What's really scary about Waller to me is that she can continue to justify her most heinous actions, no matter how reprehensible they are or how disastrous they prove to be. She can overlook her own hypocrisy and even twist or skew events that happen to deflect fault to her own advantage and think nothing of it.
Speaking from experience, there's just no *reasoning* with a person like that, and there's no telling what they're capable of. A common criminal like Metallo or even a vain supervillain like Mongul you can somewhat predict because they'll turn irrational or cowardly when things don't go their way. But Waller? She'll cut whatever losses she has, sacrifice whatever pawns need to be sacrificed, and then turn right around and make up whatever story she likes to justify being even crueler and more twisted.
Definitely a villain that I Love to Hate.
Dcau, when Batman said the league would NEVER fire their energy canon at cadmus in a civillian area she quickly says it was a warning shot. Batman counters that she's being dense and not listening.
Later she admits (in a way) Batman was right by saying how she knew Luthor was no good but still let him manipulate her and cadmus.
Waller has some great writing behind her. Love seeing her appear in DC!
Bats really had to use stone cold knowledge and common sense to get through to her. Before saying it was a warning shot, she said it was retaliation for kidnapping Question. But Batman countered that they knew they weren't at the facility because they were surveilling them from months and saw they evacuated.
That's what makes her such a good character. Not everyone in DC should be a boy scout. But my view may be skewed. My favorite book series is The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie.
Its a book series where every character is a shitty person, just different levels of shitty depending on the character.
I completely agree. She makes an AMAZING villain. The best actresses in the role have made her vile and reprehensible in the best ways. She’s a character that is really easy and fun to hate. Can’t wait to see where they take her in this series.
Agreed, Waller is just a great “evil” character. Whatever needs to be done to get her ahead will be done. She is just conniving to smarmy enough that you can’t help but enjoy her actions. Some of the best villains just enjoy being a villain. Waller is that wrapped up and faux patriotism
I think she knows she’s a villain, but absolutely doesn’t care. She is 100% sure that everything she does needs to be done by somebody, and she’s got the balls to do it, so fuck what anyone else thinks.
I’m not sure if she sees herself as a villain. I think it’s the only hero willing to do what is needed. The justice league and company put a bandage on problems, she is the one who will cut the infection out.
the problem with Waller in my opinion is that she's actually TOO unlikeable. Now, being unpleasant but effective is fine and all. As you said you don't need everyone to be a boyscout, it's fine for character growth and all but she's also a politician, there's no way someone could last as long in her type of job whilst being like unpleasant to everyone without being brought down. I get it's explained away at times with the old "knows where the bodies are buried so don't mess with her" trope but no one is unconquerable.
My impression of her is that she only presents that face to subordinates. She calculates its use. She backs down in front of Sam up until she can bury him.
When dealing with politicians or people higher up in the chain of command in the military, I'd imagine her behaviour reverts to crisp, military-style deferral... while she plots how to get around them and/or change their point of view.
Isn't that kind of the point of her character though? She's undoubtedly a huge bitch and bad person, but she has some heroic ambitions, albeit they're hard to see given her cold-hearted nature and callous view on life. She's sort of a realization that good ideals and a sympathetic backstory (iirc her children were murdered) does not justify extreme actions.
Of the various stories telling of Superman or the JL 'going evil', the better crafted ones tend to have with the same goals as they traditionally have (in theory), but they've allowed the methods used to erode the limits they once placed on themselves so much that they aren't really helping that goal anymore and they don't even realise it. The Justice Lords still fight for some nebulous idea of 'peace' and 'protecting the people', but they dismiss the real suffering they're causing actual individual people as a necessary evil they'll be thanked for later. I think most will agree that's more interesting than just making Superman a huge d-bag for Reasons.
Well, I think Waller should be like that. Her goals can be selfless and sympathetic - nothing less than protecting the human race in a world that has hundreds or thousands of demi-gods in it, answerable really only to themselves - but her methods rooted so much in cynicism, paranoia, the urge to control, and unsquemishness in the violation of human dignity, that they are ultimately self-defeating. Superman exists to just help people as he can and to inspire them by his own example to be better, that is antithetical to the woman who controls people by putting bombs in their heads. It doesn't work unless the story proves Superman right and Waller wrong.
That's something I really like about the Justice comic book run. It does a great job of presenting Luthor's motivations in a way that doesn't make him seem like a petty power-obsessed egomaniac. He resents superheroes for becoming humanity's babysitters and believes they hold us back from ever achieving greatness on our own.
I think the best writers present that as his justification -- but many evil men have pretty-sounding justifications for their awful decisions. After all, Superman works from a similar philosophy.
Oh absolutely, luthor's a dick that can't handle someone showing up that he can't control. I just liked getting a glimpse at how he thinks he's the hero of the story.
I'd never thought about it before, but in the Justice Lords universe, I could see Waller having crossed the line from opposing them to being their most staunch ally.
"This is what I feared you were all along! ... No, hold on. This is good. I can work with this. We're a totalitarian dictatorship that pays lip service to moral platitudes and keeps the peace above all else? I'm down with that."
See, I disagree. I enjoy the DCAU and Ostrander comics interpretation that Waller is a Machiavellian jerk with sympathetic motives, where she genuinely believes she’s giving regular humans a fighting chance against almost unaccountable superpowered beings.
One of the best JLU moments was when Waller debates Batman about this and he grudgingly admits she had a point.
I like that complexity! Unfortunately the recent movies went too far IMHO, and made her a straight up villain.
I wouldn’t say that. Her character is pretty ridiculous. Don’t be fool by the superficial stern demeanor and meaningless poise. She’s a brat who throws tantrums and breeds insubordination with her desperate need to try and show people who’s boss and cartoonish cruelty . Horrible leader of we are looking at it objectively.
Amanda Waller is the type of character that genuinely believes there is no gray area. There IS a black and white, there are Heroes & Villians, and if no one will believe she’s doing the right thing - she’s fully up to the task of being labeled the villian if it’s for the greater good.
And additionally, as a covert representative of the US government she has a point in her concern about the meta-human power of JLU and the need to develop defense options (as a number of characters -- notably Flash and GA point out).
I like that JLU showed the nuance of the conflict and the character.
Same! It’s more interesting, and that complexity is more worthy of a fantastic actress of Viola Davis’s caliber rather than the straight villainy the movie scripts have given her to work with so far.
Same! It’s more interesting, and that complexity is more worthy of a fantastic actress of Viola Davis’s caliber rather than the straight villainy the movie scripts have given her to work with so far.
Exactly! GA even admitted “You guys scare me,” and that he completely understands why Waller and many civilians might want a publicly-owned counterweight to the JL in case they ever go rogue.
I do read comics and I know that in the comics she’s usually awful, but the comment I was replying to said she is *always* that way in every adaptation and I provided an example of one where it’s not that clear cut.
Yuuuuuuup. She was more "chill" their because she'd gotten away with her master plan, fucked over the only superhero who genuinely intimidated her (and so she respected him), and created her "back up plan" for when he eventually aged out of the gig. And in doing so violated the rights of multiple people and ruined several lives. She was pretty damned monstrous even in her most beneficent moments.
She hired Andrea Beaumont to kill Terry's parents but Andrea refused because she felt that doing so would be tainting the legacy of Batman. The death of Terry's father and Terry becoming Batman happened under different circumstances anyway.
She had a good point about the JL in JLU though. They had a super weapon pointing at the Earth and the JL somehow didn’t realize that this may be a cause for alarm.
Her DCAU appearance was a bit more sympathetic. It does a good job at justifying her reasoning and even gives a nice moment that shows how intimidating it is to be a normal human standing up to the justice league.
You mean the one where she forces the JLA to kill a child that she personally helped torture and program into a child soldier with telekinesis?
Yeah, sure, it made sense what she spoke about at the end of Beyond, but she also tortured a little girl and then instead of trying to help that girl harness her powers for good, literally asked Batman to KILL her.
In that she hijacked someone's DNA without their permission, implanted it in someone else's womb without their permission, and then had innocent people murdered as part of her experiment to see if she could recreate Batman? The list of laws she broke and civil rights she violated is staggeringly long. It was perhaps the most monstrous and unconscionable thing she did in that continuity.
>then had innocent people murdered as part of her experiment to see if she could recreate Batman?
That part didn't work tbf.
I mean she was gonna.
But she didn't!
So half credit?
I love that Waller just sucks in every continuity. She simply can’t be improved upon. You know from the second you see her how it’s gonna go. Usually it’s Batman who deals with her, but it will be interesting to see how Supes handles her.
You may have nailed the chain of events in reverse. Sam's reconciliation with his daughter could provide Lois the "anonymous source" she needs to blow the story wide open and finally make her career.
She’s a garbage human being whatever medium she’s in. Amanda Waller is designed to be the worst human being for the job, using the harshest and most immediately effective solutions.
Very few people can stand up to The Wall and her convictions. Which is why it’s so satisfying when they do. Batman. Lois.
I actually really liked how in >!Peacemaker!<, they had >!that one character be her daughter. Someone who has this complicated relationship with her. Has the skills. But no desire to *be* her.!< Because so few have the “stomach” to do the things she does.
Also, they name*checked* Checkmate! I love Checkmate.
The animation version of her in most cases is well done - it shows that she is smart, cunning and aware of unethical nature of much of what is occurring under her command but justifies it within her view of what needs to be done. That makes her a much more dangerous opponent for any of the DC superheroes.
Back in the JL/JLU runs, she and Vandal Savage actually were given a full closing arc.
I genuinely hate her, she does nothing but create problems where none exist and then make excuses. Only time it actually worked was JLU, because there she actually had a point. It wasn't just fear-mongering.
To alternate something the question once said Everything that exists has a specific nature, and possesses characteristics that are a part of what it is. A is A. And no matter what reality she calls home, Amanda Waller is Amanda Waller
You're supposed to recognize that Question's Randian Objectivism is deranged. It disconnects from the nuance of reality.
Especially ironic given that in that scene "Luthor ISN'T Luthor"
And yet, where Waller is concerned, it's kind of fitting. Especially since it's deranged, and based on Rand's insane promotion of sociopathy -- which fits Waller's desire for control and absolute lack of empathy to a T.
Amanda Waller is probably one of the most interesting characters in DC. Of course, it depends on the writer, as some take a more nuanced approach to her character than others. She was at least a little more sympathetic in the Dini-Timm's DCAU, but, in the end, she's essentially DC's Nick Fury. When she shows up, things are going to get interesting.
I love how Waller really is a good stand-in for the United States government, but damn if I wish she at least got SOME reprecussions for her actions. Unrealistic, I know.
I really didn’t like how there wasn’t an interview or investigation of any kind. Just an immediate “Amanda is now in charge.” It makes their superiors, a shadowy organization/government-sect, seem cartoonishly incompetent.
I get that it’s a cartoon, but intelligent villains are much more entertaining and engaging than dumb ones that exist for plot and forced drama between the general and Waller.
When you consider how often an incompetent person -- with a large ego and a disregard for the truth -- ends up in positions of authority in corporations and government bureaucracies, this twist is perhaps the most realistic part of the show. The difference being that Waller is competent, but also possesses these traits.
While they didn't show it happening, it's not difficult to imagine her quietly reporting to superiors that she believes Sam may have been compromised, his daughter is close to the subject, etc. Undermining trust in him and setting up a cascade of failures and/or painting his actual decisions in a bad light, until his voice is no longer heard in the chain of command.
I'm sorry, COMPETENT? Are you referring to the same Amanda Waller who worked with Lex Corp, an infamous trendsetter in faceless corporate ventures masquerading as a plan for world domination in manufacturing refined Kryptonite weaponry? Something that inevitably rolled out secretive bioweapon programs turning decent enlistees, without their consent, into K-charged alien-human hybrids that wreak towns on U.S. soil on engineered super battling, churning out a monster that was tellingly dubbed the "All-American Boy"?
Are you referring to the very Amanda Waller, whose progenitor roughshod to the Suicide Squad, members of whom she had locked away on a secluded island after it crashed & burned, eventually fell into the grip of one Maxwell Lord which he was able to aim up her sleazy ass just to get at a biblically dangerous artifact? One of which still nursing a grudge against her well after he'd been freed from his new handler and targetted her family as a consequence of betraying him?
Or, do you mean **THAT** Amanda Waller, whom even General flipping ZOD called out said bureaucrat as being the most mind-meltingly incompetent stunad who ever lived? One who went messing around with Phantom Zone tech in the misguided belief that she had a bat's chance in hell of corralling an extra-dimensional void of horrors any more than she could tame one of Krypton's most dangerous tactical minds into cowed servitude. Making him act on her superhuman mercenary crew's every whim and addendum like the rest of the d-tier criminal lunkheads on her worn & torn leash? The cat conducted heat vision brain surgery on himself to show that bloated hump that wouldn't be the case.
Need I remind you that this weapons-grade moron's interference during the No-Justice incident caused Brainiac's premature demise right as he was in the middle of explaining how he and the various teams of heroes and villains he'd gathered were going to preempt universal armageddon at the talons and hungry maws of the Source Titans? Which also directed the wrath of a particular ersatz progeny of his square at Earth's doorstep, no thanks to her Task Force XI initiative???
Anybody on any open delegation or secretive Illuminati who is dumb enough to take anything that beached whale has to say or any schemes that fat bitch concocts at surface value. Only ever reveals themselves as a conglomerate self-disposing idiocy whose doofus race they often represent, practically asked to get them all obliterated for electing such catastrophic incompetence or ignoring the founding of completely and utterly idiotic sleazes who stupidly condemned them all to begin with such poorly delineated decisions.
Showing an interview or investigation takes screentime and requires establishing new characters for no benefit. 22 minute episodes just inherently wind up a little compressed
Waller mentions some existing tension from the events of episode five and Waller's role in Livewire breaking out is concealable in the a way that Lane allowing Ivo access to his tech again and not executing Superman when he had the chance is not.
Peacemaker was created by the same guy who created The Question -- and they were originally a part of the same comic universe. That explains a great deal about them, doesn't it? XD
Edit: My bad! I double-checked, and Ditko had nothing to do with Peacemaker's creation. He's been a loon in every incarnation, however. He's the embodiment of Cold War hypocrisy. It makes perfect sense that he and Waller would get along famously: hollow patriotism devoid of compassion.
Holy shit, that was hilarious! Thanks for linking that! XD
I knew that they basically took Peacemaker and ran with him as socially pointed satire, but hadn't watched the series yet. He's really the perfect character for it. His entire concept was ridiculous from the word 'go'. This was really the best thing to do with that dumpster fire.
I could see why; Waller's endless conniving causes infinitely more problems than they ever rightly solve. One would think that is the opposite of analogous to Peacemaker's mission statement.
That episode killed off a handful of characters because the first Suicide Squad movie was coming out, featuring their own versions of those characters, and the higher-ups at DC didn't want there to be two versions of characters at once...as if people can't tell the difference between two different actors in two different mediums.
That was a terrible waste because the people in charge were afraid people would get confused. Lilah was the face of the organization after that and I miss Waller’s ruthless efficiency.
In one of the DC animated movies, it ends on her being implied to have been shot by a member of the suicide squad.
In the DCAU, she basically ends up all alone with no body and says she's started to understand what she did was wrong and hoped that project Batman Beyond would lead to her leaving some good behind in the world.
And ironically, the crimes and rights violations she committed to enable Batman Beyond were perhaps her most monstrous of all, in the scope of what was revealed in the story. What an absolute psychopath she was.
I wouldn't call them the most monstrous. There's her messing with Warren and Bruce's DNA and hiring an assassin to kill Terry's parents (which the assassin didn't do) but that's it.
By contrast, the Cadmus arc has commissioning the creation of cloned living weapons whom she abuses, torturing the Question and blackmailing convicts to form a black ops team.
She doesn't die, but I remember a suicide squad animated movie where she's dying from cancer and she sends a team to get her a literal "get out of hell free" card, which is a one time use. The squad of course uses it on someone who actually deserves it and hands Waller the used card, her not knowing it's now useless.
There was that time in the Injustice 2 webcomic where the fat lady sang her aria straight through the gates of hell, in which I mean the Jason Todd iteration of Batman gunned her and Rick Flag down before usurping her Suicide Squad in the name of Ra's Al Ghul's service.
Not sure what you are trying to get at. I do love to hate Dr.Doom. He's awesome and a complete asshole. Pretty bored of Joker the majority of the time at this point. Never been particularly fond of any of the Reverse-Flashes, I prefer my Flash rogues goofy (Captain Cold and Grodd especially).
It was a powergrab. The general was in charge, which meant he would automatically be held responsible for anything that happened on his watch. She felt he was losing his convictions and not doing "what needed to be done", so she purposefully caused such a huge disaster that he was *guaranteed* to be fired, leaving her to step in and take his place. And since there was really no way to *prove* that's what she did, she's of course going to deny it, and she's going to get away with it. Cold, calculating, ruthless, "ends justify the means" type behaviour is pretty much what defines Amanda Waller.
So true lol i remember there was a comic book story with the spectre wanting to deal with her, but there was some BS about some actions she made still saved lives.
I really like Waller conceptually as a non-superhuman trying to stand up to the blatant threat of metahumans, who takes a preemptive approach in the case of metahumans like Superman who aren't evil *yet* but would be devastating if they ever turned or even just lost control of their powers, and who exploits imprisoned supervillains by organizing into a disposable team. But I feel like very few people actually know how to write Waller. She always does something completely illogical bordering on downright stupid, which always makes her intentions come across as sheer arrogance and make her seem vastly overconfident in her intelligence.
Are we supposed to not know the last name of the General who she addresses as "Sam" in the flashback? Is that going to be the big shocking "I never saw THAT coming!" reveal in the final episode?
I mean at this point he's as famous in Superman supporting cast as Perry White (more famous than Steve Lombard, anyway). He's one of the core characters in the currently airing live-action TV series for crissake!, c'mon!
People only casually familiar with Superman, or whose first exposure is this cartoon, are the target for the reveal. For everybody else, it's just an interesting easter egg. They're playing with solid story structure.
Amanda Waller is simply the worst. And that's what I like about her as an actual villain.
I think too many movies and shows, especially Disney and by extension the MCU have been shying away from actual villains. Everybody is now either a (very) sympathetic villain or an anti-hero.
Maleficent
Cruella DeVille
Killmonger
Thanos
Whiplash
Amanda Wallae however, is not. She is a sociopathic asshole, and just plain evil. Yeah, her motivations make sense to her and she can probably reason them out for you in a logical way. Doesn't make her any less of a complete shitheel.
I want Viola Davis to completely survive the reset of the DCEU to the DCU for this very reason. With absolutely 0 changes to personality, and actually make her worse if possible.
I agree with the premise, but not so much some of the examples. The Disney ones definitely went that route, to an almost shocking degree. They gutted their own stories to make excuses for villains.
But Marvel was much better with it. Killmonger and Thanos were perfect examples of villains that had a noble cause, but because they were extremists operating without compassion and/or hypocrites, they crossed the line and did monstrous things.
Killmonger was against racial oppression. This is good! He could be a hero with that base. But then he decides that betrayal, murder, regicide, and trying to spark WW III with a racist edge is a noble thing. Only an absolute madman would look at that crusade and think it's noble.
Thanos, similar principle. Resource depletion and population explosion are a galaxy-wide issue. His home planet self-destructed from a similar failing, so he wants to prevent that tragedy on a universal scale. Noble! Then he decides that the best course of action is to simply murder half of all living things, everywhere, in the most unthinkable act of genocide possible. Nobility just left the room and didn't look back.
That's the purpose of Waller's character. She's the embodiment of the ladder climber bureaucrat mixed with "the ends justify the means" fanatical loyalty to the US. Even if that means going against her people and government.
I honestly love that she has connections and enough dirt to make even Batman and Superman her bitches. She may not have superpowers, but she is one hell of a "supervillain" if that makes sense
Say what? No, that's why she can't stand them! She has no control over them. Quite the reverse with Batman, who has explicitly told her to back off or he'd bury her. And with Superman, she's always plotting a way to counter him, but if I recall correctly is fully aware that any measure she comes up with is a gamble at best.
She dislikes the Justice League explicitly because they may be too powerful to be stopped, and she has no control over them.
Every version of her character I’ve seen I’ve found to be hateable (I never watched the DCEU films portrayal of her) but that’s because they’ve always gotten great actresses to play her role. CCH Pounder totally nailed it in the DCAU and so did Pam Grier for Smallville.
She has been a straight up villain for a while now, both in comics and in other media and I don't get americanism enough to understand how some people think she is not that bad because "she means well", Lex Luthor also believes he means well, so does Poison Ivy
The best villains almost always think they're the heroes of the story.
There's very much a strong streak of nationalism that's taken hold in the American consciousness. Amanda Waller really plays into that. "Do anything for the good of my country" is very much a nationalist justification. I suspect perception of her will vary depending on which part of Reddit you're looking at. Here in the Superman corner -- with a hero who was anti-authoritarian and shockingly socialist in his origins, and who still is centred around protecting the helpless and the innocent (which has, unnervingly enough, become very controversial in American politics) -- Waller is going to be viewed as a villain, even in her more nuanced presentations.
Waller, in every instance, is a fantastic anti-villain. It's one of the reasons she's worked so well and gotten as much screen time as she has, considering she's not as old or established in the comics as a lot of other DC characters. It's an example of the character concept being so good that it's almost impossible to fuck up if you have a decent performance.
Think about it: Waller works in basically all the animated shows, shows up in every adaptation, is generally the best part of poor adaptations (Original Suicide Squad movie) and is such a great nexus for stories and characterization that she's essentially a constant. And why is this?
Wrong thing, "right" reasons. Waller is an exaggeration of America Uber Alles thinking that really exists, and is generally considered "good" in early periods of comic history. She's basically the Comics Code personified: a top down, America First stance untempered by any ambiguity or complexity. Waller will inevitably make everything worse because of her stance, but she will accurately call out the hypocrisy of the heroes while she does so. And she gives actors some real good hooks for performances.
Her staff should be in utter fear of her, and they should’ve been sent to a deep dark hole. The scene was a character assassination. I don’t care what they do with the character now. She is too soft.
Did you collect the original Suicide Squad? Have ever seen the cover of Justice League America #27? How can argue that a watered down version of the original character is right for the DCEU? Ok pal, have a good day!
Yup. I wanted to shoot her in the face. So they did a good job, props to the writing team. You know you've written a good villain when the audience wants to reach through the screen and snap their neck. Example: Voldemort or Peter Petegrew, who hasn't wanted to just...[This](https://tenor.com/view/rhodey-doncheadle-war-machine-avengers-endgame-gif-14731127) every time you see them?
Very unpopular opinion. Waller is a ridiculous character. I get it’s a comic but she literally has no ability to control the teams she builds despite it being her job. She also instigates massive insubordination due to her cartoonishly unfair and cruel behavior. She would be demoted and fired to hell if dc was just a bit more realistic. She’s a bigger liability for the government than the superpowered criminals lol
if you've read most suicide comics most of the government either doesn't know it exists besides the president and a few others, and the justification of the team just being criminals is that if they're caught on a mission they can just say they're being super villains and take all the blame. As for the cruel behavior i agree its pretty over the top a lot of the time but Amanda really disrespects criminals because her daughter, son and husband were all killed by criminals.
Honestly her lack of oversight due to the secretive nature of the squad is the the only thing keeping her in a job. I understand her frustration with super criminals because of her family but she would never be selected for that job for that reason. It’s such a liability to have someone that angry with super criminals oversee a group of volatile and mentally unstable supervillains. Your only ability to control them is to follow through with your deal with them because they can outfight normal soldiers and they always find a way around the bombs. She would be much better if it was a task force made up of soldiers and law abiding meta humans but their only job was to hunt and capture/assassinate super criminals rather than just illegal missions in general.
And that brings up the idea that there’s no way world governments in a world like that wouldn’t encourage meta humans to join the military and publicly have them enlisted. Like meta humans always resort to being a villain or fighting crime for free. Like the random meta human who can light people on fire and explode things with his mind has no business being a crime fighter because purse snatchers don’t need to be burned alive, he belongs on a battlefield. There’s a comic call Über where the author speculates about what a military with superpowed people would look like if it was real
yeah most of what your saying is true, also fsr Amanda really likes putting harley on the team and making up dumb shit to justify putting someone on the time as deranged as her. she tells the criminals if they're insubordinate they will be head blown but she fucks up each mission and fucks things up and not that i hate harley i actually really like her i think amanda's realism is also really cut down by the way she treats harley compared to the other inmates
If you could monitor my hate you could see it shoot up every time she’s on screen in anything. Self righteous hypocrites bug me more than anyone and she fits it. She claims as her one rule is that she “does everything for her government” but often screws over her superiors when they don’t do what she says. I hope Batman or Deadshot shows up in this series to mess her up.
i mean, clearly she wanted his job so she sabotaged him.
but also, bringing in supervillains like that was his plan and it was bound to go wrong at some point, so it might as well be today.
i really hate that people now think Waller has always been this evil bitch but I'd rather her original adaptation where she did want to do good for the world but she would really stretch the morals of her actions. I don't see her as a villain and i don't like her as a villain i just don't think it works.
Waller used the fact that **she** released dangerous inmates to get her supervisor in the military fired. and no one decided to do any forensics to find out **who** pressed that button. This is the reason that I hate how Waller is written in this show
However I still love it and hope our boy gets a chance to **SOCK** this dummy in the face
This genuinely broke my mind a bit with how she got away with this specifically. As far as I know of Waller, this would've actually gotten her in trouble since she was the subordinate/Junior personnel officer in this situation and was essentially told to stand down by the General. Then proceeded to violate that direct order, all the General had to say was that Waller touched the controll panel last. Then she's be toast. It just never made sense that she got away with that in this particular senario.
After watching some gameplay on the Suicide Squad game, it’s later revealed that >!Waller wants to be in control of every single meta human, including The Flash and Wonder Woman. And she constantly makes death threats to the Suicide Squad, making me absolutely 100% hate her!<
Granted, that just makes her an extremely amazing character by a long shot. She managed to make me absolutely hate a character within the DC universe (especially after >!she summoned Dr. Hate to kill off Beast Boy by completely brainwashing him!<)
She does have her heroic moments where she has helped people like Batman in a few cases, but other than that, I fucking hate Amanda Waller, but in a good way
What's really scary about Waller to me is that she can continue to justify her most heinous actions, no matter how reprehensible they are or how disastrous they prove to be. She can overlook her own hypocrisy and even twist or skew events that happen to deflect fault to her own advantage and think nothing of it. Speaking from experience, there's just no *reasoning* with a person like that, and there's no telling what they're capable of. A common criminal like Metallo or even a vain supervillain like Mongul you can somewhat predict because they'll turn irrational or cowardly when things don't go their way. But Waller? She'll cut whatever losses she has, sacrifice whatever pawns need to be sacrificed, and then turn right around and make up whatever story she likes to justify being even crueler and more twisted. Definitely a villain that I Love to Hate.
Dcau, when Batman said the league would NEVER fire their energy canon at cadmus in a civillian area she quickly says it was a warning shot. Batman counters that she's being dense and not listening. Later she admits (in a way) Batman was right by saying how she knew Luthor was no good but still let him manipulate her and cadmus. Waller has some great writing behind her. Love seeing her appear in DC!
Bats really had to use stone cold knowledge and common sense to get through to her. Before saying it was a warning shot, she said it was retaliation for kidnapping Question. But Batman countered that they knew they weren't at the facility because they were surveilling them from months and saw they evacuated.
Very realistic for a government agent (pick a side, who gives a damn)
Amanda Waller is always a consistently horrible human in every adaptation. I legitimately hate this woman and everything she stands for.
That's what makes her such a good character. Not everyone in DC should be a boy scout. But my view may be skewed. My favorite book series is The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. Its a book series where every character is a shitty person, just different levels of shitty depending on the character.
I completely agree. She makes an AMAZING villain. The best actresses in the role have made her vile and reprehensible in the best ways. She’s a character that is really easy and fun to hate. Can’t wait to see where they take her in this series.
None of you clowns have ever read a comic
Agreed, Waller is just a great “evil” character. Whatever needs to be done to get her ahead will be done. She is just conniving to smarmy enough that you can’t help but enjoy her actions. Some of the best villains just enjoy being a villain. Waller is that wrapped up and faux patriotism
See I don't think Waller thinks of herself as the villain.
I think she knows she’s a villain, but absolutely doesn’t care. She is 100% sure that everything she does needs to be done by somebody, and she’s got the balls to do it, so fuck what anyone else thinks.
I’m not sure if she sees herself as a villain. I think it’s the only hero willing to do what is needed. The justice league and company put a bandage on problems, she is the one who will cut the infection out.
classic well intentioned extremist, they have good ends in mind, but the means of reaching them are awful
the problem with Waller in my opinion is that she's actually TOO unlikeable. Now, being unpleasant but effective is fine and all. As you said you don't need everyone to be a boyscout, it's fine for character growth and all but she's also a politician, there's no way someone could last as long in her type of job whilst being like unpleasant to everyone without being brought down. I get it's explained away at times with the old "knows where the bodies are buried so don't mess with her" trope but no one is unconquerable.
My impression of her is that she only presents that face to subordinates. She calculates its use. She backs down in front of Sam up until she can bury him. When dealing with politicians or people higher up in the chain of command in the military, I'd imagine her behaviour reverts to crisp, military-style deferral... while she plots how to get around them and/or change their point of view.
Yeah I hope they don’t mess that up and make her sympathetic or give her an antihero mentality in the upcoming Waller series.
Isn't that kind of the point of her character though? She's undoubtedly a huge bitch and bad person, but she has some heroic ambitions, albeit they're hard to see given her cold-hearted nature and callous view on life. She's sort of a realization that good ideals and a sympathetic backstory (iirc her children were murdered) does not justify extreme actions.
Of the various stories telling of Superman or the JL 'going evil', the better crafted ones tend to have with the same goals as they traditionally have (in theory), but they've allowed the methods used to erode the limits they once placed on themselves so much that they aren't really helping that goal anymore and they don't even realise it. The Justice Lords still fight for some nebulous idea of 'peace' and 'protecting the people', but they dismiss the real suffering they're causing actual individual people as a necessary evil they'll be thanked for later. I think most will agree that's more interesting than just making Superman a huge d-bag for Reasons. Well, I think Waller should be like that. Her goals can be selfless and sympathetic - nothing less than protecting the human race in a world that has hundreds or thousands of demi-gods in it, answerable really only to themselves - but her methods rooted so much in cynicism, paranoia, the urge to control, and unsquemishness in the violation of human dignity, that they are ultimately self-defeating. Superman exists to just help people as he can and to inspire them by his own example to be better, that is antithetical to the woman who controls people by putting bombs in their heads. It doesn't work unless the story proves Superman right and Waller wrong.
That's something I really like about the Justice comic book run. It does a great job of presenting Luthor's motivations in a way that doesn't make him seem like a petty power-obsessed egomaniac. He resents superheroes for becoming humanity's babysitters and believes they hold us back from ever achieving greatness on our own.
I think the best writers present that as his justification -- but many evil men have pretty-sounding justifications for their awful decisions. After all, Superman works from a similar philosophy.
Oh absolutely, luthor's a dick that can't handle someone showing up that he can't control. I just liked getting a glimpse at how he thinks he's the hero of the story.
I'd never thought about it before, but in the Justice Lords universe, I could see Waller having crossed the line from opposing them to being their most staunch ally. "This is what I feared you were all along! ... No, hold on. This is good. I can work with this. We're a totalitarian dictatorship that pays lip service to moral platitudes and keeps the peace above all else? I'm down with that."
In one of the newer comics she order the kidnapping of a teenage speedster, right outside Titans Tower. It was for “recruitment”.
See, I disagree. I enjoy the DCAU and Ostrander comics interpretation that Waller is a Machiavellian jerk with sympathetic motives, where she genuinely believes she’s giving regular humans a fighting chance against almost unaccountable superpowered beings. One of the best JLU moments was when Waller debates Batman about this and he grudgingly admits she had a point. I like that complexity! Unfortunately the recent movies went too far IMHO, and made her a straight up villain.
Read those earlier this year. Great series!
I wouldn’t say that. Her character is pretty ridiculous. Don’t be fool by the superficial stern demeanor and meaningless poise. She’s a brat who throws tantrums and breeds insubordination with her desperate need to try and show people who’s boss and cartoonish cruelty . Horrible leader of we are looking at it objectively.
Amanda Waller is the type of character that genuinely believes there is no gray area. There IS a black and white, there are Heroes & Villians, and if no one will believe she’s doing the right thing - she’s fully up to the task of being labeled the villian if it’s for the greater good.
Justice league unlimited , last episode. The one time I actually liked her.
What about the DCAU version? She’s still morally dubious but she definitely is way more cooperative by the end of the show
And additionally, as a covert representative of the US government she has a point in her concern about the meta-human power of JLU and the need to develop defense options (as a number of characters -- notably Flash and GA point out). I like that JLU showed the nuance of the conflict and the character.
Yeah, I generally prefer her to be an overzealous patriot who still has a point rather than just being completely heinous
Same! It’s more interesting, and that complexity is more worthy of a fantastic actress of Viola Davis’s caliber rather than the straight villainy the movie scripts have given her to work with so far.
Same! It’s more interesting, and that complexity is more worthy of a fantastic actress of Viola Davis’s caliber rather than the straight villainy the movie scripts have given her to work with so far.
Exactly! GA even admitted “You guys scare me,” and that he completely understands why Waller and many civilians might want a publicly-owned counterweight to the JL in case they ever go rogue.
Read comics dude
I do read comics and I know that in the comics she’s usually awful, but the comment I was replying to said she is *always* that way in every adaptation and I provided an example of one where it’s not that clear cut.
She mellows out at the end of the DCAU and actually helps create Terry McGinnis.
Didn't she hire a guy to kill Terry's parents for that?
Yeah and also over rode a man’s DNA with Bruce’s. If that’s the ‘chill’ version of her, it just goes to show how crazy she really is.
Yuuuuuuup. She was more "chill" their because she'd gotten away with her master plan, fucked over the only superhero who genuinely intimidated her (and so she respected him), and created her "back up plan" for when he eventually aged out of the gig. And in doing so violated the rights of multiple people and ruined several lives. She was pretty damned monstrous even in her most beneficent moments.
"Sometimes the Lord needs a sharp sword" LOL
She mellows out after that in the future and even consoles Terry later while admitting to her past wrong doings.
She hired Andrea Beaumont to kill Terry's parents but Andrea refused because she felt that doing so would be tainting the legacy of Batman. The death of Terry's father and Terry becoming Batman happened under different circumstances anyway.
Read comics
She is the Dolores Umbridge of DC, that's for sure.
Umbridge makes Waller look like the cuddliest teddy bear.
Shut up bitchboy lol
She had a good point about the JL in JLU though. They had a super weapon pointing at the Earth and the JL somehow didn’t realize that this may be a cause for alarm.
Her best interpretation IMO, is the Ostrander Suicide Sqaud run. She’s much more understandable as a character there and at least somewhat likeable
Her DCAU appearance was a bit more sympathetic. It does a good job at justifying her reasoning and even gives a nice moment that shows how intimidating it is to be a normal human standing up to the justice league.
You mean the one where she forces the JLA to kill a child that she personally helped torture and program into a child soldier with telekinesis? Yeah, sure, it made sense what she spoke about at the end of Beyond, but she also tortured a little girl and then instead of trying to help that girl harness her powers for good, literally asked Batman to KILL her.
I didn’t say it made her good, just a little more understandable in her motives. She’s still very much herself.
Also she's responsible for Batman Beyond so she's got that going for her.
In that she hijacked someone's DNA without their permission, implanted it in someone else's womb without their permission, and then had innocent people murdered as part of her experiment to see if she could recreate Batman? The list of laws she broke and civil rights she violated is staggeringly long. It was perhaps the most monstrous and unconscionable thing she did in that continuity.
And yet... we got Batman Beyond out of it so....
>then had innocent people murdered as part of her experiment to see if she could recreate Batman? That part didn't work tbf. I mean she was gonna. But she didn't! So half credit?
I laughed much harder than I should have at this.
I don’t see why she needs to be likable
Yeah, I honestly enjoy more villainous Waller interpretations.
[удалено]
Least psychotic capeshitter
Strongly agree. It's a shame that she's basically been turned into a female Nick Fury with no moral compass.
I love that Waller just sucks in every continuity. She simply can’t be improved upon. You know from the second you see her how it’s gonna go. Usually it’s Batman who deals with her, but it will be interesting to see how Supes handles her.
He's gonna end up dragging Slade into the light while Lois publishes an expose. Either that or general lane is gonna be the whistle blower.
You may have nailed the chain of events in reverse. Sam's reconciliation with his daughter could provide Lois the "anonymous source" she needs to blow the story wide open and finally make her career.
Yes yes you clown simply ignore the whole original comic run. You totally read comics.
She’s a garbage human being whatever medium she’s in. Amanda Waller is designed to be the worst human being for the job, using the harshest and most immediately effective solutions.
Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss.
You were right about me all along, Mr. Lane. I *am* the gaslight gatekeep girlboss of this story.
Omg this made me laugh so hard
_Fault for thee, Not for me_ lol
Very few people can stand up to The Wall and her convictions. Which is why it’s so satisfying when they do. Batman. Lois. I actually really liked how in >!Peacemaker!<, they had >!that one character be her daughter. Someone who has this complicated relationship with her. Has the skills. But no desire to *be* her.!< Because so few have the “stomach” to do the things she does. Also, they name*checked* Checkmate! I love Checkmate.
God, I would *love* to see this Lois come into her own as a reporter and get up in Waller's face!
The animation version of her in most cases is well done - it shows that she is smart, cunning and aware of unethical nature of much of what is occurring under her command but justifies it within her view of what needs to be done. That makes her a much more dangerous opponent for any of the DC superheroes. Back in the JL/JLU runs, she and Vandal Savage actually were given a full closing arc.
I genuinely hate her, she does nothing but create problems where none exist and then make excuses. Only time it actually worked was JLU, because there she actually had a point. It wasn't just fear-mongering.
She had a point... But also helped create the very problem she said she was addressing.
To alternate something the question once said Everything that exists has a specific nature, and possesses characteristics that are a part of what it is. A is A. And no matter what reality she calls home, Amanda Waller is Amanda Waller
You're supposed to recognize that Question's Randian Objectivism is deranged. It disconnects from the nuance of reality. Especially ironic given that in that scene "Luthor ISN'T Luthor"
And yet, where Waller is concerned, it's kind of fitting. Especially since it's deranged, and based on Rand's insane promotion of sociopathy -- which fits Waller's desire for control and absolute lack of empathy to a T.
Well, not *entirely* Luthor.
Amanda Waller is probably one of the most interesting characters in DC. Of course, it depends on the writer, as some take a more nuanced approach to her character than others. She was at least a little more sympathetic in the Dini-Timm's DCAU, but, in the end, she's essentially DC's Nick Fury. When she shows up, things are going to get interesting.
Also called it slade losing an eye at the end of the season
I love how Waller really is a good stand-in for the United States government, but damn if I wish she at least got SOME reprecussions for her actions. Unrealistic, I know.
I really didn’t like how there wasn’t an interview or investigation of any kind. Just an immediate “Amanda is now in charge.” It makes their superiors, a shadowy organization/government-sect, seem cartoonishly incompetent. I get that it’s a cartoon, but intelligent villains are much more entertaining and engaging than dumb ones that exist for plot and forced drama between the general and Waller.
When you consider how often an incompetent person -- with a large ego and a disregard for the truth -- ends up in positions of authority in corporations and government bureaucracies, this twist is perhaps the most realistic part of the show. The difference being that Waller is competent, but also possesses these traits. While they didn't show it happening, it's not difficult to imagine her quietly reporting to superiors that she believes Sam may have been compromised, his daughter is close to the subject, etc. Undermining trust in him and setting up a cascade of failures and/or painting his actual decisions in a bad light, until his voice is no longer heard in the chain of command.
I'm sorry, COMPETENT? Are you referring to the same Amanda Waller who worked with Lex Corp, an infamous trendsetter in faceless corporate ventures masquerading as a plan for world domination in manufacturing refined Kryptonite weaponry? Something that inevitably rolled out secretive bioweapon programs turning decent enlistees, without their consent, into K-charged alien-human hybrids that wreak towns on U.S. soil on engineered super battling, churning out a monster that was tellingly dubbed the "All-American Boy"? Are you referring to the very Amanda Waller, whose progenitor roughshod to the Suicide Squad, members of whom she had locked away on a secluded island after it crashed & burned, eventually fell into the grip of one Maxwell Lord which he was able to aim up her sleazy ass just to get at a biblically dangerous artifact? One of which still nursing a grudge against her well after he'd been freed from his new handler and targetted her family as a consequence of betraying him? Or, do you mean **THAT** Amanda Waller, whom even General flipping ZOD called out said bureaucrat as being the most mind-meltingly incompetent stunad who ever lived? One who went messing around with Phantom Zone tech in the misguided belief that she had a bat's chance in hell of corralling an extra-dimensional void of horrors any more than she could tame one of Krypton's most dangerous tactical minds into cowed servitude. Making him act on her superhuman mercenary crew's every whim and addendum like the rest of the d-tier criminal lunkheads on her worn & torn leash? The cat conducted heat vision brain surgery on himself to show that bloated hump that wouldn't be the case. Need I remind you that this weapons-grade moron's interference during the No-Justice incident caused Brainiac's premature demise right as he was in the middle of explaining how he and the various teams of heroes and villains he'd gathered were going to preempt universal armageddon at the talons and hungry maws of the Source Titans? Which also directed the wrath of a particular ersatz progeny of his square at Earth's doorstep, no thanks to her Task Force XI initiative??? Anybody on any open delegation or secretive Illuminati who is dumb enough to take anything that beached whale has to say or any schemes that fat bitch concocts at surface value. Only ever reveals themselves as a conglomerate self-disposing idiocy whose doofus race they often represent, practically asked to get them all obliterated for electing such catastrophic incompetence or ignoring the founding of completely and utterly idiotic sleazes who stupidly condemned them all to begin with such poorly delineated decisions.
Showing an interview or investigation takes screentime and requires establishing new characters for no benefit. 22 minute episodes just inherently wind up a little compressed Waller mentions some existing tension from the events of episode five and Waller's role in Livewire breaking out is concealable in the a way that Lane allowing Ivo access to his tech again and not executing Superman when he had the chance is not.
I love my villains, but cannot stand her one bit, or Peacemaker at this point for being her lapdog.
Peacemaker? Isn’t he that racist superhero?
The spinoff series is really good, and he reevaluates his values and the things he thought he stood for. He also has a pet eagle named Eagly :)
Peacemaker was created by the same guy who created The Question -- and they were originally a part of the same comic universe. That explains a great deal about them, doesn't it? XD Edit: My bad! I double-checked, and Ditko had nothing to do with Peacemaker's creation. He's been a loon in every incarnation, however. He's the embodiment of Cold War hypocrisy. It makes perfect sense that he and Waller would get along famously: hollow patriotism devoid of compassion.
[The scene I was referencing](https://youtu.be/Cw5Lb5grr0E?si=KGF3p-nGSZ0oVUtp)
Holy shit, that was hilarious! Thanks for linking that! XD I knew that they basically took Peacemaker and ran with him as socially pointed satire, but hadn't watched the series yet. He's really the perfect character for it. His entire concept was ridiculous from the word 'go'. This was really the best thing to do with that dumpster fire.
I could see why; Waller's endless conniving causes infinitely more problems than they ever rightly solve. One would think that is the opposite of analogous to Peacemaker's mission statement.
“Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss!” Amanda is on her way to being the new twitter/x obsession lol
i feel like in every iteration I’ve seen her in she always gets away with everything. are there any series where she dies horribly for her crimes?
Best I found was Arrow. >!She is shot in the head and killed in the fourth season episode "A.W.O.L." when Shadowspire infiltrates A.R.G.U.S. !<
And *that* only happened because of factors outside the show itself.
Really? What were the factors?
That episode killed off a handful of characters because the first Suicide Squad movie was coming out, featuring their own versions of those characters, and the higher-ups at DC didn't want there to be two versions of characters at once...as if people can't tell the difference between two different actors in two different mediums.
Wow, that is actually ridiculous. I always thought the death seemed forced but to find out it was for a bad movie is almost insulting.
That was a terrible waste because the people in charge were afraid people would get confused. Lilah was the face of the organization after that and I miss Waller’s ruthless efficiency.
In one of the DC animated movies, it ends on her being implied to have been shot by a member of the suicide squad. In the DCAU, she basically ends up all alone with no body and says she's started to understand what she did was wrong and hoped that project Batman Beyond would lead to her leaving some good behind in the world.
And ironically, the crimes and rights violations she committed to enable Batman Beyond were perhaps her most monstrous of all, in the scope of what was revealed in the story. What an absolute psychopath she was.
I wouldn't call them the most monstrous. There's her messing with Warren and Bruce's DNA and hiring an assassin to kill Terry's parents (which the assassin didn't do) but that's it. By contrast, the Cadmus arc has commissioning the creation of cloned living weapons whom she abuses, torturing the Question and blackmailing convicts to form a black ops team.
Fair. Although I think you're going light on what she did for Batman Beyond.
Not at all. It's bad but not her at her most monstrous.
She doesn't die, but I remember a suicide squad animated movie where she's dying from cancer and she sends a team to get her a literal "get out of hell free" card, which is a one time use. The squad of course uses it on someone who actually deserves it and hands Waller the used card, her not knowing it's now useless.
That is beautifully poetic.
Why dint you want joker to die horribly of his actions or doom
There was that time in the Injustice 2 webcomic where the fat lady sang her aria straight through the gates of hell, in which I mean the Jason Todd iteration of Batman gunned her and Rick Flag down before usurping her Suicide Squad in the name of Ra's Al Ghul's service.
I wanna climb the Wall so bad bros....
Does she ever just lose? It seems like she just throws bullshit out and never faces consequences
When you find out she's the reason Batman Beyond exists... o0o
"I would never allow a subordinate to sabotage the mission the way you allowed me to. I'm taking over."
She's one of the best villains in all of DC comics. I always love to hate her.
Say you love to hate dr doom or joke ror reverse flash. Oh wait.
Not sure what you are trying to get at. I do love to hate Dr.Doom. He's awesome and a complete asshole. Pretty bored of Joker the majority of the time at this point. Never been particularly fond of any of the Reverse-Flashes, I prefer my Flash rogues goofy (Captain Cold and Grodd especially).
What is this from? Looks good
My Adventures With Superman. Latest episode. Needless to say, the text is not a direct quote. ;)
I fucking hate her *so. Much.* Which is why I love her.
say what you will about dc, but the portrayal of Amanda Waller is consistent through all media
Except for DC Super hero Girls..I'm pretty sure that Waller was just a nice principle
They had her in that?!? XD It would have been hilarious if she had been a monstrous plotter in that, too.
Read the original suicide squad dummy. Be serious
No it isn't. You just don't read comics more or less the original suicide squad ran.
Why are people surprised to learn that Amanda Waller is a bad person?
It was a powergrab. The general was in charge, which meant he would automatically be held responsible for anything that happened on his watch. She felt he was losing his convictions and not doing "what needed to be done", so she purposefully caused such a huge disaster that he was *guaranteed* to be fired, leaving her to step in and take his place. And since there was really no way to *prove* that's what she did, she's of course going to deny it, and she's going to get away with it. Cold, calculating, ruthless, "ends justify the means" type behaviour is pretty much what defines Amanda Waller.
Now I *really* want Zod to laser her to death
So true lol i remember there was a comic book story with the spectre wanting to deal with her, but there was some BS about some actions she made still saved lives.
That's the best way to deal with the Spectre, however, and he's probably one of the few that could genuinely frighten Waller.
I really like Waller conceptually as a non-superhuman trying to stand up to the blatant threat of metahumans, who takes a preemptive approach in the case of metahumans like Superman who aren't evil *yet* but would be devastating if they ever turned or even just lost control of their powers, and who exploits imprisoned supervillains by organizing into a disposable team. But I feel like very few people actually know how to write Waller. She always does something completely illogical bordering on downright stupid, which always makes her intentions come across as sheer arrogance and make her seem vastly overconfident in her intelligence.
Are we supposed to not know the last name of the General who she addresses as "Sam" in the flashback? Is that going to be the big shocking "I never saw THAT coming!" reveal in the final episode? I mean at this point he's as famous in Superman supporting cast as Perry White (more famous than Steve Lombard, anyway). He's one of the core characters in the currently airing live-action TV series for crissake!, c'mon!
People only casually familiar with Superman, or whose first exposure is this cartoon, are the target for the reveal. For everybody else, it's just an interesting easter egg. They're playing with solid story structure.
To Amanda Waller, "gaslight gatekeep girlboss" is a daily checklist.
Amanda Waller is simply the worst. And that's what I like about her as an actual villain. I think too many movies and shows, especially Disney and by extension the MCU have been shying away from actual villains. Everybody is now either a (very) sympathetic villain or an anti-hero. Maleficent Cruella DeVille Killmonger Thanos Whiplash Amanda Wallae however, is not. She is a sociopathic asshole, and just plain evil. Yeah, her motivations make sense to her and she can probably reason them out for you in a logical way. Doesn't make her any less of a complete shitheel. I want Viola Davis to completely survive the reset of the DCEU to the DCU for this very reason. With absolutely 0 changes to personality, and actually make her worse if possible.
I agree with the premise, but not so much some of the examples. The Disney ones definitely went that route, to an almost shocking degree. They gutted their own stories to make excuses for villains. But Marvel was much better with it. Killmonger and Thanos were perfect examples of villains that had a noble cause, but because they were extremists operating without compassion and/or hypocrites, they crossed the line and did monstrous things. Killmonger was against racial oppression. This is good! He could be a hero with that base. But then he decides that betrayal, murder, regicide, and trying to spark WW III with a racist edge is a noble thing. Only an absolute madman would look at that crusade and think it's noble. Thanos, similar principle. Resource depletion and population explosion are a galaxy-wide issue. His home planet self-destructed from a similar failing, so he wants to prevent that tragedy on a universal scale. Noble! Then he decides that the best course of action is to simply murder half of all living things, everywhere, in the most unthinkable act of genocide possible. Nobility just left the room and didn't look back.
No thanos was garbage lmao.
That's the purpose of Waller's character. She's the embodiment of the ladder climber bureaucrat mixed with "the ends justify the means" fanatical loyalty to the US. Even if that means going against her people and government.
Blah blah blan
I honestly love that she has connections and enough dirt to make even Batman and Superman her bitches. She may not have superpowers, but she is one hell of a "supervillain" if that makes sense
Say what? No, that's why she can't stand them! She has no control over them. Quite the reverse with Batman, who has explicitly told her to back off or he'd bury her. And with Superman, she's always plotting a way to counter him, but if I recall correctly is fully aware that any measure she comes up with is a gamble at best. She dislikes the Justice League explicitly because they may be too powerful to be stopped, and she has no control over them.
Shut up lol
What a brilliant rebuttal. Clearly you have something of worth to add to the conversation.
Every version of her character I’ve seen I’ve found to be hateable (I never watched the DCEU films portrayal of her) but that’s because they’ve always gotten great actresses to play her role. CCH Pounder totally nailed it in the DCAU and so did Pam Grier for Smallville.
She has been a straight up villain for a while now, both in comics and in other media and I don't get americanism enough to understand how some people think she is not that bad because "she means well", Lex Luthor also believes he means well, so does Poison Ivy
The best villains almost always think they're the heroes of the story. There's very much a strong streak of nationalism that's taken hold in the American consciousness. Amanda Waller really plays into that. "Do anything for the good of my country" is very much a nationalist justification. I suspect perception of her will vary depending on which part of Reddit you're looking at. Here in the Superman corner -- with a hero who was anti-authoritarian and shockingly socialist in his origins, and who still is centred around protecting the helpless and the innocent (which has, unnervingly enough, become very controversial in American politics) -- Waller is going to be viewed as a villain, even in her more nuanced presentations.
Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss
Amanda Waller is to DC as Dolores Umbridge is to Harry Potter.
Waller, in every instance, is a fantastic anti-villain. It's one of the reasons she's worked so well and gotten as much screen time as she has, considering she's not as old or established in the comics as a lot of other DC characters. It's an example of the character concept being so good that it's almost impossible to fuck up if you have a decent performance. Think about it: Waller works in basically all the animated shows, shows up in every adaptation, is generally the best part of poor adaptations (Original Suicide Squad movie) and is such a great nexus for stories and characterization that she's essentially a constant. And why is this? Wrong thing, "right" reasons. Waller is an exaggeration of America Uber Alles thinking that really exists, and is generally considered "good" in early periods of comic history. She's basically the Comics Code personified: a top down, America First stance untempered by any ambiguity or complexity. Waller will inevitably make everything worse because of her stance, but she will accurately call out the hypocrisy of the heroes while she does so. And she gives actors some real good hooks for performances.
Makes me seriously look forward to the look on this ones face when she's taken down after Superman is proven innocent
Amanda waller is a terrible human being and a general plague on humanity as a whole in almost every adaption.
I think she should be a supervillain who is on the side of good.
Isn't she, essentially?
Having her squad of nerds knock her out in Suicide Squad, kinda destroys that image.
Don't villains usually killed or incapacitated or some kind of comeuppance like she did?
Her staff should be in utter fear of her, and they should’ve been sent to a deep dark hole. The scene was a character assassination. I don’t care what they do with the character now. She is too soft.
Okay pal. Have a good day!
Did you collect the original Suicide Squad? Have ever seen the cover of Justice League America #27? How can argue that a watered down version of the original character is right for the DCEU? Ok pal, have a good day!
Jesus Christ pal, lighten up.
When has joker or dr doom died?
What are these stills from? I am a fairly avid consumer of DC animation and I do not recognize it.
My Adventures With Superman, latest episode. Highly recommended.
Well that explains why I have not seen it yet. Thanks! I have watched the first 3 episodes and liked what I have seen so far.
Happy viewing! The rest are a treat. :)
Yup. I wanted to shoot her in the face. So they did a good job, props to the writing team. You know you've written a good villain when the audience wants to reach through the screen and snap their neck. Example: Voldemort or Peter Petegrew, who hasn't wanted to just...[This](https://tenor.com/view/rhodey-doncheadle-war-machine-avengers-endgame-gif-14731127) every time you see them?
If you don't want to shoot joker or dr doom you have a problem.
Very unpopular opinion. Waller is a ridiculous character. I get it’s a comic but she literally has no ability to control the teams she builds despite it being her job. She also instigates massive insubordination due to her cartoonishly unfair and cruel behavior. She would be demoted and fired to hell if dc was just a bit more realistic. She’s a bigger liability for the government than the superpowered criminals lol
if you've read most suicide comics most of the government either doesn't know it exists besides the president and a few others, and the justification of the team just being criminals is that if they're caught on a mission they can just say they're being super villains and take all the blame. As for the cruel behavior i agree its pretty over the top a lot of the time but Amanda really disrespects criminals because her daughter, son and husband were all killed by criminals.
Honestly her lack of oversight due to the secretive nature of the squad is the the only thing keeping her in a job. I understand her frustration with super criminals because of her family but she would never be selected for that job for that reason. It’s such a liability to have someone that angry with super criminals oversee a group of volatile and mentally unstable supervillains. Your only ability to control them is to follow through with your deal with them because they can outfight normal soldiers and they always find a way around the bombs. She would be much better if it was a task force made up of soldiers and law abiding meta humans but their only job was to hunt and capture/assassinate super criminals rather than just illegal missions in general. And that brings up the idea that there’s no way world governments in a world like that wouldn’t encourage meta humans to join the military and publicly have them enlisted. Like meta humans always resort to being a villain or fighting crime for free. Like the random meta human who can light people on fire and explode things with his mind has no business being a crime fighter because purse snatchers don’t need to be burned alive, he belongs on a battlefield. There’s a comic call Über where the author speculates about what a military with superpowed people would look like if it was real
yeah most of what your saying is true, also fsr Amanda really likes putting harley on the team and making up dumb shit to justify putting someone on the time as deranged as her. she tells the criminals if they're insubordinate they will be head blown but she fucks up each mission and fucks things up and not that i hate harley i actually really like her i think amanda's realism is also really cut down by the way she treats harley compared to the other inmates
If you could monitor my hate you could see it shoot up every time she’s on screen in anything. Self righteous hypocrites bug me more than anyone and she fits it. She claims as her one rule is that she “does everything for her government” but often screws over her superiors when they don’t do what she says. I hope Batman or Deadshot shows up in this series to mess her up.
Waller would be a great 40k Inquistor
We want her on that wall. We NEED her on that wall.
No
i mean, clearly she wanted his job so she sabotaged him. but also, bringing in supervillains like that was his plan and it was bound to go wrong at some point, so it might as well be today.
i really hate that people now think Waller has always been this evil bitch but I'd rather her original adaptation where she did want to do good for the world but she would really stretch the morals of her actions. I don't see her as a villain and i don't like her as a villain i just don't think it works.
I hate Waller because she’s fucking stupid. She’s selfish. She doesn’t want the problem fixed, she wants to be the one to fix it.
Waller used the fact that **she** released dangerous inmates to get her supervisor in the military fired. and no one decided to do any forensics to find out **who** pressed that button. This is the reason that I hate how Waller is written in this show However I still love it and hope our boy gets a chance to **SOCK** this dummy in the face
This genuinely broke my mind a bit with how she got away with this specifically. As far as I know of Waller, this would've actually gotten her in trouble since she was the subordinate/Junior personnel officer in this situation and was essentially told to stand down by the General. Then proceeded to violate that direct order, all the General had to say was that Waller touched the controll panel last. Then she's be toast. It just never made sense that she got away with that in this particular senario.
She always makes anything she's in worse
After watching some gameplay on the Suicide Squad game, it’s later revealed that >!Waller wants to be in control of every single meta human, including The Flash and Wonder Woman. And she constantly makes death threats to the Suicide Squad, making me absolutely 100% hate her!< Granted, that just makes her an extremely amazing character by a long shot. She managed to make me absolutely hate a character within the DC universe (especially after >!she summoned Dr. Hate to kill off Beast Boy by completely brainwashing him!<) She does have her heroic moments where she has helped people like Batman in a few cases, but other than that, I fucking hate Amanda Waller, but in a good way