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Adam James Susan is a fictional character in the comic book series (later graphic novel) V for Vendetta, created by writer Alan Moore and illustrator David Lloyd.

Adam Susan is the leader of Norsefire, a dictatorship that holds England in an iron grip. A firm adherent of pure fascism, he values order above all else and sees civil liberties as unneeded luxuries which are ultimately threats to a secure society. In addition, he is a Neo-Nazi fanatic who despises anyone who is not white and heterosexual, stating early on that he believes in "the destiny of the Nordic race."

He gathered a select few like-minded politicians into his inner circle, and then exploited the poverty, chaos, and panic that followed a worldwide nuclear war to seize power. Once in control, he banned all art and literature that conflicted with the views of the party, criminalized political dissent, and put Jews, Arabs, Quakers, Pakistanis and homosexuals into concentration camps.

In order to further monitor the state, Susan took control of the intelligence departments known as the Eye and the Ear, the military police departments called the Nose and the Finger, and the propaganda department called the Mouth. These are run by his subordinates, Peter Creedy (The Finger), Conrad Heyer (The Eye), Brian Etheridge (The Ear), Eric Finch (The Nose), and Roger Dascombe (The Mouth). The leaders of these departments run the day-to-day affairs of government, while Susan is little more than a figurehead.

From his inner sanctum, he eschews virtually all human contact and emotion, resolving to be feared and respected if he cannot be loved. He reserves the closest thing he can manage to human feeling for Fate, the super-computer which both surveys security and maintains the bureaucracy of his government; he loves and worships the machine as a goddess, and considers the two of them to be the only "real" beings in existence. He is not without human qualities, however; his last few moments in the novel reveal him to be a socially inept, timid man who is eager to somehow connect with his people. He recounts his past, including glimpses of his childhood; it is implied that he was a lonely child who developed an inflated sense of his own power and importance by embracing fascism. It is also revealed that he has remained a virgin his entire life, as he feels that he would be disgraced by sexual contact with his "inferiors".

His rule begins to crumble, however, when a masked terrorist calling himself "V" blows up the Houses of Parliament on November 5 (Guy Fawkes Day). V then begins systematically killing Susan's lieutenants. His defiance gradually inspires the public to rebel against Norsefire's reign. Susan tries desperately to capture and kill the mysterious vigilante, but remains increasingly powerless to stop him. Susan eventually finds out that V has been manipulating the Fate super-computer to express the forbidden emotion of love, driving him further into insanity.

At the end of the novel, Susan is shot and killed during a publicity parade by Rose Almond, the widow of Derek Almond, Creedy's predecessor. As Rose's fall to poverty was caused by V murdering first her husband and then her lover, yet leaves Creedy to be killed by his subordinate, it is possible V orchestrated the assassination. V leaves roses near the bodies of those he assassinates, and states that for the Leader, he has "cultivated a very special rose."

Creedy immediately takes total control of London for a short period of time before he too is killed by one of his underlings, soon resulting in the total collapse of the government.

Sutler addresses his cabinet.

In the film adaptation, the character is named Adam Sutler (a mixing of "Susan" and "Hitler"), and is portrayed by John Hurt.

While his graphic novel counterpart genuinely believes in achieving order and stability at any cost, this version of the character seems to care only about achieving power for himself and merely uses promises of peace and security to keep the populace in line.^{[original research?]} The film version of the character also claims to be a "deeply religious man" as a way of furthering his rise to power.

In the film, Norsefire seizes control of England by murdering thousands of people with a laboratory-engineered plague, blaming the catastrophe on terrorists, and promising to restore order. He then uses the supposed terrorist threat, along with an ongoing propaganda campaign in the state-run media, to cow the public into silence and justify Norsefire's genocidal policies. As in the graphic novel, Sutler lives in an underground bunker in self-imposed exile and leaves the day-to-day operation of his empire to his lieutenants.

Toward the end of the film, Sutler blames Creedy for the failure to capture V. Creedy then makes a deal with V to kill Sutler. Creedy and his men kidnap Sutler and bring him to V in the London Underground, where Creedy executes his boss by shooting him in the forehead.