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Overview[]
To keep the most dangerous, most devious, and most deviant of criminals of the Suicide Squad in line ... you need someone even more deviant, devious, and dangerous than them! You need someone strong and unyielding like a Wall ... or Amanda Waller!
In the 2016 Suicide Squad film, the ruthless and iron willed Amanda Waller was portrayed by Viola Davis. Davis would return to reprise her character in the 2021 sequel, The Suicide Squad as well.
Background[]
Amanda Waller is a major supporting character in the DC Comics, frequently starring in an adversarial and antagonistic role. She often functions as a high-level United States government bureaucrat who is absolutely tyrannical, completely amoral, and savagely ruthless in the name of security of her nation. She was created by John Ostrander, Len Wein, and John Byrne and first debuted in Legends #1, published in November of 1986.
The heavyset African-American Amanda Waller was born and lived in the poverty stricken ghettos of Chicago. The crime ridden slums contributed to the deaths of not only her husband but two of her children. Embittered, the grief stricken Waller became determined to escape with her surviving children and would ultimately graduate with a degree in political science and successfully became a powerful and influential congressional aide.
In this role, she became one of the political overseers of "The Agency"; a covert operations intelligence unit of the United States. Waller would suggest the recruitment of Harry Stein into the flagging group and impressed with his success; would later promote Stein to the post of head of the Agency. Stein would revamp and reorganize the group into a new innovative incarnation known as "Checkmate" with an elaborate hierarchy based on chess pieces with Waller serving as one of the primary architects of its revival into becoming the new predominant US intelligence organization of the DC Universe.
The brand new Checkmate was overseen by Harry Stein, the titular King focusing on long range strategic planning with the Queen running day-to-day operations and assisted by the Bishops. Rooks were responsible for overall mission planning and support for the Knights, the primary field agents with low-level Pawns acting as intelligence assets and field support.
Up Against the Wall!
Suicide Squad Vol.1 #10 (Feb. 1988)
Waller was subsequently responsible for reviving Task Force X; a now-defunct branch of soldiers, espionage agents, and scientific specialists originally assembled by the US Government to battle various super-powered and alien menaces in the 1950's and was unofficially known as "The Suicide Squad" who would take on impossible and dangerous missions where death was all but guaranteed.
The original Squad had long since been supplanted and replaced by costumed superheroes, but Waller was convinced that the concept was still needed. She came up with the concept of assembling an expendable cabal of super-powered criminals as covert agents who would be sent on high-risk, extremely dangerous missions in exchange for shaving time off their sentences if they lived ... and if they died, they were regarded as perfectly deniable and disposable assets.
Despite the high fatalities on her missions, the revamped Suicide Squad proved itself highly successful and Waller has remained inextricably tied to the group over the ensuing years. The strong willed Waller often clashed with her political superiors; her felonious subordinates; and with heroes such as the Batman who was offended by her amoral tactics and tendency to use and subsequently commute the sentences of super-villains rather than keep them incarcerated. Her inflexibility and bullheadness resulted in her unflattering nickname of "The Wall" and not-so-subtle dig at her heftiness.
Although Waller would ultimately be demoted and then discharged from government service for her insubordinate actions undertaken during missions; her experience proved invaluable and she would be brought back to US government service as a major Director in the DEO (Department of Extranormal Operations) and was even promoted to a Presidential Cabinet Post as Secretary of Metahuman Affairs during Lex Luthor's infamous tenure as US President in 2001. Despite Luthor's subsequent political implosion, she was subsequently appointed to serve as the White Queen; one of the highest ranking posts of the super-secretive espionage agency known as Checkmate which had since become a vastly expanded agency of the United Nations.
The New 52 revival and reboot of DC Comics' continuity in 2011 has seen her continue to function as a government official of the highest rank, often committing dastardly and dirty deeds while piously proclaiming to be a devout patriot to her country. She is known to be a zealot who is deeply and maliciously mistrustful of all superhumans and has even enacted countermeasures for various superheroes including Superman and the Justice League. She is now the Director of A.R.G.U.S.; an off-shoot of Homeland Security which focuses on superhuman threats as the "Advanced Research Group Uniting Superhumans" and also performs clandestine and often amoral experiments on superhumans.
Amanda Waller has been frequently adapted into various media over the years including animated cartoons, live action television series, and feature films.
Major Plots[]
Personality and Traits[]
Extremely intelligent, thoroughly amoral, and exceptionally ruthless, Amanda Waller puts nothing ahead of her goals and the mission: the protection and the advancement of the United States through any means. There is literally nothing she will not condone, no law that she will not break, no blackmail too foul to use, no murder that she would not commit for this. All else is secondary as she has literally shot and killed her own fellow government employees as they lacked the clearance to see or hear something classified.
Waller views people as weak and weaknesses provide psychological leverage that she can exploit against them. She is manipulative, devious, and is willing to compromise and use whatever assets or allies that she can acquire if they prove useful or if the situation demands it. By the same token, she would have no problem with dropping or eliminating those same assets or allies if the situation were to change. In the past, she has even allied herself with the Batman and provided him with certain intelligence in exchange for his assistance in covering up her crimes. She is also not entirely unsympathetic and ungrateful as she has in the past; provided Deadshot with extended visits with his daughter despite not being part of his original plea bargain.
Waller is an incredibly methodical and intensely meticulous organizer as well as an extremely cunning and extraordinarily skilled tactician and strategist who has proven capable of overcoming superhumans with enormous physical strength, durability, and even reality manipulation abilities by virtue of nothing else but her intellect. She also possesses an incredibly powerful and resilient mind and strength of will as she withstood torture from the Enchantress without succumbing to her interrogation tactics. It was only by knocking her out and telepathically extracting the information from Waller's mind that the Enchantress was able to succeed. Otherwise, she has no extraordinary physical attributes or abilities beyond her own indomitable will.
However for all of her formidable manipulation abilities and attributes; it can also become her greatest weakness as well. She relies totally on her ability to control and leverage others either through psychological means or inducements―she literally finds herself incapable of having her subordinates loyal to her via any other means. Once she has lost her leverage on those individuals, they will often turn on her. Rick Flag for example, although a dedicated and fiercely loyal soldier; found himself driven to reject the mission she assigned him to because it deeply offended his morals. By the same instance, the remaining members of the Suicide Squad found themselves driven to the point where not even the threat of their impending deaths by explosive detonation were capable of deterring them which resulted in the usually calm and controlled Waller to become completely enraged at having them defy her authority.
Waller has access to a considerable amount of weapons and resources not just physical high-tech scientific hardware but elite soldiers and even the metahuman assets of the Suicide Squad as well as the intelligence reports and information gathered by United States intelligence agencies. She preferred to use others to do her dirty work but wasn't above dirtying her own hands to fulfill a mission. She has immense political power as well through her authorized government position and her own under-the-table political dealings.
Trivia[]
- Oprah Winfrey, Kerry Washington and Octavia Spencer were all considered for the role of Amanda Waller before Viola Davis was cast.
- Although cast as Harley Quinn for the Suicide Squad film; Margot Robbie admitted that she would have liked to have portrayed Amanda Waller instead.
Appearances[]
Quotes[]
- "You know the problem with the metahuman is? The human part." ―Amanda Waller; Suicide Squad
- "There's a difference between us. You believe in friendship, I believe in leverage." ―Amanda Waller to Batman; Suicide Squad
- "In a world of monsters, this is the only way to protect the country." ―Amanda Waller proposing the formation of the Suicide Squad; Suicide Squad
- "Damn. That is one mean lady." ―Deadshot about Amanda Waller; Suicide Squad
Other Versions[]
- Amanda Waller (DCAU)
- Amanda Waller (Superman/Batman: Public Enemies)
- Amanda Waller (Smallville)
- Amanda Waller (Green Lantern)
- Amanda Waller (Young Justice)
- Amanda Waller (Batman: Assault on Arkham)
- Amanda Waller (Justice League: Gods & Monsters)
- Amanda Waller (DC Super Hero Girls)
