Warning: Spoilers forAbsolute Power: Origins#1
Summary
Ordinarily,BatmanandAmanda Wallercouldn’t be more unlike one another. One is a rule-breaker who, after a death in an alleyway, took an oath to stop all crime. The other one is Batman. That’s right: with the reveal of Amanda Waller’s updated backstory, it seems that these two disparate characters, hero and villain, might just have more in common than previously supposed.
As DC crumbles under its catastrophicAbsolute Powerevent, Amanda Waller’s motivations come to light in a new tie-in series about the event’s “big bad.” InAbsolute Power: Origins#1 by John Ridley and Alitha Martinez, ina fascinating parallel to Batman’s own origin story, Waller’s daughter is killed in an alleyway, and her husband, trying to avenge their daughter, kills the masked villain responsible, Candyman, but dies in the process.
Like Batman, Amanda Waller is the only survivor, and she now has a hatred for criminals, for people in masks, and for any who take the law into their own hands and fail. Readers are reminded of Bruce Wayne’s oath to avenge his parents in the issue’s opening pages, and laterWaller makes a similar oath to “avenge my family.”
ABSOLUTE POWER #1 Kicks DC’s Summer Event Off Right with High-Stakes Drama
DC Comics’ big summer event Absolute Power is finally here and it kicks off with an opening chapter that fans are not going to want to miss.
Amanda Waller Is Just as Dedicated as Batman
Amanda Waller Makes an Oath
When his parents were murdered in front of him, Bruce Wayne took an oath to become the Batman and to stop the very crimes that had ruined his life. NowAmanda Waller finally gets a backstory just as tragicbut in a complementary way. DC sets her up not only as a parallel to Batman but as his opposite: he’s the child who watched his parents die, while she’s the mother who watched her daughter and husband die. Batman still looks at the world as a child trying to save his parents, while Amanda Waller looks at the world as a mother that knows the world needs punishing.
For more about Waller’s current-day plans in the lead-up toAbsolute Power, check outSuicide Squad: Dream Teamby Nicole Maines and Eddy Barrows, available now digitally from DC Comics. The collected edition is available December 10th, 2024.
Finalizing this likeness to the Bat, she makes an oath that decides her purpose, and it’s not just criminals she’s after. She swears to avenge her family by going to war with everyone involved in the superhero world, and she will take any measure against those masked individuals, just asBatman would do anything to stop crime in Gotham.She has no supervillain codename and no secret identity; she’s Amanda Waller, andshe brought down all of DC’s metahumans as just a non-powered human with a vicious oath, as witnessed inAbsolute Power#1 by Mark Waid and Dan Mora.
Is Amanda Waller Actually Better than Batman?
Waller Leads the Iconic Suicide Squad
Wrestling control of the world from all heroes, her actions seem completely unforgivable, but with her motivations revealed, it is explained how, like Batman, it’s really a personal hurt that’s driving her to such extremes.This mother would do anything to save her dead daughter.Amanda Waller is what Batman would be if he tried to use the American governmental and political system to his advantage to stop criminals instead of working alone and outside the law as a vigilante. While this distinction makesWaller one of the cruelest villains in the DCU, she might just save the DC Universe by killing all the villains.
Batman’s no-kill rule is trumped by Waller’s deadly message to her own Suicide Squad: if they commit a crime again, the bombs she planted in their necks go off. Her hatred for criminals exceeds even the Dark Knight’s, as she punishes the heroes who let the villains live.And so far, she’s winning her war as she accomplishes what evenBatmancouldn’t: ridding the world of masks of all kinds, and not as a hero or a villain, but asAmanda Waller.
Amanda Waller
Batman
One of DC’s most iconic heroes, Batman is the vigilante superhero persona of billionaire Bruce Wayne. Forged by tragedy with the death of his parents, Bruce dedicated his life to becoming the world’s leading martial artist, detective, and tactician. Recruiting an entire family of allies and sidekicks, Bruce wages war on evil as the dark knight of his hometown, Gotham City.
