Eight Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About Amanda Waller
Amanda Waller does not have powers, and she has still managed to boss people who do. If you only met her this month as Viola Davis in Suicide Squad, the comics have been building this woman since the 1980s, and they did not build her to be liked.
She came in through the Suicide Squad, running Task Force X. The job is simple to describe and awful to do. Take villains, fit them with a leash, point them at a worse problem. Waller believes the maths works. The books are rarely sure she is wrong, which is what makes her uncomfortable company.
The nickname is The Wall, and it is not a subtle nickname. She is written as immovable. Presidents irritate her. Capes irritate her more. She will work with Batman and she will not pretend she works for him.
She has been redrawn more than once. The original Waller was a larger, older, unmistakably commanding presence, and plenty of readers still treat that as the default. Later versions were slimmed down for screens. Davis splits the difference by sheer force of not blinking.
She is not a hero, and the stories get worse when they try to sand her into one. The interesting Waller does monstrous things for reasons she can defend in a meeting. The boring version is just another agency villain with a filing cabinet.
The fact people miss, and the one Davis plays so cleanly, is that Waller is frightening because she is competent. In a universe of gods, the person who did the paperwork is sometimes the final boss. She does not need your approval. That, more than any collar, is the fantasy.