Black Adam’s strangest DC cameo puts the Suicide Squad’s boss in charge

James Gunn and Peter Safran will be co-rulers of Warner Bros.’ new DC Studios department, according to a Warner Bros. announcement on Tuesday. But in DC Studios’ sprawling cinematic universe, there’s apparently only one head honcho capable of directing the biggest superheroes on the planet.

The new movie Black Adam, James Gunn isn’t in charge of the DC film universe, but neither is Black Adam. Amanda Waller is. Amanda Waller, the woman who distrusted superheroes so much she created the Suicide Squad, is apparently in charge of all of the DCU’s superheroes now.

[Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for Black Adam.]

Warner Bros.

By the end of David Ayer’s 2016 movie Suicide SquadViola Davis portrays Amanda Waller as a coerced supervillain who is run by a corrupt government operative. Batman is about to stop them. By the end of James Gunn’s Suicide Squad, she’d been usurped by her own home-base operatives, who knock her unconscious with a golf club. The last we saw her, at the end of the first season of James Gunn’s 2022 series Peacemaker, she’s somehow still a ruthless government operative whose destructive mismanagement (twice!) Global media exposed the identity of this team of coerced supervillains. The In Black Adam, she’s apparently rolled out of that scandal with enough clout to dispatch an entire elite superhero team to the other side of the planet — and “call in a favor” to give Superman orders as well.

Waller first appears in Black Adam on a video screen, telling Hawkman to suit up, put together a team, and capture an extremely powerful superhuman who’s just emerged in a foreign country. Hawkman — who spends more time than anyone else in the film insisting superheroes should adhere to rigid ethics — agrees right away. There’s no indication that he finds anything unusual about taking Waller’s orders.

She appears again in the film’s mid-credits scene, via a drone-mounted hologram, to give Black Adam some stern words and warn him that she’s asked someone to check in on him. The person turns out (as). Black Adam’s production hinted extensively) Henry Cavill as Superman. At the risk of repeating myself, Superman is, to all appearances, talking to Black Adam at the behest of Amanda Waller, whose claim to fame is putting bombs inside murderers’ heads in order to force them to commit war crimes.

Logistically, commercially, it’s easy to see the narrative function of Waller’s increasing reach and power. Amanda “The Wall” Waller is just about the only consistent connective tissue the DC films have, and while there’s a lot to dislike in Ayer’s Suicide SquadViola Davis was meant to portray her. DCEU has a strong brand and wants people to remember they have an Oscar nominated actress in the central role. It is evident that her appearances continue to show how Agent Coulson was a key part of the connection between the first round Marvel Cinematic Universe movies.

This is the problem with Black AdamIt makes the mistake of thinking that Nick Fury is Amanda Waller.

Image by Marvel Studios/Disney

It’s easy to criticize this as a misinterpretation of her character in the comics. The comics version of Waller doesn’t assemble superhero teams — she hates and mistrusts superpowered people, unless they’re fully under her thumb and no one else’s. DC’s comics universe is often labeled as having more of a black-and-white morality than Marvel’s comics: Even Black Adam itself makes much hay out of the idea that the Justice Society’s rigid code leaves them ineffectual and unrelatable. But Amanda Waller’s entire deal is doing whatever it takes to keep humanity safe from superpowered people, with absolutely no limits.

Amanda Waller directing the actions of the Justice Society isn’t simply inconsistent with DC’s comics, it’s also inconsistent with Warner Bros.’ movies. Black Adam raises a major question: If Amanda Waller can tell the Justice Society to intervene in another country’s affairs, if she can ask Superman to pay a “let’s talk” visit to a literal foreign superpower… Why did she need the Suicide Squad? What was the reason she needed to create Suicide Squad? Double?

Characters acting inconsistently isn’t rare in a franchise of the size and complexity of DC’s movie universe. However, Black AdamFailings function (Waller creates useful connective tissue between films, like Nick Fury), for form (Waller recruits, dispatches, and manages superhero teams, like Nick Fury). In the process, it speaks to the franchise’s core weakness, where copying MCU structure is often prioritized over exploring the useful, fresh, and interesting ways that DC’s universe distinguishes itself from the Distinguished Competition. The DC Extended Universe didn’t need a Nick Fury. Now, it’s barely got an Amanda Waller.