Name: Amanda Waller
Universe: Post-Crisis
Alter Ego: Amanda Blake Waller
Occupation: Leader, Suicide Squad
Marital Status: Widow
Group Affiliation: Suicide Squad
Base of Operations: Mobile
Known Relatives: Joseph Waller (husband, deceased), Joseph Jr. (son), Damita (daughter, deceased), Martin (son), Jesse (son), Coretta (a.k.a. Sareetha)(daughter), Bubba (son-in-law), Mary White (sister), Flo Crowly (cousin, deceased)
Height: 5 ft. 1 in.
Weight: 200 lbs.
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown
First Appearance: Legends #1

History:
Amanda Waller's story is not a happy one, filled with great tensions, sacrifice, betrayal, death, and most recently renewal. Young Amanda Waller grew up in Cabrini-Green, a poor section of Chicago. She managed to avoid the gangs and drugs, and after completing high school at 18, she married her sweetheart, Joseph Waller Together they formed a poor, but happy family and raised their five children, despite the growing adverse conditions.

Things changed when Joe Jr. was mugged and shot by local street thugs seeking chump change. Six months later, Damita was accosted by a drug pusher known as the Candyman. When she resisted him, he grabbed her, beat her viciously and raped her, leaving her to bleed to death in an alley not far from the Waller apartment. This unhinged Joseph. Taking a pistol, he hunted down and snot the Candyman, but himself died in a hail of bullets. Amanda buried her husband and decided the time had come to better herself, protect the remaining family, and move. She kept after the others to stay in school and returned to college herself. studying psychology and political science. After the last had graduated, she told them they were on their own – her work was done. Now it was time for Amanda to begin life over.

She attached herself to Marvin Collins, a political candidate, and worked with him in his efforts to reach Washington as a congressman. In gratitude, he brought Amanda along. Once in Washington, she researched position papers and drafted legislation, most of which was aimed at improving life in neighborhoods such as the one she left behind. But she was to have a more direct role in effecting change. One day she uncovered documentation about a long-standing covert action agency called Task Force X. Fascinated, she read about its two closed divisions: the Suicide Squad, which had an international orientation, and Argent, which handled domestic situations.

Amanda then put together a plan to use the meta-human criminals in ways not previously imagined. She conceived of a rehabilitation process that would allow criminals to undertake dangerous, possibly suicidal missions in exchange for parole and a fresh start. Her thorough research uncovered the unused federal penitentiary Belle Reve, deep in Louisiana.

Her plan in place, she used her congressional connections to present her case directly to the President. He gave her the go-ahead and funding to resurrect the Suicide Squad, believing that this was one way to either reform or be rid of bothersome meta-humans. It also gave him a chance to get the politically annoying Waller out of the way of his right-wing agenda.

For a number of years, Waller saw to it that the Squad took on the dirtiest and nastiest operations of all, around the world. Waller managed the group with an iron hand, rarely allowing any questions of her motives or authority This earned her the nickname "The Wall" – yet she felt herself losing control and growing soft. Missions began to go wrong, and operatives began to flaunt their freedom and jeopardize the entire Squad.

Waller's political philosophy soon proved her undoing. Believing no one but herself fully trustworthy, Waller kept important government information to herself. Waller lost absolute control of the Suicide Squad and was forced to report to Sarge Steel, the new Director of Intelligence. Waller turned herself in to the authorities and was sentenced like a common felon. For a year, Waller was a prisoner at Belle Reve.

When the small southern European country of Vlatava threatened a tenuous world situation and the U.S. government realized there was a real need, once and for all, for a Suicide Squad, Sarge Steel asked Waller, still imprisoned, for her terms to reorganize the Squad: one million dollars a mission, plus expenses; total autonomy to run the Squad as she saw fit; and no governmental interference.

Powers:
Amanda Waller has no training in either combat or the use of weapons, but has one thing going for her that makes The Wall a match for all others: a steel will that allows her to see straight through to the heart of a problem.