How many times has Deathstroke died? Is Slade suicidal?

 Being a comic book character is fair to assume that Slade has died multiple times but as we all know death in comics has almost zero impact.The thing is, Slade is immortal. Or at least he was. 

Total Chaos

Total Chaos was a big crossover for the Titans in the 90's. Lots of changes happened after it, not only for the Teen Titans, or Team Titans, but for Deathstroke as well. At the end of the crossover, Slade finds himself on Titans Island, tired and overwhelmed by an army. He manages to fight and kill them all, however, he dies soon after. A heart attack. Total Chaos also marks Rose Wilson's first appearance.

The whole crossover foreshadowed it, we saw it coming. Things like interactions between him and others, like Beast Boy, how they show Slade current health state. But of course, he would not stay dead. Cheshire brings Slade back to life quickly after that and with a bonus. Slade became immortal. 

After that, how much punishment Slade can endure is amplified. We can see him "dying" on a daily basis and being back up in hours. During this time, the amount of guilt Slade feels about the death of his 2 sons haunts him more and more. Slade starts showing signs of depression, of a certain death wish. This all comes to a climax in Deathstroke the Terminator #35.

To Thine Own Self

This is a single issue story that seeks to end Slade's death wish. At the end of this issue, Wintergreen confronts Slade, showing him how selfish suicide is. This issue is really heavy, the imagery and the text here are mature as hell. There is a moment where Slade puts a gun on his mouth and starts crying. I'm not even going to show it here. 

After that we see Slade and Wintergreen having a conversation about optimism and how the death of Grant and Joey move Slade to try to redeem himself. It's a wonderful moment, with some nice, but somewhat dated, dialogue and beautiful art. Script by Wolfman and art by Launchland Pelle. And I have to mention the amazing colours by Trish Mulvihill.

Later on the character can be seen dying in elseworlds and alternate timelines, but i don't see the need to cover that here since i'm trying to talk about only the "true" main timeline Slade. Things ad The New 52: Futures End, Convergence: Suicide Squad, Tales From The Dark Multiverse: Teen Titans: The Judas Contract are stories for another day(spoiler alert, those 3 are bad, really bad).

The Terminus Agenda

Another crossover between Deathstroke and the Teen Titans that ends with Slade's death. During this story, they try(and fail) to fool the reader into thinking that Damian is going to kill Slade at the end. Slade himself says he wants Damian to do it. Slade is responsible for the death of his therapist called Candace. She did try to help Slade and he started to like her in some level, she also resembles Tanya Spears, another character that Slade had some level of caring. However, trying to help Karen Starr, the original Power Girl, Tanya gets lost in some kind of pocket dimension and Slade believes she killed herself and he is responsible for that action. So, I think it makes sense for Slade to wish to die now. Slade also likes Damian in a way, and fears for him, he thinks Batman made Damian soft and he wants to make Damian more brutal in the hopes of this guaranteeing that Damian will survive in any scenario.  

But it's really hard to read this, Terminus Agenda presents itself so quickly and sloppy that you really need to look in the interlines. Anyways. Emiko Queen kills Slade. 

Obviously Slade was no longer immortal when this happens, his immortal status disappeared after a certain time.

In a character assassination moment(the character being Emiko), she kills Slade for pretty much no reason. Earlier we saw a moment between the two that foreshadows that this may happen, but it makes no sense. Emiko has killed in the past? Yes, but she is not a killer. She killed one villain for a very specific and personal reason. The argument that she might end up like her mother has no legs to stand on. This would work for Damian(even tho I don't think he should kill either) but for Emi? Just no. But ok, let's pretend Emiko's journey so far led us to think that she is going to be like her mother. So what? 

 When she kills Slade he was unarmed and Robin had him at gun point. He was not a threat. If he was about tho kill Damian, i could see some logic there but that's not the case. This is nothing but cheap shock value, like Damian "killing" Black Mask earlier on this Teen Titans run. Also, how he dies is pathetic. Seriously?  An arrow? He survived being shot in the head, I just don't buy it. 

But at least after that Deathstroke R.I.P. happened and that was great. We saw Rose as Deathstroke for a while and a version of Slade from the Dark Multiverse. However, the original plan for that storyline was to make the Dark Multiverse version of Slade, or "Altstroke", the winner of that arc. He would kill the main universe Deathstroke and take his place. Shame that we didn't get to see this, it would gave the character an end. and a better conclusion for his death wish. Deathstroke being killed by... well, Deathstroke. Slade is his own biggest villain. 

Deathstroke Inc. 

In Deathstroke Inc. #4 Slade is killed by Black Canary. Dinah and Deathstroke have being crossing each other's life for a while, Deathstroke Inc. was trying to cap this off. As issue 4 opens they fight but with no winner or looser, deciding to team up against the organization know as T.R.U.S.T. 

As they fight some villains they are tricked into fighting one another and Dinah comes out as the winner this time. 

Slade simply gets back up in the next issue, so, I guess that's the writer remembering that Slade was immortal?

Shadow War

Slade gets killed by Talia Al Ghul at the end of the event in one of the most nonsensical things I ever read. Deathstroke, acting out of character, decides to go after Talia with no prep time or anything. I won't go over many details here since I've already did a full review on this issue, so let's move on. 

After that, Slade gets into the Lazarus Pit and comes back for Dark Crisis. So, I guess the same writer who remembered that Deathstroke was immortal just forgot it 2 months later. 

Deathstroke Year One

Yes, Slade died 3 times in 2023 alone. I guess DC is having a shortage for creativity lately(?). In this story that fills in some gaps in Deathstroke lore and retcons some aspects of Slade's origin we see that Slade first time dying was way back, during his first mission as a mercenary. 

Does this create some plot holes? Yes. Does anyone at DC care? No. 

In Conclusion 

Slade tried to get himself killed 2 times, and died 5 times in DC's main continuity. 3 of them in 2022 alone(I guess a certain writer has no idea about what to do with the character). I have this feeling that Slade is going to die again in Dark Crisis, the current main event at DC. But let's wait and see, until then, have a good one.