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This piece originally ran in 2016.
We are republishing it on the occasion ofThe Suicide Squadsrelease and Viola Daviss return to the big-screen role.
And she was standing up to Batman!
Omer was in awe.
That moment is a decent encapsulation of what makes Waller groundbreaking in the annals of superhero fiction.
Shes calculating, contradictory, and confrontational.
She shouts down presidents and spandex-wearing crusaders.
My first reaction was, Suicide Squad?
What a stupid name for a book, Ostrander recalls.
Who would knowingly belong to something that called itself Suicide Squad?
It disappeared and was largely forgotten.
Well, who doesnt have a choice?
Prisoners dont have a choice.
That meant an operative would have to keep the project in line, ramrodding it, as Ostrander says.
Once hed come to that conclusion, Ostranders self-identified left of center leanings came into play.
She had to look formidable.
He didnt want her looks to define her, but he knew the power they held.
Waller was a big part of that.
She was Lee Marvin as an overweight, black female, says Gold with a laugh.
There was one last component she needed: a backstory.
For that, they turned to their city.
That is, unless you were a progressive activist like Mike Gold had been.
I went there a lot, he says.
I did some drug-education work there, I was involved in some protests there.
Before we even see her face, the dialogue establishes her personality: YoureAmanda Waller?
You see anyoneelsein the room?
Turn the page and you first see her face, modeled by artist John Byrne onactress Nell Carter.
Frankly, I couldnt bemoreserious, colonel!
Waller was already fully realized by her second page.
Throughout, Waller got all the best lines.
In an early story, she has a meeting with President Reagan and repeatedly takes jabs at him.
Youdoremember social programs, dont you, Mr. President?
Flip open almost any issue at random and youll find barbed zingers and scowling threats.
If I wantedcommentary, Id get George Will, she snaps at the Penguin.
So make your boytoy here take a nap and lets get on withbusiness.
She calls dangerous criminals Deadshot and Captain Boomerang Deadhead and Boomerbutt just to get under their skin.
In one particularly memorable issue, Batman infiltrates the Squads headquarters and Waller is wholly unimpressed by him.
Indeed, her demeanor witheveryonewas cold-blooded.
She didnt care if they died on a mission and was very open with them about it.
In 1992, facing declining sales, it was canceled.
She popped up in spinoff media, perhaps most notably as a sympathetic antagonist on the acclaimedJustice League Unlimited.
Sure enough, this new Waller was slender and youthful, a standard-issue female figure for the superhero genre.
DC co-publisher Jim Lee says it was done largely as a way to tie in toGreen Lantern.
No matter the motives, the move was met with an immediate outcry from fans.
You are not appealing.
You do not have the same value in society.
You, as a big, black woman, youre not attractive.
Fortunately, David Ayer wasnt interested in that new tack.
I didnt wanna do that, he says.
I feel like theres a progressive quality about the comics.
Davis seems to get exactly what made the character work when Ostrander crafted her 30 years ago.
(To be fair, thats something the 2011 reboot version did, too.)
And, in that way, I feel that Ive really done my job.
