Amanda Waller: Who Leads Task Force X?

Welcome to Task Force X

A woman wakes up. She makes breakfast while listening to the news. The Justice League has welcomed three new members. President Luthor advocates for new legislation against aliens. A magical plague was stopped in New Orleans overnight. The woman eats, dresses, and walks through her front door.

She enters an elevator and descends down into the depths of a secret facility. Arriving at her desk, the woman reads the dossiers she’s ordered for available recruits. She grimaces. The clown girl, the Aussie, and the assassin again. That’ll be a headache. Amanda Waller exhales and steels herself. Task Force X won’t run itself.

Amanda Waller is DC Comics’ most divisive character. She can be an unscrupulous hero one minute, the vilest villain the next, and has outsmarted every superhuman for years. So who is Amanda Waller? How did she become so powerful? At her core, is she good or evil? Let’s find out. Decrypting the file… now!

Building The Wall: Amanda Waller’s Backstory

Amanda Waller debuted in Legends #1 in 1986. She was created by John Strander, Len Wayne, and Jon Brein. They based her design and personality on Nell Carter from Gimme a Break!

Amanda Waller was a housewife living in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green Homes. Her son was murdered by a mugger. Soon afterward, her daughter was killed by a rapist while the neighbors ignored the attack. Mr. Waller killed the rapist, but died doing so. 

Waller left Chicago with her remaining children, struggling to raise them on welfare. The tragedies hardened her heart. She swore to never be beholden to anyone again. Waller became a government employee and rose through the ranks. Coworkers nicknamed Amanda “The Wall” for her stout appearance and refusal to be intimidated by anything.

Amanda Waller was assigned command of Task Force X, a defunct black-ops division. Studying her predecessors’ failures, she developed a scheme to recruit supervillains with promises of a government pardon. To control them, she injected microscopic bombs into their necks. If they disobeyed orders or tried to run, she could kill them at will. Waller’s plan worked and the villains became her personal strike force: The Suicide Squad

Suicide Squad: Amanda Waller’s History

The Suicide Squad stepped into the spotlight during Legends. Earth’s superheroes were legally barred from fighting crime because of an alien manipulator. Said manipulator unleashed a monster that the Squad killed, though one of their members also died. The U.S. government gave Waller authorization to assign the team more suicide missions.

Waller was given Belle Reve Penitentiary as a base to help mask the missing supervillains. She recruited morally-ambiguous agents to help keep the Suicide Squad under control. Col. Rick Flag became her field leader and second-in-command. Heroes including Bronze Tiger, Katana, Oracle and Peacemaker have also worked with the squad to help keep them morally grounded.

Amanda Waller consolidated power as The Squad completed missions. The Justice League knew about her, but reluctantly accepted that she was necessary for missions they wouldn’t accept. Waller bit off more than she could chew by illegally exiling much of the supervillain community to another world. They returned rip-roaring pissed and exposed Waller’s actions, leading to her arrest.

…Corrupts Absolutely: Amanda Waller’s Modern Stories

The U.S. government freed Waller because she was an indispensable asset. She was placed in charge of superhuman spy organization Checkmate as its White Queen. Waller used her new position to expand her reach into the hero and villain communities.

Waller reclaimed Task Force X, which was revealed to be the tenth iteration of the program. She created new specialized Task Forces, including undead Task Force Z and psionic Task Force XI. Waller also made contact with new allies. A highly-advanced cyborg called The Brainiac Queen viewed Waller as her mother while a rogue Batman-created AI called Zur-En-Arrh forged plans to neutralize superhumans. 

Amanda Waller combined her allies’ abilities to create an army of power-stealing Amazo androids. Waller’s forces closed off the timestream, the multiverse, and other avenues for reinforcements to prepare for her final solution for the superhuman problem: stealing all of their powers and killing anyone who continued to resist. That story is ongoing.

Large and In Charge: Amanda Waller’s Powers and Personality

Amanda Waller doesn’t need superpowers. She is a strategic genius who is also a marksman, tactician, and martial artist. Waller advises the Suicide Squad on their missions, but is willing to lead from the front when necessary. On one occasion, she held her own against Granny Goodness, an alien god comparable to Wonder Woman.

Waller’s greatest strength is her willpower. She can resist powerful psychic attacks launched by Maxwell Lord or The Thinker’s helmet. Her psychic resistance is apparently fueled by Waller’s pride and need for control. Waller is also able to intimidate supervillains and is one of the only people that Batman fears.

The phrase “I did what I had to do” escapes from Amanda Waller’s lips more often than air. She started out willing to perform dirty deeds for the greater good, but has slipped into using them as her first resort. Waller will never admit it, but the heroes she employs are meant to be her Jiminy Cricket. She believes herself a monster and acts accordingly, hoping that some good will come from her damnation.

The Actors Who Play Amanda Waller

C.C.H. Pounder – Justice League Unlimited, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, others
Pam Grier – Smallville
Cynthia Addai-Robinson – Arrow
Tisha Campbell – Harley Quinn
Debra Wilson – My Adventures With Superman
Kujira – Suicide Squad Isekai
Viola Davis – Suicide Squad, The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker, The Creature Commandoes

Didya Get All That?

Hero or villain, no one crosses The Wall.

Photo by Clay Enos – © 2015 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Ratpac-Dune Entertainment LLC and Ratpac Entertainment, LLC\

Jared Bounacos

Jared Bounacos has written for Movie Rewind since 2016.