Overview

Belle Reve Penitentiary (also referred to as "Belle Reve Federal Prison" and more recently, if inexplicably, as "Belle Reeve") is located in the middle of miles of swampland in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. It was specifically constructed to house dangerous metahuman criminals, and also contains various supervillains. It was chosen by Amanda Waller as the headquarters of Task Force X- also called the Suicide Squad- because of the high concentration of super humans who had very little to lose and everything to gain by participating in a program that could shorten their sentence, should they survive their missions. As the prison is the headquarters for the Squad, many of the prison staff members work with Squad members, along with performing their normal duties in the prison. The prison has been attacked numerous times, and has also withstood numerous governmental and civilian inquiries due to the questionable practice of housing a group of convicted criminals for use in dangerous missions. It has played host to at least two deadly riots, and was at one point located near a portal to Hell.

Alternate Versions

Kingdom Come

In the Kingdom Come universe, Belle Reve was destroyed by Genosyde, who also destroyed other notable prisons. All inmates were killed in the explosion.

In Other Media

Smallville

In Smallville, Belle Reve is an insane asylum that mainly houses people who have been poisoned, given powers, and largely driven mad by kryptonite, referred to colloquially as "meteor freaks." It also briefly housed Lex Luthor, who was incarcerated there against his will by his father, Lionel Luthor. In this continuity, Belle Reve is located in Metropolis.

The DCAU

Belle Reve appears as the headquarters of the Suicide Squad in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Task Force X". It also appears in the episode "Panic in the Sky" as the prison in which six of the seven founding members of the League were incarcerated after turning themselves in to the authorities following the hijacking of their Binary Fusion Generator.

Young Justice

Belle Reve appeared in the episode "Terror." In this episode, every inmate wears a collar specifically designed to negate that inmate's metahuman ability. This collar is also capable of administering disciplinary shocks that can be made powerful enough to render the inmate unconscious. The prison is claimed to be inescapable, and a mass breakout attempt fails due to the intervention of Superboy and Miss Martian, who were infiltrating the prison under the guise of the Terror Twins. The only inmate to successfully escape the prison during the attempt is the Riddler.

Following their arrest, the Injustice League was sent to Belle Reve, with the exception of Count Vertigo, who had diplomatic immunity.

In their search for Red Tornado and T.O. Morrow, the Team stopped by Belle Reve. Warden Strange could not deny them an audience with Morrow's chief competitor, Professor Ivo, because they had helped prevent a prison break. However, when he saw Zatanna was able to extract the desired information from him with ease, he made sure to have Ivo warn Morrow.

After Queen Perdita of Vlatava revoked Count Vertigo's immunity after a failed coup, he was sent to Belle Reve, and immediately became the subject of mockery from fellow inmates. As the coup involved a coordinated attack from five ice fortresses, Batman suspected the five ice villains in Belle Reve might have been involved. Strange showed him security footage, that showed each of them in their cells at the time of the attacks.

With Strange's complicity, Sportsmaster broke Professor Ivo out of prison. Strange made sure to shut off the alarms, and control an android of Ivo to make it appear he was still in jail.