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Amanda Waller - leader of ARGUS and generally associated with The Suicide Squad teams - is consistently portrayed in both the comics and animated properties as a large, heavily obese woman. This physique seems to clash with both her line of work as well as her personality - a hard-assed woman with iron will & discipline who occasionally takes even Batman down a peg or two. So, given that her obesity contrasts with everything else we know about her, it begs the question:

Is Amanda Waller actually fat... or does she use the fat to conceal muscle like Marvel's "The Kingpin" character does?

The accepted answer will include dialogue from comics or cartoons discussing the matter, or perhaps even a snapshot of when she revealed unusual strength beyond what an obese woman in her 50s could reasonably have. Anything like that.

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    I’m not so sure it conflicts with her line of work or her personality. First of all, I don’t think there’s any particular personality that an overweight person is more or less likely to have. It’s certainly plausible that she could have iron will and discipline, and nonetheless be obese. Second, being overweight isn’t necessarily inconsistent with frequent physical activity; beside, there are some sports (such as sumo) where extra weight is pretty much expected (certainly helpful). But, yeah, she’s an important character in a comic universe. Odds are she can at least throw a few punches.
    – Adamant
    Commented Feb 7, 2017 at 5:02
  • She's not fat, she's just big boned. Or fluffy.
    – user31178
    Commented Feb 7, 2017 at 6:05
  • New52 Amanda Waller is now a size zero; s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/09/84/84/… / worldofblackheroes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/waller4.jpg
    – Valorum
    Commented Feb 7, 2017 at 11:09
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    I am actually a little disappointed, honestly. It seems like her original portrayal was one the few portrayals of an overweight hero, and certainly one of the few deviations from the standard unrealistic female superhero body type. And now?
    – Adamant
    Commented Feb 7, 2017 at 13:47
  • @Adamant - And now she's got the physique of a Greek goddess.
    – Valorum
    Commented Feb 7, 2017 at 14:23

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When she was created in the mid-1980s by writer John Ostrander, she was explicitly supposed to be unlike any other comics persona. In a genre where women are drawn as pin-ups and black people are often either pure-hearted role models or streetwise hoodlums, she was — and is — something different: a middle-aged, heavy-set, profoundly cynical, African-American, female government apparatchik.

“When you’re doing comics, you need a visual shorthand in order to convey certain aspects of a character,” Ostrander says, “and if Amanda Waller’s nickname was ‘The Wall,’ she had to look a little bit like a wall. She had to look formidable. By not giving her Wonder Woman’s muscles, and instead some heft, it sort of suggested a power in her.”

vulture.com

Describing her as hefty suggests she is large, heavy, and powerful.

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