DC Comics has created many of the most well-known supervillains in comics. Some villains were seemingly born to be major players, but others have to earn their place at the top. Deathstroke is one of the latter. Deathstroke began as a villain for the New Teen Titans, which fueled a meteoric rise to the top. Deathstroke became so popular that he was transitioned to an anti-hero for a time in order to give him his own series, a state of affairs that has been repeated several times over the years. However, Deathstroke always goes back to villainy, and has grown into an enemy that can challenge even the most powerful heroes and teams. He’s even somehow become known as a Batman villain, which speaks to the popularity of the character.
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Deathstroke’s acted as one of the big bads of Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths, leading Pariah’s Dark Army on Earth After his defeat. Deathstroke was last seen in a tube with his super-serum soldier gone and his life support turned off. All of that changed at the end of Titans #17 — an issue that saw Clock King gain new powers and become a more interesting and dangerous villain — as Deathstroke approaches the defeated villain with a new plan to destroy the Titans. However, looking at the last few years and how Deathstroke has changed, is this the wisest way to bring him back?
Deathstroke Has Proven Himself to Be Beyond the Titans at This Point
It’s hard to exactly pin down when Deathstroke moved beyond the Titans, but a good place to start would be Identity Crisis and his role in the DC Universe in the years after that story. Deathstroke showed off his tactical wherewithal by successfully fighting back against a team of the Justice League’s best — Wally West, Kyle Rayner, Hawkman, Zatanna, Black Canary, the Atom, Elongated Man, and Green Arrow — showing readers that he was more than just a villain who could deal with the younger heroes. From there, he joined the Society, playing a role on the villains’ side of the build-up to Infinite Crisis, and would go on to battle Green Arrow, join the Injustice League under Lex Luthor, and basically move up in the villain world. Down the road, there’d be confrontations with Batman, more solo books, and his aforementioned role in Dark Crisis on Infinite Eaerths.
Deathstroke has proven to be at his best when he’s moving beyond the Titans, especially in the last few decades. “The Judas Contract” is an excellent story, but every Deathstroke vs. Titans story after it has somehow always pulled something from it — from the time he killed his son Jericho, a major character in “The Judas Contract,” to his return in Geoff Johns and Mike McKone’s ’00s Teen Titans reboot and murder of Wintergreen. It’s always been about the same old revenge schemes. Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths, a book with a middling reputation among fans and critics, gave readers a different view of the usual Deathstroke story, the villain driven to destroy the Multiverse because of the damage he had done to his family over the years. Sure, it also played off concepts and events informed by “The Judas Contract,” but it also showed that Deathstroke could be something more than the mercenary who hated teen heroes.
Deathstroke going back to the Titans well seems like a waste of the character as he is now. At this point, readers have seen Deathstroke hold his own against Superman, albeit with the Ikon armor. They’ve watched him lead an army of C-list villains that terrorized the superhero community. He’s matched wits with Batman and Green Arrow, and helped fight the Justice League. Having him start to build a team to fight the Titans — something he’s done before with the Titans East during the end stages of Johns’s run on Teen Titans — is a rehash of the first order. Deathstroke has grown beyond being the Titans’ greatest enemy. He’s shown that he can be a threat to the entire superhero community and that there are way more stories that could be told with him.
And that’s not even getting into the Titans themselves. The Titans have just served as the surrogate Justice League for the last few years. They led the superhero community through Titans: Beast World and were supposed to be reaching a new height in their superheroic career. However, while their book was still pretty good, they faced the exact same threats that they did before — a new generation Brother Blood in Brother Eternity and yet another battle against the dark side of Raven. DC talked a big game about giving the Titans their own identity, but mostly just rehashed what they had done before. Going back to Deathstroke is just another example of this. The Titans have a new leader, but it seems like they’ll always have the same place in the superhero community, always going back to their old enemies.
It’s a New Era for DC and Should Be One For Deathstroke as Well
DC is entering an all-new era with All-In. There’s an energy to their superhero books that they haven’t had in a long time. Justice League Unlimited #1 cracked the top ten sales chart, and the Absolute line has fans excited. Everything feels new and shiny. This is the best time to take some characters to the next level, and that’s happening across the line. However, Deathstroke is being left behind, dropped back into his forever war against the Titans.
Now, obviously, this could lead to an amazing story. It could be a launching point for Deathstroke again after his star turn in Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths. The problem is that readers have seen this story before. They’ve seen it multiple times, over and over again, and it’s getting old. Superhero comics are often a game of rehashes, but some of them work better than others. Deathstroke and the Titans have lost their luster, especially since readers have seen how great Deathstroke is against enemies who aren’t the Titans. Deathstroke would make a perfect villain for the new Justice League or some other A-list heroes out there. Instead, it’s the rehash again, and that’s a shame.
