Summary
- The Justice League’s morgue led to villains being revived as Black Lanterns in the
Blackest Night
catastrophe. - Amanda Waller’s control over the Hall of Justice gives her access to powerful artifacts and villain corpses.
- Waller’s desire for total control over the DC Universe could lead to her creating an army of super-powered zombies.
The Justice League often ends up with tons of dangerous weapons and artifacts in their bases. Some DC Universe objects are simply too dangerous to allow the regular government to hold onto. One of the most dangerous things that the Justice League has kept over the years, though, has been the dead bodies of their various enemies, and Amanda Waller now has them.
Readers are shown a surprisingly dark area of the Hall of Justice — the morgue — in Blackest Night #1 by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis. In this story, Hal Jordan is showing Barry Allen, who has recently returned from the dead, the new areas of the Hall of Justice, including the morgue where the League keeps dead villains.
Hal explains that some villains are best kept here so that their families don’t have to suffer retaliation when their secret identities are exposed. And of course, some villains, due to their powers, are simply too dangerous to be buried. While all of this makes sense, the choice to keep this morgue might just have given Amanda Waller the perfect new recruiting ground for the Suicide Squad.
The Hall of Justice’s Morgue Is Now in Amanda Waller’s Hands
Blackest Night #1 by Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis, Oclair Albert, Alex Sinclair, and Nick J. Napolitano
While it seems like an okay idea to keep the dead bodies of dangerous villains locked up in the basement, this idea quickly spiraled out of control during the events of Blackest Night. In this story, the Black Lanterns begin invading Earth and the Black Lantern rings specifically seek out the bodies of the dead. Every villain in the Hall of Justice suddenly returns to life and goes on a rampage against the Justice League. And this isn’t the only time the League’s habit of keeping villains’ corpses has turned against them.
Waller’s so-called Suicide Squad is a government project, but it’s not the only one. The government also created Task Force Z, a group of former villains who had been brought back to life as zombies. If they completed their missions, they were supplied with more Lazarus Resin to keep them in their zombie state. If they failed, then they were dead already, so it didn’t matter much. Surprisingly, this group wasn’t led by Amanda Waller, but instead Harvey Dent.
For more about Task Force Z, check out the 12-issue series
Task Force Z
— starring Red Hood, Harvey Dent, and other complex undead heroes — by Matthew Rosenberg and Eddy Barrows, available now both digitally and in collected editions from DC Comics.
The Hall of Justice Morgue Has Been a Disaster for the League
Villains Were Revived as Black Lanterns
Task Force Z used a compound known as Lazarus Resin to keep their members alive. Lazarus Resin grants the user the regenerative aspects of Lazarus Pits, but on a much smaller scale. They were constantly kept in a state between life and death, with the promise of full life for obedience. While Amanda Waller seemed to be against the formation of Task Force Z, it’s highly unlikely she’d be against using Lazarus Resin herself. Amanda Waller now has more governmental power than ever before, meaning she’d likely be able to easily acquire the Lazarus Resin left over from Task Force Z.
Amanda Waller is currently one of the most dangerous characters in the DC Universe.
Amanda Waller is currently one of the most dangerous characters in the DC Universe because of how she slowly but surely shifted public opinion against the heroes of Earth. The Justice League has been disbanded, and Waller has made the Titans out to be public enemy number one. Waller turned the public against the Titans during the events of Titans: Beast World by Tom Taylor, Ivan Reis, and Lucas Meyer, as the planet was threatened by a version of Beast Boy who lost his mind.
Waller now has significantly more control and power within the government, to the point that she seized the Hall of Justice, renaming it the Hall of Order. Getting the Hall of Justice also gave Waller everything inside of it, including the numerous dead bodies that would have been left in the morgue. Waller took control of the Hall in Titans: Beast World #6, and it was a moment that truly cemented Amanda Waller as the new force of power in the DC Universe. With the Hall of Justice in her hands, she’s gained access to an entire stockpile of Justice League weaponry.
Amanda Waller Seeks Absolute Control – And She Might Have the Right Army
Absolute Power: Origins #1 Variant Cover by Alitha Martinez
Amanda Waller has always used her Suicide Squad team to achieve her goals. She’s been very picky about who she allows on the team and often tries to get the most powerful people possible. The Hall of Justice morgue was specifically made to keep villains whose bodies were too powerful to just bury — including characters like Alexander Luthor, who had control over both matter and anti-matter, allowing Luthor to create pocket dimensions or even fuse universes together. Now his body is in Amanda Wallers’ hands.
For Waller’s most recent turn as the leader of the Suicide Squad — and for the lead up to the current
Absolute Power
event, in which Waller plays a major antagonistic role — check out
Suicide Squad: Dream Team
by Nicole Maines and Eddy Barrows.
Now, Amanda Waller has created her own Justice League out of Amazos, as spotlighted in the miniseries Absolute Power : Task Force VII by a variety of creators. But she’s always been one make use of absolutely everything that she has access to. While these Amazos are certainly dangerous, there’s no reason Waller would pass up the use of super-powered beings that she could control through Lazarus Resin. She’s still employing the Suicide Squad to this day, so Waller could bring back Task Force Z with her expanded governmental powers.
Amanda Waller Wants Total Control Over the DC Universe
Waller Uses Every Tool She Has To Win
Many supervillains simply show up on Earth and immediately start trying to take down the Justice League with pure brute strength. Even when the villains try to use long-term planning, their plan is usually to either destroy the planet or take over the world. Even with the Justice League out of the way, taking over the world wouldn’t necessarily be easy due to the world governments. This is what makes Waller so dangerous. While she is trying to take over the world, she has the full backing of the majority of the world to do it.
Amanda Waller has contingency plans for everything. If her Amazos fail, she definitely has a backup plan to take down the League or anyone who gets in her way. The best option for her was handed to her on a silver plate when she took over the Hall of Justice. Not only did she get all the artifacts and weapons that the Justice League were forced to leave behind, but she also got the dozens of corpses of powerful villains in the morgue. As horrific as it might be, Amanda Waller has everything she needs to create a zombie army of super-powered villains, all thanks to the Justice League.
Blackest Night #1 is available now from DC Comics!
