Lurker > WarThaNemesis2

FBike1 posted...

Auto for Rydia can save now

For Cecil?

jessie

dad

auto trade dad

Rydia

garnet

dad

trading for dad auto

I mean compared to his standard near 2 million damage that is technically tanking.

listen mi you need to be careful this next ranking must be prowley

Rydia

Jessie

will do suprak

trading for dad auto

dad

Prowley

I'll go with Harvey Dent.

Honorable Mention: Greet
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/4/0/AAQcMAAADlA4.jpg
Greet plays a very important role in the Green Lantern Corps as the head chef of Oa's cafeteria. This campaign's version of Greet is basically Dexter Jettson from Attack of the Clones, if you understand....what that means. Heh. Heh. Heh. However, Rosetta has taken this further, embracing Greet's pauses before finishing his sentences, and his sinister laughter as simply a form of humor that Earthers don't understand, much to the consternation of dogs and humans, especially when Rosetta joins in to...make jokes. Heh. Heh. Heh. Greet is a generally jovial person despite sounding as terrible as anyone in tone, happy to recommend food to us that we can eat, and which ones to avoid for being poisonous to our systems. We haven't truly dove into what it is Greet knows about the world around him, but the time for that will come, and Greet will shine even more. As it is, he really establishes how alien Oa and simply being off-Earth is. It's just charming, and there's no scene on Oa he doesn't...add to. Heh. Heh. Heh.

Valkyrie
Legaia

Multi-Man

Also I'm very happy someone else enjoys Tomorrow Woman so much!

Argh!yle Sock

Ramza

Layle

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dad

Tomorrow Woman

This does feel like a possible Paco spot.

i'm not sure if i'm more impressed by brendon or by spelling saoirse right

not even han spells saoirse right all the time and she's his character

also i realize the order of those from me imply Saoirse doesn't clean up her dishes and brennus lacks his entire soul, which both might be kinda true

Susie has her entire soul and cleans up her dishes when she's done eating, so I'd say Roz'etta's done a better job than Varra, Vertigo, and whoever Saoirse's parents are.

I'll go with Koroshi-san

I know these write-ups have been a lot, and for those of you who have read them, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Maybe I'll do another 52 some other time, and disqualify anyone from this 52. There are certainly characters who have shown up since I started this who would contend for a spot on this list. I intend to spend the rest of this topic doing more Honorable Mentions, characters who I can write a little about to say how much fun I find them, but without needing to go to the depths of the Susies and Wallers of the campaign.

And to scarlet, my goal with these write-ups wasn't just to put to words these characters, to tell their stories in a way I like. I am sure I've missed details here and there, gotten some things wrong about characters, but I hope that doesn't take away from how special I find them. My goal was to do these characters justice, to do the amount of care you put into them justice. I hope I succeeded.

Susie shows so little reverence for so many characters. She'll call John Constantine boring to his face. She'll stare down Vostok without a hint of sympathy. Nightshade? Who cares. There are very few characters Susie isn't ready with a rude word for, if only because she doesn't know any better. Any PC is ready to be victim of her stare. But when a character has her respect, when a character earns her respect, you get something so completely different from what Susie is with most people, so unlike the Susie that is so often seen, that it's just...so precious. This campaign lives for tiny moments like this. Moments like this that may hold no meaning to anyone except for me. These small moments are the ones that make the bigger ones possible.

Which means it's time to talk about Susie Thompkins, Field Agent. Let's go to Las Vegas and Gateway City.

Las Vegas was Susie's chance to prove herself, her chance to be a field agent and protect Mommy, except Mommy was Davis Brimley, Society member, so Susie needed an alias as well. She settled on a poor child, Candice Evergreen. Of course, this had the bonus effect of forcing other PCs to interact with Susie. All of a sudden Susie could turn her attention to Lush, and insist she ingest chocos. She could tell off Pepper for treating her like a child, when she is a mighty person capable of witnessing the Anti-Life Equation and being fine after.

And we could watch Susie in action, as she lures basic thugs by acting pathetic so someone else could take them out, as Susie rips Society ID chips out of wrists, as Susie...listens to Roz'etta and stays out of the way of conflict.

As Susie disappeared into Las Vegas after all the adults got far too drunk.

As Susie independently infiltrates the Olympians, taking advantage of Maxi Zeus's madness by pretending to be the all-wise Athena.

As Susie collects Argus, a psychic of the Olympians, to create a telepathic bond so we can complete a heist to steal Doctor Fate's Helmet out from under four Furies.

As Susie calls for us to 'Kill Uptup now!', as the child served her purpose of being a child to hide that Susie had disappeared in the night.

As Susie alerts us she's under attack by Vulcanus, us helpless to stop it, miles away, and having to complete our mission.

All of this has yet to speak of Susie's true impact in Las Vegas, which was to spend a month messing with me by putting on the Susie voice at random times to inform me that Susie was waiting for Roz'etta at a payphone to be picked up, as Susie runs out of quarters. Then she was running out of bodies to stab and take quarters from. Every time she'd close it with the line that will haunt my dreams. Pick me up!

Then, when Roz'etta and Susie were truly reunited, when Roz'etta wouldn't kill Uptup, that heartbreaking line was said. Put me down.

For Susie is, at her core, still a bit uncomfortable with her status as a daughter, still a bit concerned at anyone who might take her mother's love from her. She's only really been loved by three people. Her Aunt Lois, whose status is unknown. Her Uncle Clark, who is Equated, and her Mommy Roz'etta. If she loses her Mommy, what will she have left?

This brings us to Gateway City, where it turns out someone very special to Susie is. For loyal to Darkseid is Superwoman, Lana Lang, Lois Lane's sister, and Susie's birth mother. Susie's 'mama' in response to seeing Lana was truly heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking to talk to Susie about her birth mother, about anything that might be about her birth mother. Roz'etta once took Susie with her to head towards Simon LaGrieve, not for a session, but just to say hello, and Susie was aggressively, violently against it. She was terrified that Roz'etta thought something was wrong with her, that her mama had before, and her mama eventually left her with Sisty and Dinky. Susie is just such a broken character, and Roz'etta's nearly limitless ability to care really pops out in all these tiny details she pulls out of Susie. Susie doesn't like seeing Ari or Dr. LaGrieve, so when it's time to talk to them, Susie isn't around. She adores Father J'see and the Martians, so when it's time to talk to them, Susie is usually there. Susie is even responsible for protecting Till'all from fire when Kobra attacked, something that has not gone unnoticed by the Martians, all of whom are prepared to protect Susie as one of their own, because in a way she is one of their own, she's a Saturnian's daughter after all.

Susie is a very heavy topic, so I'll wind us down with how Susie, while also the most precious character out there, is also the funniest character in the campaign as well. Her shutting down Thinker's playful bullying and getting him to become fully serious was a highlight. As I said, she completely no-sells the great magic of John Constantine, who simply seeks to make a child smile. Then, when Constantine got a deck of playing cards with cats on the backs, Susie went from bored to enthralled. The problem is that she was so enthralled by the cats that her joy outlasted Constantine's ability to pretend that card tricks are at all fun. Constantine going from relatively desperate to entertain Susie to completely defeated was yet another example of how poor Constantine just can't win sometimes. For all the disrespect Susie shows so many characters, her switching to respectful when given advice she values is always worth a laugh, like she did with Manthrax when told she needed to improve her acting skills. Susie's declaration of Tomorrow Woman, the robot that was never born, thus cannot live or die, and then smiling upon being swung in a powerful circle? That's the sort of stuff that sends my heart fluttering.

Then there are the connections to the PCs. Sarah Washington is a child who lives in Pepper's room until we can find her mother. Susie has grown protective of Sarah, for Sarah is A OMAC, and Susie wants to encourage Sarah to infect everyone. Yet the two children have also become odd friends, Sarah sometimes joining Roz'etta and Susie to watch documentaries, and also documentaries despite Sarah maybe wanting to watch The Iron Giant. Bloodfruit attempted to steal a javelin from Pepper, and got caught by Susie, becoming stunned by a child being allowed to wander the hallways of Z'onn Z'orr with a firearm, a situation that began as a basic heist and became an enormous hilarious mess, all thanks to Officer Susie. Saoirse's body collapses when she possesses her familiar, Twiggy. Susie takes offense to this, seeing leaving your body as a mockery of Death, and kicked Saoirse in the ribs repeatedly. Lush's discomfort around anyone who can be a psychic is only expanded by Susie's nature, and her tendency to voice whatever thought it on her mind. Xander has still yet to meet his old friend's adopted daughter, but I look forward to him being completely baffled. Yet oddly it might be Minerva who has most reached out to Susie of the PCs other than Roz'etta, as she and Susie had a very sweet heart to heart about bad parents who don't love you, and how, in Susie's mind, they should probably be killed, and how she wants to make her Mommy always love her and be proud of her.

So there you have it, the most important character in the campaign for me, my favorite character. In a world with political intrigue, superheroics, brainwashing, armies, man, machines, Darkseid, the multiverse, the endless reach of the stars, and the Endless themselves, what captured me most of all was a child. I would say the greatest strength of scarlet's storytelling is the ability to make the small seem grandiose, and if every character, prior to any interference from the players, had the chance to make a single wish, perhaps Susie's would have been the most small and simple wish of all, to have a mother who loved her. All the power in the world couldn't make that wish a reality, but Roz'etta did.

Susie is a girl who, given the option of actual family and Roz'etta, chose her. Prior to Susie, people don't choose Roz'etta when given other options. Oracle compared Roz'etta to J'onn the moment her Saturnian powers awoken, expecting her to be a big green Martian instead of a big red Saturnian. Roz'etta constantly needed to prove herself to Oracle through the years, and even that wasn't enough to learn of Jemm's fate through her. Roz'etta's first lover chose to sacrifice their love instead of find a way to stay together and forgot their past entirely. Her second lover chose the stars and Darkseid. But Susie simply chose Roz'etta.

I've gone over how Roz'etta sought out people to help her. She started with her dearest friend in Z'onn Z'orr, Jesse Custer. She knew Jesse Custer could be trusted, that Jesse Custer would be a good influence. From reading Roz'etta's mind, Susie knew of Death, but she needed guidance to know what Death meant, how to reconcile Death with the act of dying. How to understand the end Darkseid is seeking to bring about is not the one Death does, that the things Darkseid teaches are not necessarily right. Jesse's managed to form a strong connection with Susie, one built on respect. Catman first, and now Tommy Jagger, provide Susie with the sort of training needed to handle her own violent tendencies. Roz'etta has sought out some of the mothers of Z'onn Z'orr for advice for herself on how to be a mother. She didn't feel ready for the responsibility, but someone needed to. Susie needed a mother, and she needed someone who cared.

It is that second part that hurts Susie so much. Susie did not just pick Roz'etta because she was given the choice to. She picked Roz'etta because when she read the alien's mind with the helmet on, she saw that Roz'etta cared about Susie's well-being. Roz'etta genuinely cared, and in a way Susie had chosen to accept her as her mother before they ever met face to face. But what of Sisty and Dinky? It turns out that what truly caused the disaster of Calvin City was Susie reading their minds with the benefit of the helmet. She was already an emotionally struggling child, but with the helmet she saw that Sisty and Dinky, two people she believed loved her, did not. Sisty and Dinky feared her more than anything. This broke Susie, made her try to make a world for herself, a world where she could be loved, and then a red woman with concern in her big heart entered Calvin City.

For so long, Susie had a catchphrase about this subject. Love equals lies. For a while this seemed like it was purely a lingering effect of Darkseid's influence, the Equation that the helmeted Susie could understand, but her lack of emotional attachment prevented from taking hold. Yet with this information, it seemed as though it is more as though the Equation put to words what Susie couldn't. This was what Roz'etta most had to fight against early on with Susie, the girl's regular fear that she was being dumped on someone else, that what she had seen in Roz'etta's head was also a lie or worse, that knowing the girl had destroyed the love that had once existed. So Roz'etta kept Susie close, apologized to her friends for Susie's poor social skills, but rarely left the girl to her own devices. Where Roz'etta went (other than mission), so did Susie. Or, as she often calls herself, Su'zie. For every awkward moment, there is a heartwarming one like this one, where Su'zie fully embraces being Saturnian, she may not be one of blood, but she is one in heart. All of Roz'etta's efforts though, have born some fruit. While Su'zie still says love equals lies, she does add one very important word to it. Love equals lies...sometimes. One singular word that can make all the difference.

Through this, we have barely touched on how Susie is. She's emotionally muted, so when she does show emotions, they're powerful. When she's angry, she yells loudly, and makes aggressive plots. When she's scared, it's the sort of fear that consumes her, whether it's of her mother abandoning her, or fear drawn out by a potential Yellow Lantern.

But most special of all is when she's happy. When Susie Thompkins is happy, it is so satisfying. It's enjoyable to see this child acting like a child. Yet what can bring out joy from her? John Constantine tried with card tricks, and failed miserably to the amusement of anyone watching. Sandra Knight tried with candy, and Susie's acknowledgement of the inevitability of candy melting away brought about more awkward silence than anything. Games, failure. Roz'etta's friends? The closest was Jesse, but that is more drawing out excitement at learning, perhaps a trait picked up from Roz'etta, than true joy. Chocos, like her mother loves to eat? That seems to be more like a mutual favored taste than anything, although Roz'etta did find cases upon cases of Chocos in Calvin City, gathered up to be Susie's meals when she was the master there.

No, there is only one thing that truly brings a smile to Susie's face. That thing is...a cat. There are many things Susie Thompkins can be called. Monster, Psychopath. Crazy. Creepy. But the best word to describe her is 'cat lover'. Susie adores all the cats of Z'onn Z'orr, from T.C. to Starro to Prowley to when Kid Eternity summoned Grimalkin, a cat assassin. Susie loves cats. Even Hector, the spirit of a cat inside a crystal, captures little Susie's heart. When she joins Roz'etta in watching documentaries for her mother's lessons from Chimp, she points out every single time there's a cat on screen. 'It licked its paw!' is perhaps one of Susie's finest lines, and among the most repeated. But her favorite cat, the cat she loves most of all, is one only she knew about. After a lesson with Catman, Susie returned to her room, and waiting there on her bed was...a cat. A large and fluffy white cat. This cat, the best cat in the world, was nonother than Roz'etta, using her shapeshifting to give the best gift she could think of to her daughter. Most evenings, Susie falls asleep with her mother curled around her, Roz'etta doing what she can to bring Susie comfort as they dream.

And on that, it is time to talk about the other half of her education. Most of Susie and Catman's relationship is covered in his write-up, so what now must be said is what Catman's teachings have done for Susie. Through Catman Susie learned responsibility. She went from a child who only carried chocos in her overalls to a girl who also carried a knife and a gun on her. Those last two would seem terrifying in the hands of most children, but Susie is different. Susie has always been different, and that is why she started with Catman in the first place. Treating her like any other girl in every way will just turn her into the monster she believes she is. She needed to learn if she wanted to potentially become better. Sometimes I wonder if Susie's love of cats is due to Catman. Of course, that love for cats has extended past Catman abandoning his duty to teach her, and her once powerful loyalty to him has morphed into a desire to become better despite him, that Catman is weak, and Susie will not be weak. Taking over Susie's education has been Tommy Jagger, guard to Mento, and someone who simply will not allow Susie to walk around with a gun unless she knows how to use it to his exact standards. And, as with every character Susie expresses respect for, Susie and Jagger are absolutely adorable to picture.

Just look at this exchange, happening in the shooting range of Z'onn Z'orr:

From her far bay, you hear, "GET ON THE MOTHERFUCKING GROUND!"
"Don't bring mothers into this, Thompkins."
"Yes, sir," is the far, muffled response.

"GET ON THE GROUND, PEPPER!"
"No proper names," calls out Jagger.
"Yes, sir."

All the write-ups, all the words. All the characters the world has to offer. The heroes. The villains. The sidekicks. The in-between. The parents and the children. I can rave about so many beings that litter the world of this campaign. There are Bats and rats and elephants, and sure as you were born, we even found a unicorn.

This campaign, both of scar's campaigns, have had a way of everything fitting into the exact place it needs to, when it needs to. That's the real magic of it all. Last night was no exception. Last evening I intended to do this write-up, and instead we had a 'just mess around' session. During that session, inside Tefe Holland, daughter of the great hero Swamp Thing, we met the Martian god of Inevitability.

Yet not even the god of Inevitability can stave off this, another inevitability.

#1: Susie Thompkins

Susie Thompkins was always going to be #1 on this list. She would have been #1 52 weeks ago had I made a list, and she will be #1 52 weeks from now. There is nothing more inevitable than Susie as my favorite character in the campaign.

Susie Thompkins began as one of the most terrifying enemies in the campaign. It all started when we went to Calvin City, in search of superhero financier Thayer Jost and to investigate immense OMAC activity detected in the area. What we found was a disaster zone. There was a blue, metal tree, made of OMAC after OMAC, crumpled up. There was a speedster being chased by Bugs Bunny. The citizens of Calvin City lived in terror and squalor. The horrible monster who did this to a once great city was none other than Susie Thompkins, living in a tower in the center of the city.

Inside that tower we found Sisty Hunkel, a relative of Lois Lane's, who had taken in Susie when the world fell to Darkseid and the Society. She and her husband, along with Susie, ran, they ran to Calvin City, to be protected under Jost. But Susie found a helmet that had belonged to Mento, and put it on. This seemingly awakened her powers, enhanced them far beyond where they should ever be. Susie Thompkins, niece of Lois Lane and Superman, became a monster. The destruction of the OMACs was her. The New New Doom Patrol had been devastated by her, Fast Forward's mind was sent to the future and left him a shell of himself. Susie commanded armies with her mind.

And with that mind she tortured the players. She trapped Taliesin in a room with his worst foe, him unable to do anything to his enemy. Spirit was surrounded by those who sought to eat people, as he had once experienced before. Brennus experienced his life as a perfect sitcom, only to watch it turn worse and worse until it ended in him dying at the hands of the Spectre. Again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. And Roz'etta witnessed Amanda Waller allying with Luthor. She experienced fire, she experienced H'ronmeer's mockery. The players escaped, but they were not well afterwards. And the mission ended in our survival, not our victory. Susie still had the helmet, the monsters still reigned. There was a return in the future.

That return, in some ways, was more terrifying than the first. We met a surviving Society member, one whom Susie had imprisoned, Fright, a student of the Scarecrow, but a mere victim of fear at the hands of Susie. We met Sisty's husband, Dinky, being crushed by a piano over and over and over again, but never dying. We met Susie's Whippoorwill, a bird Silhouette would then kill. And we met the monster herself.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/0/7/AAOJ0pAADaVj.png

Armed with her helmet, she challenged us. So she commanded the world around her that she got Silhouette to rip out his eyeball, not out of her forcing him to, but just as a desperate attempt to show how unintimidated we were by her. With the power of the helmet, Susie was able to turn that eye into a revived Whippoorwill, a torture in itself for we would one day learn that the Whippoorwill wanted nothing more than to stay dead. Then the fight would begin, the fight to stop the monster, to stop the helmet. A fight that also involved Space Ghost, because Susie loves cartoons. We would remove the helmet from her, destroy it despite its siren call almost corrupting Brennus, actions that caused her immense distress, but we stopped the monster. The disaster of Calvin City was ended. But now the question remained was, 'What next?' What would we do with Susie? What would we do with Calvin? Sisty and Dinky, along with the meager remains of the protectors of Calvin City would stay. Thayer Jost, injured by an arrow, would return with us. Fright sought to kill Susie, but we stopped the Society member, preparing to bring her with us as a prisoner. This left Susie. The Hinkels were willing to keep her with them, but then Roz'etta turned down to a child who had once held the world in her hands, and asked what Susie wanted. Susie wrapped her arms around Roz'etta's waist and chose her.

Thus, Susie Thompkins left her old family, her old life, and began to live with an alien who had absolutely zero experience with children. To say Susie had an impact on Roz'etta is an understatement. Susie is a wrecking ball everywhere she goes, and she was a wrecking ball to Roz'etta's life. Roz'etta had a routine in her life. Work on solving the Anti-Life Equation, work on repairing Tomorrow Woman, study and learn about the years she missed from being off Earth. Now she had to take care of a girl who she felt uncomfortable leaving alone, a girl who didn't want to let Roz'etta out of her sight. Just introducing this one variable changed so much in Roz'etta. It was no longer enough for her to be polite, she had to be polite and undo the damage Susie's lack of tact would bring about, while not ostracizing Susie herself. Roz'etta's outlook on the world was so often greater picture, and her dearest people were on the outside, outside Z'onn Z'orr, outside the grid. Susie turned that around, now Roz'etta revolved around this girl inside Z'onn Z'orr having a better future. This girl, who called herself a monster, who liked being a monster, who Roz'etta saw as a victim of the life the world pushed on her.

It was when walking with Tomorrow Woman, another person whose unnatural way of seeing life brought about fear in people, that Roz'etta got to hear the fruits of her labor. One word that, more than any she has ever heard, change who she was forever. Mommy. The moment Susie uttered that word, Roz'etta's heart was truly caught. Of course, becoming Mommy didn't make things easy. If anything, as it often the case with Susie, it made things more difficult. Being Mommy meant truly raising Susie, it meant the sort of responsibilities Roz'etta has never had. The sort of responsibilities Roz'etta simply cannot perform alone, as she was. Roz'etta fears fire, as is her Saturnian nature, but more than that, she fears being a poor mother for her daughter.

And there are so many layers to what makes Susie a difficult girl to be a mother for. There are so many reasons to fear being a poor mother to Susie. I'm sure you can think of some of them. Susie is very much a psychopath, and raising a child like that is difficult. Raising a child who knows the strength that she once did, and knows she no longer has it at her disposal, that also makes things difficult. These are not the reasons Roz'etta fears being a poor mother to Susie.

Cid P

Locke

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dad

<img src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5zH5N3g9QZM/sddefault.jpg">
Kirby's Dream Land 3, losing to DeDeDe in the boss rush.

Panthers

Also that session involved us trying to fool the Mad Hatter through Alice (in Wonderland, not Black Alice) tactics and that DID NOT GO WELL AS ALL, partially because the Mad Hatter was not actually the Mad Hatter.

Right, I forgot about Xander missing the session, and Spirit was a brainfart, I meant to type Ghost.

Cid P

About six sessions or so into the first campaign, Roz'etta and her party (Obrov, Talirah, and Ghost, Spirit's older brother) found a machine that could remove the tracker/inhibitor from Roz'etta's neck. Until then they thought she was a woman who looked like Reese Witherspoon. The machine ripped out the inhibitor and also blew up Roz'etta, but she reformed into a partial Saturnian form (think how the Martian Manhunter looks in Justice League). The next morning she showed off her full Saturnian form.

The first thing Xander asked her about being an alien was if she was like Sailor Saturn.

Layle

dad

trading for dad auto

What pushes Waller to the peak is the comparisons to other characters. If she commanded any less respect from everyone, she'd risk running over King Faraday's niche. If she showed slightly less respect, she'd risk running over Vostok's. If she were slightly more burdened by the world around her, she'd be campaign one Oracle instead of showing specifically why Oracle is unfit for being in Waller's seat. She can stare down Patch and request respect, and from her it comes off as respect for him, treating him as a real person as opposed to just a rat.

Waller had an incredibly small window to fit into, and in order to deliver she needed to hit it perfectly.

I genuinely don't know if anyone could write her into that window better. If they can, I've never seen it.

Hint for #1: Pick her up!

Roz'etta would awaken in a world ruled by the Society and by Darkseid. She would soon find herself under the ice of Antarctica, in front of the tower of Z'onn Z'orr, staring into the eyes of Amanda Waller once more. Waller commands every room she's in, she commands every situation. But Roz'etta took a step forward and introduced herself.

For perhaps the first time in their relationship, it was Waller who was left shocked, if only the slightest bit. And so the curtain rises on campaign two, and these two sharing the stage together, something built to since before campaign one, would finally occur in earnest.

Roz'etta, more than any other character, had reason to doubt Waller, to try to foment something against her within the organization of Checkmate. Yet she didn't, as much as Waller suspected Roz'etta, the feeling was not mutual. The reason for this is threefold. One, given the state of the world, the list of people Roz'etta believed could lead humanity through this is limited. On a list with the Martian Manhunter, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, the fifth name is Waller. The second is purely by accident. There are, undeniably, two sides in this war. One is Waller. The other is Lex Luthor. For some this seemed like a choice to support Waller as best one can. For Roz'etta it wasn't. Waller was not Luthor, and that should be that. The third, however, is what pushes Roz'etta from siding with Waller to fully prepared support. Nightshade, back in campaign one, told Roz'etta about Waller, about what kind of person The Wall was. It could be summarized in one sentence. The worst part about Amanda Waller is that she's always right. Meant to damn Waller, perhaps instead it had the opposite effect.

So it's time to explore how, when dealing with Roz'etta, Amanda Waller is right. Recall how Waller turned Roz'etta into Reese Witherspoon? This is for two reasons, one is that white women have a better time in American prisons than non-white women. This bluntness is especially biting coming from someone who was at that point in time, probably the most or second most prominent black woman in the country. She might be undisputed number one given that Condi was actually a Green Martian.

Recall the fear Waller instilled in Roz'etta? She needed Roz'etta to fear, to be cautious, to be careful around humanity. Humanity is dangerous, and Waller knows that as much as anyone. She's seen all the evils humanity can do. For better or worse, if Waller hadn't harmed Roz'etta, someone else would have, someone with worse intentions, someone who lacked the self-control Waller did. If you know someone is going to die, and you can save their life by breaking their legs, do you do it? Amanda Waller knows what the right all is, and has the stomach to go through with it, and defend it. Sometimes it feels like she's only justifying it to herself, but...even if you want to make the case she isn't right, she's right enough.

Every action, every misdeed, it's all calculated against the alternatives. It's a heavy burden, and Waller carries it. Some hate her for it, and not just people sharing similar outlooks on life. Deadshot, Nightshade, and Oracle hate Waller. The latter two don't understand what Roz'etta sees in Waller, how Roz'etta can look past their history.

The truth is that Roz'etta and Waller aren't entirely different. Roz'etta looks towards the future, she pictures victory, and this war being won but in a way that leads to a larger one is not a victory. Saturnians used to be servants of the Martians, and their rebellion only led to war amongst themselves. In her mind, the leadership that formed the rebellion was poor. They won the battle, but so many more would die as a result of the flaws in their plan. This attaches her to Waller's way of thinking, of accepting that some losses now are better than greater ones later. A view that so many others see as proof of Waller the monster.

The other thing is that Roz'etta sees a side of Waller that others simply don't. Roz'etta saw Waller at her most used, in the Oval Office. She sees Waller the person, the woman weighed down by carrying humanity's fate on her shoulders. She sees Waller struggle sometimes, to justify how she treated Roz'etta in the past, how it was necessary, and instead of judging Waller, she lets Waller's reasoning hold, instead of challenging it as she would have every right to.

All of this has led to the most recent revelation, that Amanda Waller did act when Lex Luthor had captured and harmed the Prince of Saturn. Waller spoke to Jemm, and they came to an agreement. If Roz'etta wanted it, if she was going to work for it, she would be Waller's heir. Waller had been answered Roz'etta's questions for years, providing guidance. In many ways, Roz'etta was Waller's student for years, and now she's in position to be the next Black Queen, to take the reins of Checkmate.

Waller's leadership style, perhaps, is what most makes Roz'etta respect her. Waller commands rooms, but she does not conquer them. She gives agents freedom, encouraging people to work their way up the ranks, to pursue their passion projects. So long as they deliver results, there's no need for her heavy hand to watch over them. This is needed, because it is our individuality that separates us from Darkseid, whose presence weighs over every action the Society takes. It's funny to think about it that way, that Waller's presence hung so heavy over Roz'etta in campaign one, but in campaign two Waller is a source of freedom.

This is not to say that Waller does have not the potential to weigh down on us. When we say something that she truly finds wrong, she will let us know, and it is the fact that she has given us so much freedom that gives her criticism such weight. When it is time to celebrate, she is the one to insist we enjoy our accomplishments. When she suspected Brennus was too trusting, she plotted with The Thinker to train that out him. When she thought Saoirse felt underappreciated, she personally told her how valued she was. When Fire needed answers about Max Lord, Waller provided them, and saw her seen out of her office in a secretive way. It's possible not even any of the other four on my list could truly accomplish what Waller has here, because what truly makes Waller such a special is knowing exactly what personal touch to put on any situation.

Even Roz'etta is not immune from Waller's criticism. Roz'etta promised to keep the identities of our White Martians a secret, and when she tried to keep that from Waller, she was furious. She cursed up a storm and told Roz'etta, in no uncertain terms, that attempting to protect the White Martians without her help would result in failure. Perhaps it is because Waller is the most personal with Roz'etta, most experienced with Roz'etta, that she holds Roz'etta to the highest standards. But Waller is never unfair. She's still Waller, she always has to be right, and in this, she was most certainly right.

Waller even has a great deal of comedy to her. She made the incredibly obnoxious robot L-Ron her secretary, both to keep a close eye on him and to discourage anyone from attempting to bother her unless they had something very important to say, for L-Ron will get his pound of sanity before you get in her door. When Paul McCartney showed up in Z'onn Z'orr, Waller got a bit hot under the collar. Horne calls Waller Mandy, and Waller's casual request for respect makes both characters all the funnier. It happens very rarely, and is gone in a moment, but it's a nice reminder sometimes that Waller is, at the end of the day, not a superhuman.

#2: Amanda Waller
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Sitting in at #2, it's The Wall. The Black Queen of Checkmate. Very few people enjoy working with her, and where her strategies go, bodies will be left in her footsteps. She is someone who controls any room she's in, one of the most frightening people in either campaign. Her shadow has been hanging over Roz'etta since before campaign one began, and it only briefly let up. It's Amanda Waller, one of the worst people to ever live.

It all began with a shapeship, and a young woman within. Roz'etta Schtone, of the planet Saturn, was making her way to Earth, to analyze humanity for Jemm, Prince of Saturn. She was caught up in a meteor shower, and her ship crashed in the outskirts of Gotham. Unconscious, she was captured and subjected to an experiment. An experiment to grant someone the ability to speak any language, talk to any being. In essence, creating a Rosetta Stone. Amanda Waller was not settling for making a Rosetta Stone though, she needed to go further, manipulating Roz'etta's fear to getting her to shapeshift into a less...alien form, that of Reese Witherspoon. With Roz'etta's shapeshifting then sealed away, Waller's job was done, and the alien was left to sit in a cell, until one day, she was able to make her escape into Gotham City.

This is where Amanda Waller and Roz'etta part ways, with the terrifying figure of Waller only present in Roz'etta's life as a nightmare, one that pushed Roz'etta to be cautious, careful about anyone knowing her true skin underneath, the abilities she had. With Waller's presence gone from her life, Roz'etta was able to experience a different side of humanity, the poor underbelly of Gotham, the hard-working GCPD struggling to keep the city together, the rumors and legends of the Batman waiting to take down any evil in his city. She found friends among the humans, learned their customs, read any book she could get her hands on, experienced holidays, and heard the Nutcracker Suite about 100 times.

This is where Roz'etta was when campaign one began, until then she entered the world of superheroes, and the nightmare became so much more real. Black Canary had done some digging for Oracle, and discovered why Roz'etta's powers were sealed away. Inside the alien's neck was a inhibitor, and that inhibitor doubled as a tracking device. Suddenly a roof over her head no longer was a protection, for Waller's eyes could see wherever she was. Had seen wherever she was. Waller had always been there, watching. So Roz'etta did as Roz'etta does. She ran. She ran to the end of life itself to escape Waller, and then dragged herself back once the tracker was dealt with. She could shapeshift again, and perhaps now she could sleep easy. Were life only that simple, and fate not so cruel.

This is, after all, a game, and my write-ups have focused on the story, but when it comes to Waller, it must be said. For in a game of dice rolling, sometimes the dice are harsh, and one time in a factory, I rolled a 20-sided die for Roz'etta's shapeshifting, and came up with a one. What horrid form would Roz'etta take, what monster would Roz'etta be? The answer was the worst monster of all.

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Roz'etta knew she looked like Amanda Waller. Her teammates though? They did not know who this woman really was, but they knew whose face it was. And they had not seen where their friend had gone. So they placed threats, with heated words and hands alit in flame. Roz'etta was helpless to do anything but beg the people so close to her to believe her, yet there was no sympathy, no faith in her, only doubt. Dice are cruel sometimes, and the rule of funny, that the dice will produce the funniest result if given the chance, is sometimes crueler.

Waller had a massive presence in No Man's Land. She did so without ever stepping a toe in. Roz'etta attempted to get ahead of Waller, only to find herself beaten down mentally, feeling more and more defeated by life, falling further and further behind, even her mentor Nightshade couldn't get her feeling permanently ahead, if anything Roz'etta's feeling of failure as a student pushed her more in the direction of seeking escape and in the end her way of escape was by ensuring herself a future, by talking to the horrible woman who plagued her thoughts. Amanda Waller was willing to talk, under one condition. A promise from this alien to work for her when No Man's Land was done. Roz'etta agreed, and her future was sealed. A future of red, white, and blonde, of the Force of July. When Batman came calling, offering Roz'etta a chance to be part of the Justice League, if only as a courtesy, since the spot was going to be Oracle's, Roz'etta outright declined. She had given her word to Amanda Waller, she knew what Amanda Waller was capable of, and she knew that in a war between Waller and the Justice League, nobody would win. This is the level of respect Amanda Waller commanded in No Man's Land.

I will talk further of Waller's actions in No Man's Land later, in the context of our current campaign, but I'll leave this introduction to Waller will this: Amanda Waller commands every room she's in, every conversation she is a part of. She knows it, and I dare you to challenge it.

In between campaigns, Roz'etta joined the Force of July under President Lex Luthor and Defense Secretary Amanda Waller, alongside Sparkler, Katana, Nightshade, Resurrection Man, and Azrael, an often mad man who was very much Roz'etta's enemy during No Man's Land, tamed, healed by the wonders of Waller's methods, turned close ally.

In that time, Roz'etta grew to respect Waller, she even somewhat grew to like Waller. Waller was no longer the terrifying force hanging over her head, she's a person giving orders, providing resources, still a pain to deal with, but in a different way. One doesn't question Waller, one doesn't handle Waller the leader the way one handles Oracle the leader, but it worked. It functioned. Waller, in her own way, cared about the well-being of her team.

Until Lex Luthor tried to turn the power of America against Batman and Superman, and Waller was caught in his manipulations. Roz'etta walked in on what it still, to me, one of the most terrifying moments in comic book history.

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Lex was using Waller to his own ends, and Roz'etta needed answers. This is how Lex informed Roz'etta of one of his great secrets. He had imprisoned, tortured, and manipulated Roz'etta's prince.

Three thoughts went through Roz'etta's mind.

First: Betrayal. She had been betrayed by Lex, by Oracle, by Batman, by so many people she trusted. Even Waller had betrayed her.

Second: Anger. Roz'etta was furious over this, she was furious with humanity itself, for manipulating her, for using her. She had even aided Batman when he needed her, managing to make time in her life in the Force of July to help him when he was under suspicion of murdering Vesper Fairchild! How dare he do this to her?

Third: That she needed to focus. Forget a war between Waller and the Justice League, a war between Saturn and Earth would be magnitudes worse.

So Roz'etta did what Roz'etta does, she ran. She ran to Saturn, to be by Jemm's side. To ensure that this would not boil over into an interplanetary war. She would fix this much, if it took every breath she'd ever have. This, perhaps, was the little bit Amanda Waller had been able to plant in Roz'etta. One tiny seed that, if it had a chance, could grow.

And in that time, Roz'etta did grow. She grew from a hero just stepping into the world into a veteran, and one day, she would return to Earth, with a different face, that of Julie Bowen. That day would last only a few minutes before she would be captured, caught in a trap and put in a tube, to sleep as the world fell apart.