Deathstroke

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Template:Superherobox Deathstroke the Terminator (Slade Wilson), also called simply Deathstroke, is a fictional character appearing in the DC Comics universe. He is a mercenary and assassin. He first appeared in New Teen Titans vol. 1 #2 (1980).

Character history

Imbued with superhuman physical prowess by secret army experiments attempting to create metahuman soldiers for the US military, Deathstroke the Terminator (called "Terminator" for most of his published existence) also has an amazing healing factor, as well as heightened strength, agility and stamina. He can regenerate damage from almost any wound, even severe rhenal damage as long as his brain is intact. For a while he replaced his lost right eye with an artificial one, but he has since discarded the artificial eye. He is also a crack marksman and skilled hand-to-hand combatant, and is willing to fight dirty when necessary.

Slade Wilson became a mercenary soon after the experiment. However, he kept this career secret from his family, even though his wife was an expert military combat instructor, until a criminal named the Jackal kidnapped his younger son, Joseph, as a hostage to force Slade to divulge the name of a client who had hired him as an assassin. Slade refused to do so, claiming that it was against his personal honor code, and attacked and killed the kidnappers at the rendezvous. Unfortunately, Joseph's throat was slashed by one of the criminals before Slade could prevent it, destroying his vocal cords and rendering him mute. After taking Joseph to the hospital, Slade's wife Adeline, enraged at his endangerment of her son, tried to kill Slade by shooting him, but only managed to destroy his right eye. Afterward, his confidence in his physical abilities was such that he made no secret of his impaired vision, marked by his mask which has a black featureless half covering his lost eye. Without his mask, Slade wears an eyepatch.

Slade has a long history as an enemy of the Teen Titans, beginning when his other son, Grant, became an early Titans foe called the Ravager who was physically enhanced to fulfill a contract to kill or capture the Teen Titans. However, those enhancements proved fatal and Slade agreed to complete the contract. As a result, he attacked the Titans continually and finally succeeded in capturing them by introducing Terra into the team as a spy. At the end of this plot, Slade was defeated and captured with the help of Joseph, who joined the team as Jericho. Despite their enmity, he has grudgingly worked alongside the Titans on occasion, usually to battle a greater evil. He also teamed up with the Justice League to foil an invasion of Earth by Warworld.

After the deaths of Joseph and Grant, Slade went on multiple suicide missions, trying to expiate his guilt.

In Titans issue twelve, his wife was killed by Koriand'r, aka Starfire of the Teen Titans. Adeline had previously been given Slade's blood, giving her his regenerative abilities, but after Adeline's throat was slit by Vandal Savage, Starfire blasted her with a starbolt, disintegrating her completely.

Deathstroke was forced to kill Jericho after his possession by the tainted souls of Azarath. Recently it was revealed that Jericho managed to transfer his consciousness into Deathstroke in the instant before his death. Taking control of his father, Jericho forced Deathstroke to murder his longtime butler, mentor, and companion Wintergreen. He then launched a series of attacks against the current Teen Titans, most notably shattering Impulse's knee with a shotgun blast, before leaving his father's body. Deathstroke has since manipulated his one remaining child, Rose Wilson, into the mercenary business as the new Ravager, in order to find and kill Jericho.

In Identity Crisis, Deathstroke was enlisted as a bodyguard for Doctor Light, who was being chased by the Justice League. In the ensuing battle, Deathstroke nearly beat the team of Elongated Man, the Flash (Wally West), Zatanna, Hawkman, Green Arrow, Black Canary, The Atom, and Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner). He systematically took out every member except for Rayner (due to an attempt to use Rayner's power ring) and lost his edge in the battle when Green Arrow stuck an arrow in Deathstroke's missing eye. He still escaped with Dr. Light and has sworn revenge against Green Arrow and the League.

Deathstroke is currently a founding member of Lex Luthor's Secret Society of Super Villains in the Infinite Crisis storyline. He was seen in Infinite Crisis #1, hiding in a warehouse south of Metropolis waiting to ambush the Freedom Fighters with several other members. The battle didn't last long, and by the end Deathstroke had impaled Phantom Lady through the chest, calling his action "just business".

He was the employer of an undercover Dick Grayson, whom he hired to train his daughter Rose. However, after the two had a confrontation with Superman, Deathstroke discovered that Nightwing had been teaching Rose the values of heroism. He could not kill Grayson in front of his daughter because doing so would undo all of Slade's teachings. Nightwing offered a deal: He would stay away from Rose if Slade would keep the metahuman villains out of Blüdhaven.

The deal held for 34 hours until Infinite Crisis #4, when Slade apparently, as a founding member of the Society, ordered several villains--who included old Titan's Doom Patrol foes and Brotherhood of Evil members Monsieur Mallah and Brain--to drop Chemo, another fellow villain who appeared to be a nearly brainless monster made of pure energy and radioactive chemicals, on Blüdhaven, killing thousands. Slade gave the explanation to the Brotherhood that Nightwing should be made to believe that he can never go home again.

Grayson took the first of his revenge by bursting in on Deathstroke and Rose's training session, revealing to the latter that her father had implanted deadly radioactive Kryptonite in her missing eye. Angered, Slade went after Nightwing with a grenade, only to have Rose try to stop him. Amid the smoke of the resulting explosion, Rose fled, telling her father that she hated him. Dick disappeared as well, but not before leaving a note for Slade warning him that he'd be back to make him pay for Blüdhaven.

Trivia

• Deathstroke received his own series, Deathstroke the Terminator, in 1991; this series lasted for 61 issues (#1-60 plus a special #0 issue), being cancelled shortly after Zero Hour. It was retitled to Deathstroke the Hunted for issues #0 and #41-45 and then simply "Deathstroke" from 46 through 60.
• Even though the character of Deathstroke the Terminator pre-dates the first Arnold Schwarzenegger "Terminator" film by four years, the Slade Wilson character is now simply called "Deathstroke", even by characters who had called him "Terminator" for years, possibly to avoid confusion.
• Rob Liefeld parodied/plagiarised the Deathstroke character in his work at Marvel Comics, creating Wade Wilson, alias Deadpool, an amoral, quick-healing mercenary who clashed with Marvel's formerly-teenaged hero team, X-Force. Other writers later developed Deadpool into his own character. The third Ravager, Wade DeFarge, is a sort of "double-back" parody of Deadpool.

In the Teen Titans animated series

Image:Slade.png Deathstroke also appears in the Teen Titans animated series, where he is referred to only by his real first name, Slade (and voiced very menacingly by actor Ron Perlman). The name "Deathstroke" did not make it through the censors since "death" is usually not allowed to be used in animated series for children, hence the name "Slade". He is the Titans' most dangerous foe. His main goal is to "destroy" the Titans and conquer the city and quite possibly the world, for unknown reasons — though it is possible he is simply a criminal with ambitions of power and has no ulterior motives.

In many episodes in Season One and Season Two, he tries to recruit others to his side. He initially hires Jinx, Gizmo, and Mammoth from the H.I.V.E. Academy, but the Titans succeed in beating the three graduates. Slade then disguises himself as Old One from The Forces of Nature and tries to trick Thunder and Lightning, two teenage storm elementals, into destroying Jump City, but that too failed when Beast Boy helped the brothers to see the error of their ways. Robin appears to capture Slade in "Masks", only to discover that it is a robotic duplicate. In the "Apprentice" story arc, Slade forced Robin to join him, with the threat that if he did not, Slade would use nanobots he planted in the Titans to destroy them from the inside out, therefore killing them. Robin eventually overcame Slade with his friends' help.

In Season Two, Slade recruited the superheroine Terra, who in the animated series is portrayed as more of a lost soul than an irredeemable psychopath. In "Aftershock" Parts One and Two, Terra betrayed the Titans to Slade, who took over the city with her help. The Titans returned however, and with Beast Boy's help, Terra overcame the link her new suit had to Slade, and she sent him to his doom in a lava pit while she turned to stone.

Being apparently dead (as he seemingly does not have his comic book counterpart's recovery abilities), Slade was absent for the most part in the third season. He did appear in the season 3 episode, "Haunted". But in this episode, he is a figment of Robin's imagination, due to a reagent released from his mask onto Robin, which made him see, hear, and feel Slade. This almost killed Robin, but Robin saved his own life by turning on the lights (thus banishing the Slade hallucination). Oddly enough, it was revealed that this gas had been triggered from the outside, and the series was finished without answering the question of who set it off. He then unexplainably returned in full for Season Four, as the servant of Raven's demonic father Trigon. Slade now had fire powers and a red mark on his forehead, called the Mark of Scath. He delivered Trigon's message to Raven, that she would cause the end of the world on her birthday. In the episode "The End Part 2", it is explained that Slade's defeat at Terra's hands had indeed killed him, and that Trigon had promised to give him back his flesh in exchange for his services. However, Trigon went back on the deal, and Slade decided to join forces with the Teen Titans. While Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast Boy tried to distract Trigon, Robin and Slade went to find Raven (who had been transformed into a child version of herself) in the underworld. Upon returning to the surface with Raven, the Titans assaulted Trigon in a somewhat vain effort to defeat him. Nevertheless, they managed to hurt him, as did Slade, who recovered his flesh and stole the demonic weapon of one of Trigon's minions. Raven finally defeated her father and restored the world to normal, but Slade escaped the Titans shortly thereafter, with a solemn promise from Robin that nothing has changed, and he will make that clear if he sees him again.

Beast Boy encounters another robotic duplicate of Slade in the last episode--His final "appearance".