Amanda Waller
Amanda Belle Waller, also known as "the Wall", is a fictional character featured in some American comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in Legends #1 in 1986 and was created by John Ostrander, Len Wein, and John Byrne. A bureaucrat with a distaste for conventional crime fighting, employs more hardline methods, and is an expert tactician and political operator, the character serves as both an ally and an antagonist to the superheroes of the DC Universe. Waller is often depicted as a non-powered, high-ranking government official and the leader of Task Force X, a secret black-ops group composed of super-villains, current or former, undertaking high-risk missions as expendable agents for commuted prison sentences in return. Additionally, she is also commonly associated with several government agencies such as Checkmate, the Department of Extranormal Operations, and A.R.G.U.S.
The character has been adapted into other media on a number of occasions, notably voiced by CCH Pounder in her animated debut in the DC Animated Universe, with Pam Grier originating the character in live action on the TV show Smallville. She first appears in film played by Academy Award-nominee Angela Bassett in Green Lantern. Most prominently, she has been portrayed by Academy Award-winner Viola Davis in the DC Extended Universe series of films and TV shows, starting in Suicide Squad, acting as one of the franchise's most prominent recurring characters. Her portrayal continued into the rebooted DC Universe, beginning with Creature Commandos.
Publication history
Amanda Waller's earliest appearances were shaped by writers John Ostrander and Kim Yale in 1987, during the first volume of Suicide Squad and shortly after being introduced in the Legends crossover storyline.Fictional character biography
Early history
Amanda Waller was established as a widow who escaped Chicago's Cabrini–Green housing projects with her surviving family after her two eldest children and her husband were murdered. Waller excelled in political science and became a congressional aide. During that time, she discovered the existence of the first two incarnations of the Squad. Taking elements from both, she proposed the development of its third incarnation to the White House and was placed in charge upon its approval.Federal service years
Amanda Waller formed the agency to serve as a small, quasi-independent branch of Task Force X. Valentina Vostok brought former NYPD Lieutenant Harry Stein into the agency as an operative. Amanda Waller later promoted Stein to the command position and demoted Vostok. Harry Stein would later reorganize the Agency and name it Checkmate.Waller's tenure as the official of the third Suicide Squad was tumultuous and controversial. Despite many successes, she developed a habit of defying her superiors in Washington to achieve legitimate and personal goals on more than one occasion. The earliest conflict between her and her superiors revolved around the leadership of the Suicide Squad. Although she wanted the Bronze Tiger—a martial artist she helped recover after he had been brainwashed by the League of Assassins—to lead the team, he was relegated to second-in-command, and Rick Flag Jr. was made the leader instead. Waller resentfully presumed the situation to be racially charged, related to her status as a black woman and Bronze Tiger's skin tone. However, the Tiger himself did not believe this was a factor, considering this resulted from mistrust due to the brainwashing imposed upon him by the League of Assassins.
Her relationship with the squad itself was one of mutual dislike. Most of the team's criminal members did not take to Waller's methods, and even the team's heroes were often at odds with Waller. Waller's inability to deal and compromise with her troops led to Nemesis's departure from the team and the death of a US senator, which indirectly caused the death of Rick Flag Jr. These types of conflicts, however, were not only limited to her superiors and her team but also extended to Batman, who opposed the forming of the Suicide Squad. Nonetheless, the team remained loyal to her, often choosing to side with her instead of the government.
It was revealed that Amanda Waller kept heroes such as Nightshade around for them to act as her conscience. Throughout her first run with the Suicide Squad, her actions became increasingly erratic as she fought to retain control of the squad. This was heightened by the public revelation of the Suicide Squad and Waller being officially "replaced", although her replacement was, in fact, an actor, and Waller remained the team's director.
Even that secret would eventually be revealed, and Amanda Waller would be imprisoned. During this time, the squad also became involved in an interagency conflict in a crossover between the Checkmate and Suicide Squad titles called the Janus Directive.
One of the field missions is against her will, as many members of the squad, Waller included, are forcibly kidnapped and taken to Apokolips. This is because team member Duchess remembered her past as Lashina of the Female Furies instead of pretending to be amnesiac and wished to return home with suitable sacrifices. The squad suffers fatalities battling Apokolips' forces, with Waller personally confronting Granny Goodness. However, the confrontation ended with the deaths of Dr. Light and one of Waller's nieces, and Count Vertigo was near-fatally wounded.
She eventually found herself serving prison time for her pursuit of an organized crime cartel based in New Orleans called the LOA and killing its leadership, using squad operatives Ravan, Poison Ivy and Deadshot in the process.
The Suicide Squad's rebirth
Waller is eventually pardoned and released a year later to reorganize the Suicide Squad as a freelance mercenary group at the behest of Sarge Steel to deal with a crisis in Vlatava, Count Vertigo's home country. Afterward, the Suicide Squad performed a variety of missions, often treading dangerous political terrain when dealing with Soviet and Israeli interests. Most notably, the Squad helped destroy the plans of a shadow organization to throw Qurac, Israel, and the US into political disarray.During her renewed tenure with this team, Amanda became closer to her operatives, even accompanying them on their field missions. This allowed Waller and her team to bond more effectively, although she retained her dominant and threatening personality.
Waller quit after a later field mission, in which she took down the immortal dictator of a minor South American island nation. As it turned out, he was mortal, but had immense psychic power. By tricking him, Waller merely provided a form of assisted suicide.
Soon after, Amanda Waller organized the Shadow Fighters to confront Eclipso. Again, she encountered Sarge Steel. Her first attempt at a team formed with the assistance of Bruce Gordon and his wife, Mona could have gone better. Most of the group were killed while infiltrating Eclipso's stronghold. Her second attempt with a much larger team had much more success.
During the "Bloodlines" event, the President sent Guy Gardner to fetch Waller from her island 'retirement'. She leads a multi-hero affair that destroys the alien parasites. She rejoined federal service, initially as the Southeastern regional director for the Department of Extranormal Operations. She was then promoted to Secretary of Metahuman Affairs as a member of Lex Luthor's presidential administration.
International service
Lex Luthor's brief tenure in the office leads to Amanda Waller being jailed for a short time before being released by Luthor's successor, Jonathan Vincent Horne, who orders her to take command of the secret agent organization Checkmate. The organization had been shaken up due to The OMAC Project debacle and the related murderous leadership of Maxwell Lord, with whom Waller has had previous history. Waller takes the rank of Black King until the United States and United Nations decide what to do with that organization. In the latter issue of 52, Waller is shown commissioning the imprisoned Atom Smasher to organize a new Suicide Squad to attack Black Adam and his allies. This ends with the death of Squad member Persuader and the expected public relations turn against the Black Marvel family.In the revamped Checkmate series set in the One Year Later continuity, Waller is shown to have been assigned by the UN to serve as Checkmate's White Queen, a member of its senior policy-making executive. Due to her previous activities, her appointment is contingent on having no direct control over operations. Regardless, she continues to pursue her agenda, secretly using the Suicide Squad to perform missions in favour of American interests and blackmailing Fire. It is also implied that she may have betrayed a mission team in an attempt to protect her secrets and facilitated an attack on Checkmate headquarters for her gain.
She is then in charge of Operation Salvation Run, an initiative involving the mass deportation of supervillains to an alien world. When the rest of Checkmate discovered this, she was forced into resigning as White Queen in exchange for their delay in revealing what the US government was doing. She continues to run the Suicide Squad and has been implanted with nanotechnology to allow her to control Chemo during missions directly.
During the Superman/Batman storyline "K", it is revealed that Waller has hoarded Kryptonite and used it to power an anti-Superman group called the Last Line and a Doomsday-like creature codenamed "All-American Boy", who has Kryptonite shards growing out of his body. All-American Boy was deceived into an experiment using Kryptonite to bond cell scrapings taken from Doomsday to a human host, battles Superman, and devastates Smallville. With the help of Brannon, the Last Line's leader, Batman locates Josh's parents, who convince him to stop. Waller is forced to pay towards repairing Smallville in return for her dealings in the AAB project to remain secret. 'Last Line' itself rebels against Waller because of her deceptions.
In the eight-issue series of Suicide Squad: Raise the Flag, Waller is again seen leading the Suicide Squad at some point when the General returns to Earth after his exile and is promptly drafted into the Squad with unique explosive implants grafted into his arm and brain to make him compliant with Waller's demands. Here, she uses technology devised by Cliff Carmichael to gain a measure of control over Chemo, allowing her to use it for the Squad's benefit. Rick Flag is revealed to have survived the events at Jotunheim and was returned to Waller, who admitted to him Rick Flag Jr. was never anything but an alias, and that he was a brainwashed soldier remade into Flag to serve Wade Eiling's ends.
She leads, as Chemo, an attack on a Dubai supercorp intending to release a deadly virus. However, Carmichael, with Eiling and part of her team, betrays her as part of Eiling's plan to benefit from the release of the virus, and she is nearly killed when Eiling orders a compliant Flag to use her pen, a transmitter, to detonate her explosive implant. Instead, Flag, tricking him, detonates Eiling's own, releasing her and rejoining the Squad, refusing the chance of everyday life.
She later attempted to forcibly return several members of the Secret Six to the Suicide Squad. When her plan backfired due to the events of Blackest Night and the defiance of the Six, she was shot by Deadshot and privately revealed to King Faraday to be their new secret leader, Mockingbird. When Faraday questioned the need to be informed of the situation and even the need to bring the Six under the banner of the Squad when she already controlled them, Waller merely shrugged it off. Faraday then questions Waller, "does your right hand even know what your left hand is doing?". Waller responds with, "Only on a need-to-know basis", implying that Faraday is also on a "need-to-know basis."