Deathstroke Rebirth

I hope Terra will show up in this book, be it flashbacks or the present day somehow.

 

Great issue. Surely the most "straight-forward" issue yet.

Yeah I think so.

 

The Rose origin seems more tantalizingly hinted at right now. Rose is still clearly a developing teenager as far as her psyche goes, and Slade is just as clearly a miserable excuse for a father. Her insistence that Nightwing taught her something good is fascinating; I kind of hope that Slade will be forced to grudgingly admit that her physical skills are worthy of a daughter of Deathstroke. And I really hope we see some complexity coming from her struggling with the morality Dick (and whatever other parental figures she has) clashing with Slade's purely mercenary ethos and his cynical logic. As a teenager, she should still be devoloping her own moral code, and there's a part of me that wants to see a mix of deconstruction and reconstruction on superhero morality.

And part of me really wants Deathstroke's philosophy to take a few hits here, just because I do think that at the end of the day, Dick Grayson is the better man.

Because Priest is definetly embracing this view of Slade as a totally amoral sonufagun. What honor he may have is clearly more pragmatic and self centered than anything else, and you can really feel the difference between him and, say, Batman. Slade is such a consequentialist in comparison to Bruce that reading books with them back to back highlights how Batman has this core of altruism, humanism, empathy, and Slade's just a vacant and proud warrior out for himself and people who serve a function in his life (even as family and loved ones). And Priest is very subtly handling the Rebirth idea; this week we saw that Rose is much closer to her brothers in age, with Slade's reacquaintance with Lilly lining up with his failure to defend Joeseph from retribution. Combine this with his clearly negligent and abusive treatment of Grant and Joe, and this is clearly a guy who's family life, while a part of his identity, is in a distinctly inferior position to his own wants and desires.

And right now, I can't wait to see how Priest handles the Batman and Robin crossover.

 

Cant wait for Batman and Robin, wonder if Priest will acknowledge Damian's run in with Slade in Damian's series a year back.

 

I'm not quite saying that completely; I am, however, arguing that this Deathstroke is clearly suffering for his own amoral mistakes and has adopted a world view that somewhat justifies those mistakes. Love is a weakness for him, but that's partially because his pride and occasional hedonism towards combat and other vices made his loved ones vulnerable, and because he got tunnel visions when one of them got injured from that. In hindsight, Slade probably knows that he was a negligent (and possibly abusive) father, and pretty clearly a husband unworthy of his wife. And while he tried to keep those factors from interfering with his professional life, of course they did.

And with the collapse of his personal life, all that was left was the professional one. And in a way, Slade probably realizes that the life he lives right now is the one that he prioritized above the life he could have had with his family. Slade wasn't necessarily a bastard before losing his eye, but he was still pretty clearly a proud and amoral mercenary, and unfortunately, the journey between the two wound up not being that far.

 

I like that Slade is kind of a mess as a dad because it seems like a very human portrayal. A lot of people who end up with horrible, dysfunctional relationships with their kids don't hate them, they're just incapable of actually being good parents. You can love somebody but still be a horrible fit for them.

I think that was explored with the first Rebirth one-shot Priest did for the book. He verbally abuses his sons in the flashback and treats them horribly, but it's still abundantly clear that he loves them and cares for them deeply, and blames himself for what happened to them later in life. The problem is he's just too crappy of a parent to actually be able to handle raising children.

 

I hope he comes across Nightwing and the Titans (guys like Beast Boy who he has history with) in this at some stage. The Titans and especially Nightwing should always be important to him. I have a feeling DC want to make Damian his main rival, which I do not like, and I hope I am mistaken. Grayson should always be the Robin that he goes up against.

 

Him fighting against him in Son of Batman and I am sure Damian will be in the Judas Contract movie. In Damian's own comic last year, he fought Slade and did well. He didn't struggle, if I remember correctly. I honestly think that if there was a serious fight between them, they would have Damian win, unless it was in Deathstroke's own comic.

 

Like I said, I would be more worried about it happening outside his own comic. With that said, I think I remember Priest saying that he spoke to DC and did not want him to losing to be people in other comics, as it goes against what Priest is trying to do. Again though, it is not just him losing, but it is more him and Damian becoming enemies that I do not like, unless it is an occasional thing. If DS is to have enemies, Damian should be under several other people.

 

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/10/09/deathstroke-to-tell-a-story-about-chicagos-gun-deaths-in-january/

 

Animated Damian is a different matter entirely, his Deathstroke sucked as well, remember Batman destroyed him with 4 punches. As for the comic, their last encounter was in Damian's series and all that Damian did was lure him in to a booby trapped chamber that Damian had memorized, when that failed Damian paid him off.