- "Embrace your inner darkness."
- — Amanda to Oliver Queen
Amanda Waller (died January 2389), known under the codename Mockingbird or her nickname The Wall, was a female Human who was the corrupt director of A.R.G.U.S. and leader of the Suicide Squad. She was killed by Shadowspire during their attack on the organization.
Biography[]
Association with Edward Fyers[]
Edward Fyers' employer
In order to eliminate China White, Waller sought out Yao Fei Gulong on the island of ian Yu. She maintained radio contact with Edward Fyers. On the island she had been shipping military weapons to take down a plane headed for China which contained China White. Right before this, Edward contacted her and told her how the plan was coming together. However, the plan soon failed due to Oliver Queen and Slade Wilson's intervention, and Fyers and all of his men were killed.
Association with Oliver Queen[]
Alpha-Omega bioweapon attack[]
She witnessed Oliver Queen's combat abilities on the island via Keyhole Hexagon satellite. She saw Queen fight and supposedly kill Wilson on the Amazo. After she saw Oliver fall off of the Amazo, she sent in a team to rescue him, seeing him as a potential agent. After Waller had Oliver captured, she moved him to China.
Oliver wakes up in Hong Kong
Waller tried to force Oliver to work for her. She assigned agent Maseo Yamashiro to be his handler. After numerous failed attempts to escape, Oliver agreed to proceed with his training to prevent Waller from killing Maseo's family as punishment for his failure in restraining Oliver. Later, Amanda ordered Oliver to kill Tommy Merlyn after Oliver tried to access his email account during his previous failed escape attempt. Oliver, with Maseo's help, found a way around it so that Tommy could be spared.
Amanda told Maseo to order Oliver to kill "a terrorist". She is summoned to meet with Oliver to her annoyance. She revealed to Oliver she knows he prevented Ferris Air flight 637, Paris to Hong Kong from being blown up over Lian Yu. However, Oliver revealed he knew Waller was the one who ordered Edward Fyers to shoot down the plane, based on the data from a USB drive he picked off of Adam Catswidth, the "terrorist" she had him murder. He knows that Catswidth was Fyers' handler and that Amanda wanted him silenced. Oliver threatened to expose her actions if anything were to happen to Maseo's family. Amanda admitted and revealed to Oliver that Fyers' operation was to assassinate one target; Chien Na Wei AKA China White, and he saved her life. Amanda told him that she needed to know why Chien is in Hong Kong.
Oliver and Maseo were able to discovered that White was after the Alpha-Omega Virus, which she planned to sell to the highest bidder. They failed to recover the Alpha half of the virus, but Waller gave them another chance. She revealed that Omega was in the possession of the Hong Kong military. After recovering Omega, Maseo asked when A.R.G.U.S. would rescue his wife, Tatsu, after she was kidnapped by White. Waller revealed that she had no intention of doing so. She suspected a betrayal and switched the Omega with a fake, which Maseo and Oliver would try to trade for his wife's life.
Amanda gave the two men a chance to redeem themselves. White had flown to Starling City in order to sell the Alpha half of the virus, surmising that the other half could be recreated later. The two men were successful in taking down White and attaining Alpha. They were then approached by Waller and General Matthew Shrieve, who revealed that they had to be debriefed back in Hong Kong.
After general Shrieve removed her authority as the leader of A.R.G.U.S. for committing unspeakable acts, Amanda was then held hostage by general Shrieve who planned on using the bio weapon on Hong Kong, in order to destabilize the Chinese economy. Waller revealed she had no involvement with Shrieve and told Oliver to get as far away from Hong Kong, hoping they could meet again one day. She also revealed the existence of a vaccine, which ended up saving Oliver, Tatsu, and Maseo.
Shadowspire operation[]
Oliver and Waller on Lian Yu
Over five months later, Waller once again sent Oliver on another mission: to return to Lian Yu to investigate the drug harvesting operation from a criminal organization called Shadowspire. After killing Baron Reiter and his army, Amanda visited Oliver on Lian Yu and he realizes that the true purpose of this mission was to retrieve a mystical idol for A.R.G.U.S.. Oliver no longer cooperated with her, but they will see each other again a few years later.
Assembling the Suicide Squad[]
Amanda captured John Diggle telling him that she needed his help to rescue Lyla Michaels as she had gone dark in Moscow. She parted with a statement saying that A.R.G.U.S. was aware of what Oliver and he did at night.
Amanda offered Ben Turner an employment opportunity for a "squad" (The Suicide Squad/Task Force X) in order to shorten his prison sentence.
Waller visited Lyla and Diggle at a hotel and requested both of their assistance to handle a chemical weapon situation, organised by Gholem Qadir an old friend/enemy of Diggle's stationed in Markovia. Waller then tasked them with getting the Suicide Squad into position to take down the chemical weapons and terminating Qadir. Phase one of the plan, getting Qadir's phone from him at an art exhibition, succeeded, but Shrapnel attempted to flee and Waller activated the bomb in his head as punishment. Later, when the squad found the chemical weapons, Waller sent in a drone strike to terminate the threat but intended to take Deadshot and dozens of civilians with it. However Diggle convinced Deadshot to flee with him. Since Waller's drone was homed in on Deadshot's tracking chip, Lyla was forced to cut it out of his neck and throw it away. The re-directed strike caused Waller to have to deal with the Markovian government on "unprovoked drone attack". Later, Oliver Queen visited Amanda in her office and the two meet since his time in Hong Kong, to inform her that Slade Wilson, who Amanda believed to be dead just like Oliver did is still alive. When Oliver asked for information on Slade, Amanda told him about a new mercenary named "Deathstroke" who she believed could be their old nemesis.
Amanda and Harley Quinn
John Diggle and Felicity Smoak contacted Amanda to find Oliver after he had disappeared after Moira Queen's death, Amanda revealed that Oliver was at his second base. She sends A.R.G.U.S. soldiers to Starling City to cut off Slade Wilson's army from leaving the city when his invasion begins and was soon contacted by Oliver demanding she call off her men, but she retaliated by reminding him that she must do what she has to in order to defend the country and that was to send an armed drone to Starling City.
She over saw the operation of A.R.G.U.S. soldiers in Starling, unaware of a squad she sent were killed by Slade's army, she is soon held hostage by Diggle, Lyla and Deadshot where she revealed to Diggle that Lyla was pregnant with his child. She called off the drone after Oliver called her again and told her that Slade and his army were defeated.
Mission in Kahndaq[]
On October 13, 2380 in Paris, Amanda discussed the problem of Onslaught with Nanietta Bacco. She claimed partial responsibility for it all, though admitted that she'd never publicly say anything of the sort. The president asked for Amanda to put a stop to them, to prevent any wars, and she claimed to have the perfect team.
After this incident, Waller sends Suicide Squad to deal with a situation in Kahndaq where terrorist members of Onslaught begin executing a lot of people under the leadership of Khem-Adam who wants to save a country from foreign influence. Her squad is successful in killing members of the group, except for Adam who is taken away by Nyssa al Ghul and Sara Lance in Nanda Parbat where he is executed by a member of League of Assassins. Also, one member of the team, Ben Turner, died in this mission.
Kasnian extract mission[]
Waller sent Suicide Squad (consisting of John, Lyla, Floyd Lawton, and Carrie Cutter) in Kasnia to release Senator Joseph Cray who was held as hostage by terrorists, but this was revealed to be a ruse by Cray, who wanted to be a hero in Kasnia so that he could get presidential election in the USA. The squad killed many mercenaries and pulled out many hostages from hospital building but they were still pursued by enemies, which Deadshot prevented them from hospital's roof and sacrificed himself to save other members when the building exploded. Lyla and John persuaded Waller to admit the truth of the mission to the world, but denied to do this due to the delicate situation in Kasnia, which left Lyla and John bitter about her way of leading A.R.G.U.S. and they quit from the agency.
Shadowspire and death[]
Shadowspire's attack
After John and Lyla witnessed the abduction of A.R.G.U.S. agent Alan Chang, they visited Waller, who secretly revealed Chang was part of an off-the-books A.R.G.U.S. mission to take down the criminal paramilitary organization Shadowspire. Chang and two other agents were killed by Shadowspire under the command of Lieutenant Joyner. Their plan to steal a shipment of railguns confiscated by A.R.G.U.S. turned out to be a diversion, distracting Team Arrow while Shadowspire went after their real target: A.R.G.U.S. headquarters. Joyner demanded Waller give him access to Rubicon, threatening to kill more A.R.G.U.S. agents if she did not. Waller told him it would not matter how many people he killed, and when Lyla confirmed Waller doesn't make decisions based on the value of human life, Joyner shot Waller in the head, hoping Lyla would prove more easily blackmailed. Team Arrow, with help from John's brother Andy (who had previously worked with Shadowspire), defeated Joyner, but it was too late to save Amanda.
Legacy[]
After Amanda's death, Lyla Michaels had a toast with Oliver Queen to honor her, as she still had some respect for her former superior. However, Oliver on the other hand was reluctant to do so, as he was unable to forgive Amanda for everything she had done to him.
No one (except Lyla) mourned or grieved over Amanda's death. Sometime after her death, Lyla succeeded Amanda as the director of A.R.G.U.S., unlike her predecessor, Lyla has morals and honor, as well as the fact that she makes decisions based on the value of human life.
Lyla has taken it upon herself to undo all the damage Amanda had caused over the years during her predecessor's time as the director of A.R.G.U.S..
Personality[]
Amanda was described as "formidable and enigmatic"; lacks any form of emotion, morals, remorse and honor, always caring more about the bigger picture, though Amanda presented herself as in charge of apprehending and countering dangerous threats to the Federation, she was equally - if not more - callous and brutal as the criminals she apprehended; for example, she casually murdered Mark Scheffer by detonating a bomb in his spine when the latter tried to abandon Task Force X. Similarly, she had no qualms in sacrificing her own agents, referring to them as her "assets".
Amanda's top priority was to protect the United States, no matter what the cost. Her actions followed an "ends justify the means" philosophy, in pursuit of which she could utterly detach herself from any personal feelings. Stemming from this, if she believed the final result was worth it, she would take that any action means necessary. As a result, she endorsed the use of torture while interrogating suspects as well as assassination to remove associates of hers who would be likely to expose her. Because she believed Oliver would make a valuable asset, she was willing to use his newly-acquired morals to get him to work for her, as when she wanted Oliver to become one of A.R.G.U.S.'s agents, she threatened to murder Maseo's family if Oliver did not cooperate, and later, when she threatened Oliver's sister, Thea, if Oliver did not tell her where the Yamashiros had escaped to. She believed Chien Na Wei was so much of a threat that she was willing to blow up a plane full of innocent people to kill her. When Slade Wilson launched his siege, she planned to use a drone strike to bomb Starling City, later known as Star City, she had no guilt or remorse for these vile acts of hers. Amanda tried to justify her ruthless and immoral actions in the belief that there are people in the world that were beyond reason, "that deal only in extremes", and that it would be "naïve to think that anything less than extreme measures will stop them".
Amanda was arrogant, hypocritical and stubborn; when general Matthew Shrieve removed her authority as the director of A.R.G.U.S., she blamed Oliver and Maseo for it, when it was actually due to her own unspeakable methods. Furthermore, when John Diggle, Lyla Michaels and Floyd Lawton held her at gunpoint, Amanda refused to back down and even claimed to Lyla that "what (she's) doing is treason" while the former had ordered a drone strike on Starling City - a civilian zone - without authorization from the Federation government; proving that she always tried to twist things in her favor.
Amanda was not always without reason or restraint, as she agreed to call off the drone strike when Oliver reported that he had subdued Slade and his army, as there was no longer a need to attack. She was intelligent enough to recognize possible talent.
As confirmed by Lyla, Amanda never "made decisions based on the value of human life"; which eventually led to Amanda's deserved death at the hands of Joyner. Upon discovering the existence of meta-humans, Amanda planned to weaponize their powers, only seeing these super-powered individuals as tools to be exploited; proving just how sociopathic and delusional she truly was.
Abilities[]
- High-level intellect/Expert tactician/Leader: Amanda was a highly intelligent individual, an excellent tactician and leader.
- Expert interrogator/Torturer: Amanda used various forms of blackmail and torture to make her victims submit to her will.
- Expert markswoman: As the director of A.R.G.U.S., Amanda was skilled in the use of firearms and phasers.
- Network: As the director of A.R.G.U.S., Amanda has many contacts.