#taskforce x

[docgold13]

365 DC Comics Heroes & Villains Paper Cut-Outs

Amanda Waller

Amanda ‘The Wall’ Waller grew up in a rough and economically impoverished neighborhood in Chicago. A terribly traumatic young adulthood saw Waller lose both her husband and two children to gang violence. With little else to lose, Waller recreated herself; earning a degree in political science and ultimately landing a position as a congressional aid.

Waller proved a shrewd and inventive political operator. She navigated the system with ease and quickly matriculated into the upper echelons of power. She was at the State Department when Waller discovered the existence of the Task Force X Project from the Second World War.  Seizing the opportunity, Waller successfully allocated funding for a new iteration of the program entirely under her discression.

This new Task Force X utilizes incarcerated super-powered villains; villains coaxed into service through promises of reduced sentences. . Similar to the original task force, the team has been used for high-risk, low-survival missions and has likewise garnered the nickname of the ‘Suicide Squad.’   

Under Waller’s cunning and ruthless guidance, the Squad was successful in numerous highly-classified missions where the villains conducted covert operations impossible be tracked back to the government.  The squad's successes notwithstanding, Waller’s methods found herself at odds not only with factions of the government but Batman and the Justice League as well.  

Waller was charged and imprisoned following an unsanctioned mission in which she led the team to slaughter a drug cartel in Louisiana; yet she was later pardoned and put back in charge of Task Force X.  Sometime thereafter, Waller was tapped to act as the Secretary of Metahuman Affairs during Lex Luthor’s brief tenure as President of The United States.  She has additionally acted as a part of Checkmate, Team Seven and A.R.G.U.S. 

More recently, Waller embarked on a dastardly scheme to obtain absolute power. Working in concert with Brainiac and other villains, Waller created a task force of Amazo androids who absorbed the powers of nearly every metahuman on the planet.

Her plan almost succeeded but was ultimately thwarted and Waller was sentenced to life imprisonment at Belle Reve Penitentiary. She has since mysteriously escaped and a new iteration of the Secret Six have been formed intent on hunting her down.

Versions of Amanda Waller have featured in many live action movies and television series’.  Actresses who have portrayed the character include Pam Grier, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Angela Bassett and Viola Davis.  Waller additionally appears in many animated projects, voiced by actresses CCH Pounder,  Sheryl Lee Ralph, Tisha Campbell, Debra Wilson, Kujira, Penny Johnson Jerald and Vanessa Williams.

Amanda Waller first appeared in the pages of Legends #1 (1986).  

[longwuzhere]

My Adventures with Superman Season 2 Easter Eggs

Welcome to the penultimate episode of My Adventures with Superman! Very sad that the season is ending next week but we still got the comic in the next 4 months! Hell yeah!!!!

My Easter eggs lists for season 1 is here if you haven't seen it!

My season 2 episode 1 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 2 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 3 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman comic issue 1 post is here

My season 2 episode 4 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 5 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 6 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Easter eggs and references for My Adventures with Superman comic issue 2 post is here

My season 2 episode 7 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 8 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 10 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Easter eggs and references for My Adventures with Superman comic issue 3 post is here

My Easter eggs and references for My Adventures with Superman comic issue 4 post is here

Spoilers if you haven't seen the episode

Starting things off, we see Clark, still trapped by Brainiac live a life on "Krypton" with his "family" and we see him feed a Sun Eater.

In the comics, the Sun Eater makes its first appearance in Adventure Comics #305 (1963) where Mon-El, disguised as Marvel Boy is trying to get in the Legion of Superheroes team and in order for him to pass and be accepted, one of their test was to stop a Sun Eater and Mon-El was able to successfully drive it away from a sun.

The scene that this is homaging is similar to what happened in All-Star Superman #2 (2006) [<- highly recommend everyone read it btw] where Superman feeds a Sun Eater that he has in the Fortress of Solitude, a miniature sun that he created as seen in the page below (W: Grant Morrison P: Frank Quitely, I&C: Jamie Grant, L: Phil Balsman).

In the comics most of the time Sun Eaters are depicted as nebulous black hole-esque things, other times its a creature, but the closest MAwS's Sun Eater design is based on is the Sun Eater from the Supergirl CW tv show.

Next we see "Lara", invoke Rao's name after seeing Clark feed the Sun Eater a miniature sun.

So for those who do not know, Krypton's red sun is named after Rao, Krypton's sun god.

Rao, the red sun of Krypton, makes its first appearance in Superman #141 (1960) [W: Jerry Siegel, P: Wayne Boring, I: Stan Kaye] where Superman investigates a strange planet that turns out to be a creature and as Superman chases after it, he hits the time barrier and flies back to before Krypton's explosion.

Now Rao the Kryptonian God, makes his first appearance in Superman: The Last God of Krypton #1 (1999) [W: Walter Simonson P,I,&C: Greg and Tim Hildebrandt (yes Greg and Tim Hildebrandt who designed the original UK Star Wars poster from 1977), L: Ken Lopez] where Cythonna, Kryptonian goddess of ice, emerges from her banishment and sees that Krypton is no more. She goes after the last Kryptonian, take a wild guess who, to kill the last of Rao's descendants . We see Rao in the comic where Superman and Lois go to the Fortress of Solitude to see what Cythonna's history was before Krypton's destruction.

The episode's title is a reference to Gurren Lagann (<-Great anime if you're a Studio Trigger fan) where it is a quote from Kamina who says "Your drill is the drill that will pierce the heavens." Appropriate title considering what Clark and Lois does to free Clark from Brainiac's control.

We see that Lois is still under the Black Mercy's, well, mercy and I talked more about it here.

In the Black Mercy's dream world for Clark, we see that Lois has been captured by "Jor-El" and we see Clark and Lois meet up again, however both do not have memories of each other. Clark mentions that he's always in the Hall of Science where they keep the alien species, like the Sun Eater we saw before, working as a scientist.

The first instance of the "Hall of Science" was in Brave and the Bold #28 (1960) the first appearance of the Justice League where Starro was attacking Science City, and thus the Hall of Science. The Hall of Science's association doesn't come up until Secret Origins #1 (2014)

[W: Greg Pak, P: Lee Weeks, I: Lee Weeks, Sandra Hope, C: Dave McCaig, L: John J. Hill] where we see a retelling of Superman's origins. where scientist, Jor-El was trying to warn about the planet's explosion, but the Hall of Science expelled him for his alarmist warnings thinking nothing of it. Guess how that turned out for the planet. Very cool thing to have Clark be a scientist on this fake Krypton just like his father in the comics.

Back in MAwS IRL, one of the OMACs destroys the spaceship that was carrying Lois, Jimmy, Kara, Mallah, and the Brain and when Kara, Jimmy and Lois crash land, they get arrested by Waller and Taskforce X. Lucky for Jimmy that he was live streaming and this caught Perry's attention and he, the Daily Planet, and Vicky Vale were able to stall Taskforce X so Steve Lombard can sneak behind the Taskforce X prison carrier and break the trio out.

Steve's van has wolves howling at the moon painted on its exterior kinda invokes the three wolf moon shirt (designed by Antonia Neshev) vibes.

Later when the trio are in Steve's van, we see a blink and you miss it easter egg where apparently Steve went to Jump City Community College.

Jump City is a reference to the city that the Teen Titans from the 2000 cartoon are located in. So hey we got a Victor Stone and a city where one iteration the Teen Titans were in, so the Teen Titans are possible in the MAwS universe!

Jimmy's speech to Kara kinda gives off that "you choose who you want to be" quote vibes from Iron Giant, appropriate considering the Iron Giant is a Superman fan. Good movie too highly recommend checking that movie out too.

Back on "Krypton", Clark and Lois were able to get their memories back after so many groundhog day moments for Lois and we see this cool AF moment for her paying back how Clark protected her when they were attacked in the forest by the OMACs in episode 6 of season 1.

This scene specifically^

As Brainiac loses control over Clark thanks to Lois, Brainiac puts on anti-Kryptonite armor for him and his robots thanks to Lex using his Metallos that are now powered by Kryptonite (I talk more about Metallo here). Brainiac hacks into the Metallos and prepares to fire on Earth with an Archer beam from Kandor.

The Archer Beam, well technically the weapon itself makes its first appearance in Superman: The World of New Krypton #2 (2009) [W: Greg Rucka, James Robinson, P&I: Pete Woods, C: Brad Anderson, L: Steve Wands], where the Archer Rifle was developed as a weapon to stop rogue Kryptonians as the rifle blasts red sun to depower them for 30 minutes so they can be apprehended.

And finally, after Kara blocks the first Archer beam with her body, Clark comes in to stop the second and gets a new outfit.

The new suit doesn't have the red trunks anymore and that kinda makes you think of the New 52 suit that Superman wore during the DC universe reboot in 2011 (Final page of Justice League #1 (2011) [W: Geoff John, P: Jim Lee, I: Scott Williams, C: Alex Sinclair, L: Patrick Brosseau]). Ngl not a fan of this new look for MAwS Superman. The red trunks helps break up the large areas of blue, plus symbolically it helps tie back to his origins on Earth with Ma Kent being the one to give him the trunks. Also I do not like the yellow outline S-Shield, it makes me think of the new 2025 Superman movie S-Shield, which irks me when movies try to influence the source comics, when it should be the other way around *death glares at the MCU*. Really hope we get the red trunks again by the end of the season or at least in season 3.

Anyways come back next week for the final episode of My Adventures with Superman season 2 and then in August and the following 3 months for issues 3-6 of the comics too!

My Easter eggs lists for season 1 is here if you haven't seen it!

My season 2 episode 1 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 2 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 3 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman comic issue 1 post is here

My season 2 episode 4 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 5 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 6 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Easter eggs and references for My Adventures with Superman comic issue 2 post is here

My season 2 episode 7 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 8 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My season 2 episode 10 Easter eggs and references in My Adventures with Superman post is here

My Easter eggs and references for My Adventures with Superman comic issue 3 post is here

My Easter eggs and references for My Adventures with Superman comic issue 4 post is here

[take-a-dip-in-the-deadpool]

I'm catching up on My Adventures with Superman… And holy fuck

[but-a-humble-goon]

You know Taskforce X are some dumb mfers because their plan to keep Livewire the woman made of lightning under control was a shock collar.

[sho44]

Black History Month

Day 22

Amanda Waller

[annotated-dc]

Secret Origins #14 - Ronald Reagan Greenlights The Suicide Squad

In 1986's series Secret Origins, DC published the new backstories of various characters and groups within the DCU, and in issue #14, John Ostrander established both the history of Taskforce X from the original group's formation in the Second World War through to Amanda Waller pitching the modern incarnation to Reagan that we're more familiar with.

The distinction between the two groups being that the original Taskforce X was an actual group of experts, spies or army personnel who were sent on missions that they normally wouldn't be expected to survive, while the second version consisted of supervillains and antiheroes forced to do missions in exchange for shortened sentences due to their being seen as expendable.

Somewhat ironically considering the purely antagonistic bend Amanda Waller developed in later appearances, the original intention behind the Suicide Squad was actually forcing the members to reform their behavior to prevent recidivism.

Indeed, the whole reason why Reagan gave Amanda the go ahead in the first place is that she had been working for a progressive congressman with the intention of saving the social programs that the Reagan administration had been doggedly cutting and erasing, with her having first hand experience as to why they were necessary, with the President effectively deciding to give her and Rick Flagg, Jnr Taskforce X as a way of pushing her out of mainsteam politics.

So yeah, while Amanda Waller has come to represent the evils of government over-reach with a very much "ends justify the means" attitude, the way her origin plays out is that Ronald Reagan gave her the Suicide Squad gig because he was scared the politician she was backing could potentially have run for president against him down the line.

Admittedly George HW Bush won the 1988 Presidential Election in our reality, but I'm curious what an Elseworld DCU featuring a President Marvin Collins could have turned out like.

[bloodyshadow1]

I really love My adventures with superman, but it's hilarious to see how incompetent both Sam Lane and Taskforce X are at their jobs. like on a macro level, there's no reason to force super criminals into doing your bidding when they're all tech based. Only livewire showed any connection to her tech and managed to develop powers without it, but not even Waller knew about that until ep 9.

They could have taken the tech away from them and gave it to their own soldiers like Slade. Unless I missed something and it's coded to their genetics or whatever, there's no point in keeping criminals empowered even if you have the shock collars. I know, it's Waller, they're supposed to be the suicide squad or whatever, but seriously your main defense against and alien invasion is a bunch of thugs with super technology where you have 1 guy loyal to the project suited up. The grudge against superman might have seemed like enough, but only Ivo and Livewire seemed to have real personal grudges against him, intergang with the exception of mist didn't really care even if they seemed to enjoy the beat down, heatwave was scared of superman because of Slade. It was just a bad idea

On a micro level though, you're a government agency whose sole purpose is to take down superman because you think he's this Nemesis Omega. Why dont' you at least have people scrounging every news story in the country to find out any information about him. Every paper, every news story on any station, any post on social media. An account that suddenly has millions of followers because they chronicle superman's deeds, that the owner of the account has claimed to be superman's best friend, who was able to convince millions of people to help turn the tide in superman's favor. Seriously even if you're not the top dog anymore sam, the fact that you weren't even briefed on this guy shows how bad you and your organization is at it's job

[jwilliams051197]

Just watched the sixth episode of My Adventures With Superman, and this is the best episode yet. I kind of forgive them revealing his identity early, because it leads to a great character moment in this for Clark, Lois, and Jimmy. Monsieur Mallah and the Brain, while being completely different from the comics, was a great inclusion which also tied into Jimmy's drama with Lois and Clark.

Full review on my Serializd:

jwilliams051197's ★★★★★ review of My Adventures with Superman

𝐉𝐢𝐦𝐦𝐲 𝐎𝐥𝐬𝐞𝐧: 𝘉𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘦, 𝘐 𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘢 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸, 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘶𝘵 𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘩𝘶𝘨𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦? 𝐋𝐨𝐢𝐬 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐞: 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘦? 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐊𝐞𝐧𝐭: 𝘉𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴