You know the deal. Successfully complete the mission, you get ten years off your sentence. You fail to follow my orders in any way, and I detonate the explosive device in the base of your skull. We are a black ops unit, meaning nothing you see here ever happened. 
Task Force X was an A.R.G.U.S. program that recruited metahuman criminals to do black-ops missions for the U.S. government in exchange for time off their sentences. This program primarily ran the team known as the Suicide Squad, but also ran the other black ops group Project Butterfly.
History
Assassinating Enchantress
Task Force X was founded by Amanda Waller in 2016. Particularly dangerous inmates of Belle Reve were drafted as its members. Initially, the intention was for the Force to act as a sort of replacement for the then-deceased Superman. If anything went wrong, the government could blame it on the Force members, and the world would just see supervillains being supervillains, not knowing they're involved in government work. The original incarnation of the team succeeded in at least one world-saving mission by destroying the godlike Enchantress and Incubus in Midway City.[1]
The Jotunheim mission
Eventually, Waller decided that the world has enough heroes, and put the Force to work as a black ops team, performing assassinations, heists, invasions, and missions the United States legally can't do, such as the invasion of Corto Maltese with the intent of destroying the dangerous Project Starfish which the U.S. secretly funded, as well as all evidence of said funding. By the time of the Corto Maltese mission, the team's nickname, the "Suicide Squad", had caught on among the inmates of Belle Reve. Initially coined by Deadshot, the name stuck due to the team's perilous missions and high mortality rate.
The Maltese mission was partially a success, with Project Starfish, along with Jotunheim, the laboratory that housed it, being destroyed. However, with the help of her own aides, Waller was blackmailed by team leader Bloodsport into letting him and his surviving teammates go free, or else he would leak the evidence of the States' part in the project to the press. The mission also left the only surviving member of the team still loyal to Waller, Peacemaker, in a coma, but still prepared to be sent on his next mission.[2]
Project Butterfly
With the rest of the Squad dead or deserted, Waller assigned Peacemaker to a new black-ops team known as Project Butterfly, a new team run through the Task Force X program. Their mission was to eradicate the invading alien Butterflies, and Waller placed her daughter, Leota Adebayo, on the team to betray Peacemaker and throw him to the cops to distract them if need be.[3][4] Unfortunately, while the Butterfly threat was destroyed, Adebayo turned on her mother and held a press conference after the mission, revealing the existence of Task Force X to the public, effectively disarming the entire operation.[5]
Paraphernalia
Transportation:
Trivia
- Rick Flag and Katana were the only known members of Task Force X not to be convicted felons.
- Ratcatcher II was the only known criminal member of the Force not to be a convicted murderer before joining the team.
See Also
- 5 Appearances of Task Force X (DC Extended Universe)
- 10 Images that include Task Force X (DC Extended Universe)
- Team Gallery: Task Force X (DC Extended Universe)