Project Starfish

Project Starfish
Previous	World War II
Next	Invasion of Pokolistan
Beginning:	August 15, 2021
End:	August 17, 2021
Place:	Corto Maltese
Result:	Rick Flag, Jr. is killed by Peacemaker The Weasel survives and is reincarcerated in Belle Reve Correctional Center
Combatants
Task Force X
Peacemaker
Commanders
Rick Flag, Jr.
Peacemaker
Casualties
Rick Flag, Jr.
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"It’s one of the few soldiers still alive from Project Starfish in Corto Maltese."

―Amanda Waller to Rick Flag, Sr.^[src]

Project Starfish was a secret government operation lead by Amanda Waller and carried out by Task Force X in Corto Maltese.

Background

Following the founding of Task Force X, A.R.G.U.S. Director Amanda Waller requested an operation on the island of Corto Maltese, sending the squad to carry it out under the name Project Starfish.

Project

"Sorry. I didn't mean to intimate anything about your son, Flag. When he died in Corto Maltese, he died a hero."

―Amanda Waller to Rick Flag, Sr.^[src]

During the travel to Corto Maltese on the Sheba, Weasel, one of Task Force X's operatives, fell from the Osprey and was presumed dead after drowning. Later in the mission, the squad's leader, Colonel Rick Flag Jr., was confronted by fellow vigilante Peacemaker, who killed him.

Aftermath

"So we know it has what it takes to survive."

―Amanda Waller to Rick Flag, Sr.^[src]

Some time after the mission's conclusion, Weasel managed to survive and awaken in Corto Maltese before being captured and imprisoned again at Belle Reve Correctional Center. Upon learning of Rick Flag Jr.'s death, Amanda Waller hailed him as a hero, telling his father, Rick Flag Sr., about the incident, who developed a lasting hatred and grudge against Peacemaker. Taking Weasel's survival into account, Waller would place him into Task Force M.

Trivia

• In The Suicide Squad, Project Starfish was the black-budget scientific project inside the Nazi-era research facility, Jötunheim, on the remote South American island of Corto Maltese, which a mission was assigned to Task Force X to go inside the facility after an anti-American coup occurred. Their mission was to destroy not only the project but also all evidence that the U.S. government illegally founded it and allowed to use ennemis of the previous Corto Maltesean dictatorship as unwilling test subjects for the said project, mainly by using its main asset, the captured starfish-like extraterrestrial creature known as Starro, which the said dictatorship used in its turn to strengthen its regime.