‘Arrow’ Casts Cynthia Addai-Robinson As Amanda Waller

It was just last week that we heard rumors about the CW's live-action Green Arrow television series Arrow adding Amanda Waller to the cast, and today, it's been confirmed. Waller is indeed joining the show and she'll be played by Cynthia Addai-Robinson, best known for her role as Naevia in Spartacus: War of the Damned.

In stepping into the role, Addai-Robinson has become the latest actress to play a character who -- probably not surprisingly -- has become one of DC's most prominent fixtures in media outside comics.

Originally created by Len Wein, John Ostrander and John Byrne in the pages of Legends, Amanda "The Wall" Waller became a fan-favorite character in Ostrander and Luke McDonnell's Suicide Squad, where she was the tough-as-nails government sponsor of a task force that sent super-criminals on suicide missions in exchange for pardons. Despite being one of the only characters in the book who didn't have superpowers, Waller never backed down from anybody, up to and including the cosmic God of Evil, Darkseid, and famously sent the Batman packing after his first attempt to shut down the Squad:

In recent years, Waller's popped up in a pretty good number of DC-inspired media projects, voiced by CCH Pounder on the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited animated series, Angela Basset in the Green Lantern movie, and -- our favorite here at ComicsAlliance -- the legendary Pam Grier on Smallville. For Arrow, Addai-Robinson seems like she'll be following in the footsteps of the more recent "New 52" reboot of the character, which transformed Waller from a stocky, middle-aged mother and widow into a younger, svelter spymaster.

So what does this mean for Arrow? Well, Deadshot's already guest starred, and considering that he's the other character who became a favorite during those Suicide Squad years, it's not hard to assume Scruffy Brooding Oliver Queen will be getting involved with the group also known as Task Force X in some way or another.