Wait....Wasn't Amanda Waller always evil? (Spoilers)

[DrNewGod]

The animated jsutice league series had it perfect

This! To me the best Waller is when you understand what she's doing even though you don't like it.

Agreed. I always viewed (the original) Waller as a bureaucratic in-group version of The Punisher.

[Shockingjustice]

Not going to lie the movies aren't helping either. She flat out tells the suicide squad to let Starro go, even though he would eventually conquer everything. It's the bad guys, the criminals and murderers, that have a change of heart to save the day.

The biggest thing is that no one takes into the consideration of her background and why she does this, even though that was literally the first issue of Ostranders Suicide Squad.

Right -- staffer for a liberal congressman. So how does she get to where she is. (And frankly, I haven't read anything with her in it in quite some time, so my conception of her is a person who'll send the SS (ha!) in to do whatever she thinks is appropriate with no concern as to morality. Now maybe that's the right thing for the SS, but it doesn't match where she came from. And nobody's ever referenced where she came from to my recollection, but, as I said, it's been a while, and I might just be behind the times.

[king of hybrids]

A weakness of the genre, especially ones who can’t engage with the negatives issues that result from superheroes vigilantes without making over the top parodies like the boys or Marshall law, is that government figures that aren’t on a heroes team (eg Gordon, Steve Trevor etc) have to be wrong. This quickly gets flanderized over successive generations of writers into being flanderised and treacherous until finally they are lunatic statists out to kill babies.

[Icefan]

I don't see an option I can select. The current Waller is completely out of character and doesn't have any depth compared to Ostrander's actual creation. I'm hoping this turns out to be some Earth-whatever version who has the "real" Wall tied up in a closet somewhere...

I kept hoping the same thing regarding Maxwell Lord...

[Rac7d*]

Not going to lie the movies aren't helping either. She flat out tells the suicide squad to let Starro go, even though he would eventually conquer everything. It's the bad guys, the criminals and murderers, that have a change of heart to save the day.

The biggest thing is that no one takes into the consideration of her background and why she does this, even though that was literally the first issue of Ostranders Suicide Squad.

She was gonna let starro destroy all evidence and then Superman or whoever would take it out

[Frontier]

Not going to lie the movies aren't helping either. She flat out tells the suicide squad to let Starro go, even though he would eventually conquer everything. It's the bad guys, the criminals and murderers, that have a change of heart to save the day.

The biggest thing is that no one takes into the consideration of her background and why she does this, even though that was literally the first issue of Ostranders Suicide Squad.

The moment Waller found out about the kids she would've been on the same side as Rick Flag in that movie.

[ducklord]

A weakness of the genre, especially ones who can’t engage with the negatives issues that result from superheroes vigilantes without making over the top parodies like the boys or Marshall law, is that government figures that aren’t on a heroes team (eg Gordon, Steve Trevor etc) have to be wrong. This quickly gets flanderized over successive generations of writers into being flanderised and treacherous until finally they are lunatic statists out to kill babies.

It's a weakness that crops up when your shared universe is relatively small, like say the DC movieverse. We're not seeing much of the government agencies in those, so of course they're all amoral murder factories, 'cause that's the preferred shorthand for conflict.

In a broader universe (like the DCU *used* to be), there's room for all kinds of shades of grey, from walking-a-thin-line anti-heroes (Waller) to white hats (Nemesis) to lunatic fringers (the Force of July).

It'll be interesting to see if Waller somehow gets a character reset after this latest round of crossovers. Between conquering Earth-3 and outright putting a bounty on super-heroes, she's in dire need of some Yellow Fear Bug/Evil Speed Force retcons to make her a useful character again.

[Robotman]

Not going to lie the movies aren't helping either. She flat out tells the suicide squad to let Starro go, even though he would eventually conquer everything. It's the bad guys, the criminals and murderers, that have a change of heart to save the day.

The biggest thing is that no one takes into the consideration of her background and why she does this, even though that was literally the first issue of Ostranders Suicide Squad.

overall I loved Gunn’s The Suicide Squad but I was very disappointed that he doubled down on the one dimensional heartless Waller they set up in the godawful first Suicide Squad movie.

Viola Davis is one of the best actresses around and she was wasted on this version of Amanda Waller. Maybe Gunn will give the character more nuance in the planned tv show.

The poor characterization in the movies could definitely be influencing her comic book portrayal.

[marhawkman]

Not going to lie the movies aren't helping either. She flat out tells the suicide squad to let Starro go, even though he would eventually conquer everything. It's the bad guys, the criminals and murderers, that have a change of heart to save the day.

The biggest thing is that no one takes into the consideration of her background and why she does this, even though that was literally the first issue of Ostranders Suicide Squad.

Waller in the first Suicide Squad movie was OK. Ethically questionable, sure, but didn't do anything outright evil.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Not going to lie the movies aren't helping either. She flat out tells the suicide squad to let Starro go, even though he would eventually conquer everything. It's the bad guys, the criminals and murderers, that have a change of heart to save the day.

The biggest thing is that no one takes into the consideration of her background and why she does this, even though that was literally the first issue of Ostranders Suicide Squad.

TV shows aren't helping.

In Arrow, she was willing to shoot down a freakin' passenger plane to kill some random drug dealer, and when a bunch of steroid freaks rampaged through Star City, she wanted to nuke the damn city.

In Peacemaker, the followup to Suicide Squad, you have to wonder how she ever made it anywhere in intelligence. She forced her daughter (a freakin' dog groomer) onto a black ops team with the intent to betray Peacemaker. She didn't even bother to vet her with a decent backstory!

And now, in Beast World (comics), she's now a supervillain.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Waller in the first Suicide Squad movie was OK. Ethically questionable, sure, but didn't do anything outright evil.

You and I watched different Suicide Squad movies.

In the first SS movie, Waller personally killed her red shirts before evacing, so that no one knew how she screwed up with Enchantress.

[marhawkman]

You and I watched different Suicide Squad movies.

In the first SS movie, Waller personally killed her red shirts before evacing, so that no one knew how she screwed up with Enchantress.

Oh yeah, that was such a short meaningless scene I forgot it was even there.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Oh yeah, that was such a short meaningless scene I forgot it was even there.

The entire movie was pretty forgettable, really.

[AnakinFlair]

Not going to lie the movies aren't helping either. She flat out tells the suicide squad to let Starro go, even though he would eventually conquer everything. It's the bad guys, the criminals and murderers, that have a change of heart to save the day.

The biggest thing is that no one takes into the consideration of her background and why she does this, even though that was literally the first issue of Ostranders Suicide Squad.

You and I watched different Suicide Squad movies.

In the first SS movie, Waller personally killed her red shirts before evacing, so that no one knew how she screwed up with Enchantress.

The movie version of Waller is odd. I usually like her- up until near the end of the movie, when she does something wildly out of character (as stated above). I still think Viola Davis is perfect casting, and I hope Gunn can get her character right on her next project.

I kept hoping the same thing regarding Maxwell Lord...

Well, that universe is being rebooted, so there is hope...

[The Cool Thatguy]

We need a live action CC Pounder as Waller.