Slade Wilson / Deathstroke

About

Slade Joseph Wilson, better known as Deathstroke or Deathstroke the Terminator, is a DC Comics supervillain in the form of a one-eyed masked mercenary created in 1980 by Marv Wolfman and George Perez for their comic book series The New Teen Titans and subsequently featured as a recurring character in various other series and storylines, including as a member of Batman's modern rogues gallery.

One of DC's most popular and prolific villains in recent years, the character has been prominently featured in several media adaptations, perhaps most notably the mid-2000s Teen Titans animated series, in which Slade is known exclusively by his first name due to period-typical hesitance to say the word "death" in a children's cartoon. More recently, Wilson has also been featured in the live-action television series Arrow where he is played by Manu Bennett, while a similar but different live-action incarnation, played by Joe Manganiello, appears at the end of the 2017 Justice League film and will be featured more prominently in future installments of the DC Extended Universe.

In online discussion, the character is infamously associated with Marvel superhero Wade Wilson A.K.A. Deadpool, whose original design and role were loosely inspired by Deathstroke's, and whose real name was subsequently (established by a different author, not Deadpool's original creator) as a direct acknowledgement of the similarity. Deadpool has consequently been variously and inaccurately labelled as a "parody" or "ripoff" of Deathstroke, in turn leading to numerous comparative discussions and imagined competitions (namely in the Death Battle and ERB formats) between the two characters.

History

In his original appearance in The New Teen Titans, Slade "Deathstroke the Terminator" Wilson is an exceptionally skilled and dangerous professional mercenary who targets the young protagonist team after his less-skilled son in the same villainous profession, Grant "Ravager" Wilson, dies trying to fulfill a contract from the H.I.V.E. organization to kill or capture them, so as to honor and avenge his son. The Titans' conflict with the Terminator (a name that would later become seldom-used due to the pop-cultural emergence of a certain other type of Terminator) eventually culminates in the story arc known as "The Judas Contract", wherein recently-adopted Titans member Tara "Terra" Markov is revealed to be a vicious psychopath acting as a spy and double-agent for Wilson as well as being in a sexual relationship with him… despite being only sixteen years old. This storyline also introduces Slade's other son, the heroic mute telepath Joseph "Jericho" Wilson, reveals much more of his personal backstory including his history in the military and relationship with his estranged wife Adeline, and concludes with the villain successfully capturing all the Titans for H.I.V.E. and receiving payment, officially fulfilling his deceased son's contract, only for Terra to enter a berserk rage that prevents the heroes' intended execution while ultimately leading to only one actual death: her own.

Later mainstream storylines in the comics would occasionally portray Slade in a more protagonistic context as an antihero, and introduce his daughter Rose "Ravager" Wilson.

Much of the generation born in the 1990s would come to know Slade by that first name of his alone (due to censorship over the word "death") with his role in the Teen Titans animated series starting in 2003, where he was voiced by Ron Perlman and portrayed as an extremely sinister and mysterious arch-villain with stalker-like fixation on Robin and later Terra (who is a much more sympathetic and conflicted character here than her monstrous comic counterpart), either of whom he intends to enslave as an "apprentice". Slade is killed by Terra at the end of the show's second season, and following a brief return as a hallucination of Robin's in one episode of season three, he is resurrected in season four as an undead servant and herald of the world-conquering demon Trigon, pressuring Trigon's daughter Raven to fulfill her apocalyptic destiny in a number of incredibly dark and creepy sequences before eventually turning against Trigon after he is summoned and helping the Titans defeat him and restore the world (including Slade's living form).

A more traditional adaptation of Slade Wilson based on his later appearances subsequent to his feud with the Titans and freely referred to here as "Deathstroke" later appeared in the CW live-action television series Arrow starting in 2013, played by Manu Bennett. As of late 2017, this version of the character has controversially been retired from further appearances in the Arrowverse due to a different, cinematic live-action incarnation of Slade making his debut in the Justice League movie, and DC executives' policy to have as few overlapping characters between ongoing film and television series as possible.

Other multimedia appearances of the character include the Batman video games Arkham Origins and Arkham Knight, the fighting game Injustice: Gods Among Us, the animated feature Teen Titans: The Judas Contract, the final season of Smallville and the Teen Titans Go! episode "The Return of Slade", in which Slade infamously does not appear at all as his return and subsequent defeat occur entirely offscreen after which a completely unrelated, series-typically idiotic plot ensues for the rest of the episode. He will, however, make an actual appearance, albeit in a redesigned incarnation different from his appearance in the original animated series, in the 2018 TTG theatrical movie.

Deathstroke and Deadpool

Deathstroke and Deadpool have been viewed as meta-rivals ever since the latter's introduction with a design derivative of the former and a real name flat-out parodying his, and despite the outrageous personality traits for which Deadpool has since become best known having nothing to do with the character his initial appearance was inspired by, comparisons between the two have only become more common and prominent in recent years, especially with both characters' increased popularity from new media appearances.

A Death Battle between the two characters was released by ScrewAttack in December of 2014; Deadpool won.

Multiple iterations of their rivalry have also been produced in the rap battle format, with the earliest and most popular such video coming from prolific ERB-inspired rap channel TheInfiniteSource.

Search interest

Links

^[1] Teen Titans Go! Wiki Slade | Teen Titans Go! Wiki | FANDOM powered by Wikia