him eventually. The movies need to show that this is what's going on. Joker isn't just treating her like dirt because he thinks he can get away with it. The cruelty is calculated.

Also, the Joker is capable of pulling off things most other super villains wouldn't even think of, and his creativity makes him capable of nearly anything. His odd fascination with Batman, though, keeps him glued to Gotham and fixated on committing crimes that he knows Batman can stop. Joker has proven himself more than a match for Batman on a few occasions, nearly taking out the Justice League, crippling Superman, and even stealing the anti-life equation from Darkseid and turning Batman into a "toy" he constantly killed and revived! (Not to mention he also stole the Mask after killing its wearer (you know, the green-faced guy? Check out the Joker Mask comic for more details) Joker is highly capable of being a major threat to everyone in the DC universe, but his nagging obsession with the guy who dresses like a bat and his insanity and desire to just be "an agent of chaos" mean that he tends to stay close to home. Joker has a perverted sort of "love" for Batman and the sadistic game he plays with him and it drives most of the things he does. Ignore this twisted relationship, and you won't get the character right.