Amanda Waller

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Amanda Waller
Species:	Human
Hair:	Black (later grey)
Eyes:	Black
Base:	Washington D.C.
Affiliations:	Project Cadmus (formerly)
Voiced by:	CCH Pounder

"You know, the Lord's been a great comfort to me all these years. Try not to look so surprised. Yeah, I've got a lot to answer for when I meet him, but I'd like to believe that for all the harm I've caused, I've also done some good. Maybe the angels need a sharp sword too." — Amanda Waller

Amanda Waller was Project Cadmus's head to counter the Justice League in the event they went against humanity's best interests. In the process, she nearly became what she feared—a force for good gone over the edge.

History

Early Life

Born in East St. Louis, Amanda Waller obtained a Ph.D in political science, went on to work in intelligence under three administrations, and later disappeared from public life after becoming involved with secret government work, and eventually with Cadmus.

Project Cadmus

At some point, Amanda Waller was appointed head of the top secret Project Cadmus, a group formed at the behest of the United States government to create a counterforce to the Justice League should they go rogue like the Justice Lords did. Perhaps the most profound relationship she had was with Batman. She knew his secret identity but she chose to keep his secret. Later, Batman confronted Waller in her own highly-secured home. While she maintained an unflinching face against him as she explained her own motivations, Waller was clearly shaken after talking to Batman while her own words eventually came to have an impact on him. Overall, many of the interactions between Cadmus and the Justice League were via these two individuals.

When the Question obtained intel on Cadmus and was captured, Waller gave orders to Dr. Moon to run a full interrogation on Question. Soon after Question was rescued by Superman and Huntress, the Justice League's Watchtower fired its binary fusion cannon and obliterated an evacuated Cadmus facility, causing much collateral damage to the city. Despite the League's scrambled attempts to restore good faith with the people, and even going as far as turning in six of the founding members as an act of good faith, Waller was too impatient to wait for the President's order, and so proceeded to deploy dozens of Ultimen clones led by Galatea to attack the Watchtower. However, Batman convinced her to investigate Lex Luthor's role in the base's destruction, and she quickly found evidence of Luthor hording massive amounts of Cadmus technology for his own use. Now convinced that Luthor was behind the attack against Cadmus HQ all along, she attempted to call off the attack on the watchtower, but Galatea refused to stand down. In response, Waller released the founding Leaguers who surrendered themselves to government custody, and personally went to arrest Luthor, stopping his attempt to transfer his consciousness into his own personal copy of Amazo. At that point, Brainiac revealed himself to Waller and the League, and she took part in the battle against Luthor and Brainiac. Unknown to the League during this battle, Waller had ordered a massive airstrike on standby to kill the combined villains, the Leaguers, and even herself should the heroes have failed to stop the menace. Since the League were able to defeat the two fused villains, however, Waller aborted the air strike.

Government Liaison

At some point afterward, Amanda Waller replaced King Faraday as the official liaison between the U.S. government and the Justice League. Together, they fought a reconstituted Royal Flush Gang led by Ace. After the League defeated the gang, Waller gave Batman a device to put down Ace without the risk of her causing a catastrophic psychic backlash, at the cost of her life. Although Batman took the device and met with Ace alone, the Dark Knight never intended to use the device. Knowing that Batman wanted to ask her to undo the effects of her powers, and knowing she has only a small moment left to live, Ace tearfully asked that Batman stayed with her, so he consoled her with his company until her time passed, and the reality she psychically warped is peacefully restored. This is a moment Waller would always remember that helped permanently solidify her respect and trust in Batman for the years to come.

With Cadmus's disbandment, she declared the personnel (including herself) lucky to avoid jail for their extreme measures. Her newfound reason was demonstrated when she refused to hear out Wade Eiling when the General tried to convince her that the League still could not be trusted.

Project Batman Beyond

Amanda Waller overseeing Project Batman Beyond.

During her encounters with the Justice League, Amanda Waller developed a great admiration for Batman and came to believe that someone like him would always be needed. As she watched Batman age, however, she realized he wouldn't be around forever so she used her old Cadmus connections to devise a plan to make a new Batman. Obtaining samples of Batman's DNA after another battle was easy enough. Afterwards, Waller found a young Neo Gotham couple with almost identical psychological matches to Batman's parents. Under the guise of a flu shot, a nanotech injection had secretly overwritten Warren McGinnis's reproductive material into a copy of Batman's. A little over a year later, Terry McGinnis was born as the genetic son of Mary McGinnis and Batman. Several years later, Waller hired an assassin to murder Terry's parents at the same age and under very similar circumstances to recreate the childhood trauma that began the original Batman's journey into a vigilante. However, the assassin, realizing that she would be dishonoring everything Batman stood for, refused to subject another child to the same tragedy. When she realized she had crossed a line, Waller scrapped the project.

Yet years later when Terry was a teenager, fate seems to have intervened when Warren is murdered during a corporate crime, and Terry meets and confides in Bruce Wayne, his genetic father. With Bruce training Terry as the new Batman, Waller's project came to an unexpected success.

Meeting the second Batman

File:Epilogue.jpg

Amanda Waller talking with Terry McGinnis.

Years later when Bruce Wayne suffered kidney failure and required a tissue donor to clone new ones, Terry McGinnis discovered that he's Batman's partial genetic copy. Angry about his seemingly deprived life and identity and knowing that Cadmus was the only group to have technology advanced enough to alter DNA, the second Batman confronted Amanda Waller at her house, where she had been waiting for his visit for a long time. Waller revealed to Terry that he's Batman's son and that she has been keeping an eye on him his whole life. Waller convinced Terry that Batman was a great man whom she respected, and that Terry is not Batman's clone but his son and that he lived up to the Batman mantle very well, but he was still his own man and free to live his own life. She finally gave Terry some advice: hold on to the people he loves which his biological father never could.

Personality

Amanda Waller was an amoral woman, stopping at almost nothing to accomplish her goals. Her actions followed an ends justifies the means as she believed her actions, however immoral they were benefits her country. She was also very skeptical of the Justice League, over time learning to respect Batman. Overtime, she began to imagine a world without Batman and believed it was "unimaginable" and decided to create a new Batman using Project Cadmus equipment, naming the project Project Batman Beyond despite the fact this technology had been illegal for roughly ten years when this project took place. This project included manipulating the reproductive material of Warren McGinnis into an exact copy of Bruce Wayne, resulting in the legal son of Warren and the biological son of Mary McGinnis. The final step of this project however, included killing the young couple when Terry turned eight after leaving from an action film. However, when Waller's assassin refused, Waller did display some humanity in her, having realized she nearly crossed the time by subjecting another child to the same horrors Bruce experienced, she ultimately scrapped the project.

During her old age, Waller seems to have mellowed down, and has acknowledged all of the harmful things she's done to people. She also seems to be religious as she stated she has much to answer for when she meets God when she dies.

Background information

In DC comics, Amanda Waller was the government handler of the Suicide Squad and has always walked the line between good and evil in her actions, once serving a prison sentence over her attempt to take down an organized crime unit. Following Lex Luthor's election as President of the United States, she was appointed Secretary of Metahuman Affairs, but was fired by Pete Ross's term.

Most recently, during Countdown to Final Crisis, she is the head of Checkmate and launched Operation: Salvation Run to exile various supervillains to another planet to prevent them from harming others. Although believed to an uninhabited world, the planet was later revealed to be a part of the Apokoliptian Empire and a training ground for Parademons. Waller's colleagues forced her to resign following the villains' return.

CCH Pounder reprises her role of Amanda Waller in two DC Universe Animated Original Movies, 2009's Superman/Batman: Public Enemies and 2014's Batman: Assault on Arkham, as well as the 2013 video game Batman: Arkham Origins, although none are in the same continuity with the DCAU.

Appearances

Justice League Unlimited

• "Ultimatum"
• "The Doomsday Sanction"
• "Task Force X"
• "Clash" ^(Cameo)
• "Question Authority"
• "Flashpoint"
• "Panic in the Sky"
• "Divided We Fall"
• "Epilogue "
• "Flash and Substance" ^{(Mentioned Only)}
• "Patriot Act"

External links

• Amanda Waller at Wikipedia
• Amanda Waller at the DC Database

Project Cadmus
Members
Leader	Amanda Waller
Sponsor	Lex Luthor
PR / Manager	Maxwell Lord
Division Heads
Genetics	Emil Hamilton
Psychology	Hugo Strange • Moon
Splicing	Milo
Mysticism	Tala
Military Tactics	Wade Eiling
Agents
Captain Atom • Doomsday • Galatea
Ultimen	Downpour • Juice • Shifter • Long Shadow • Wind Dragon
Task Force X	Captain Boomerang • Clock King • Deadshot • Rick Flagg • Plastique