Deathstroke's extended origin

 As Deathstroke Year One approaches I decided that would be fun to look at Slade basic origin and some details that seen forgotten. As you know, the basics are that Slade lied his age, got in the army to run away from his abusive father, and quickly became one of the best soldiers there. He meet Wintergreen, his best friend, and Adeline, his future wife. Slade got into an experiment, sometimes referenced as Project X, that made him into a super soldier. However since Slade entered a comatose state for weeks after it it was deemed a failure and the project was scraped. Sometime later, Slade found himself with superhuman capabilities but made it a secret and became the mercenary Deathstroke the Terminator. 

There is much more to that! 

Before anything, let's talk about Slade's half brother, Wade. Yes, it's almost what it seems. 

Wade is a mercenary, in a red costume, yes, and Slade's half brother. They share the same father. Wade used to date Adeline, 4 years before Slade meet her. Hating Slade for being more successful than him, Wade took the name Ravager, becoming the third person to use this name, and hunted his brother. If you're feeling a deja-vu, yeah, this very similar to the second Ravager, the Jackal. Now let's get to the real interesting parts!

Slade's time in the army

Besides the most well known events during that time, we can find other elements like this, Slade served with Lois Lane's father, Sam Lane. He even got to meet Lois as a kid. I'm personally a big fan of this detail since it makes Deathstroke more connected to the rest of DC's universe besides the Titans. 

But I think the most important event during Slade's time in the army was the "death" of one of his rivals, John "Dragon Rider" Rogers, A.K.A. Drago. The character didn't die for real, he showed up to be an antagonist for Deathstroke, but Slade believing he was dead, started thinking about leaving the army to be a mercenary. Making this quite relevant for Deathstroke's origin. 

After the army 

When Slade was discharged he searched for people to train him in martial arts, sword fighting and more. One of his masters was an assassin called Natas. So, contrary to popular belief, Slade isn't just a soldier. Green Arrow went after Natas to learn how to be a better fighter as well.

We also get some explanation to why Slade wears a costume. Similar to Moon Knight, we wants attention to better intimidate his targets.

High changes of this not even being canon, but Slade also took a contract to kill Bruce Wayne at one point. And of course, it was a failure. But, again, since there is a good change of this not being canon we can ignore that. 

That lead us to the New 52, where Deathstroke got a new origin but things were messy for him. From time to time you could see details changing, it's confusing. But today we'll be only talking about small details. 

Probably the most well known change was Slade participation on Team 7, the group originated from the Wildstorm universe but was one of the elements that DC introduced in their main continuity. Team 7 is a black ops military unit, Slade fought alongside Dinah Drake and Amanda Waller during tha time, with some other characters of course. 

Another notable detail during this era is the introduction of Lawman, someone who Slade fought alongside in his early days as a mercenary. 

Now we can go to DC Rebirth, where Slade once again had some details about his origin changed. Everything was made more cohesive and easy to understand. We learn how Slade got his sword, in a poker game basically, and the full details about said sword. He got the name Deathstroke after the sword too. 

We also see Slade's first contract and first time using his iconic mask. Still in the army, Slade got a bounty on the head of a General called Dragas.

We learn that in his early days as a mercenary Slade also had a team to back him up. The group was composed by Wintergreen, his best friend, Isherwood, responsible for weapons and gear, Rax and Frederic.

Frederic is not in this image. 

There was also this joke about Slade in one of his first missions getting an address wrong. Not really important but funny to mention.

Later DC would try to introduce a new set of characters, among them, the Silencer. DC's true deadliest assassin. She and Slade would have fought in his early days as a mercenary, with Slade losing. Ok, I do have problems with this. When we meet Slade, he's presented as the mercenary who never failed a contract, so this does not add up. 

In another character breaking moment, we would learn that Slade accepted a contract to kill Robin and fought Batman. One of the first things we learn about Deathstroke is that he does not want to mess with super heroes, since he believes that if you mess with one of them, the rest will come after you. He only went after the Titans due to personal reasons. 

Obviously, Slade also failed this contract. But at least this comic gave us the excuse that he simply covered up his failure. Still, very character breaking and incoherent.

And things get even more confusing, since Slade had been seen trying to kill Batman way before he had a Robin. 

And yes, this is also character breaking. Besides Slade's rule about not going after super heroes, Slade has expressed he absolutely does not want to kill Batman out of respect for him. And, for the third time, this is a contract Slade failed. Oh, the inconsistencies. 

And that's it, some small details that make Deathstroke origin more rich and some inconsistencies, because comics. I do not expect Deathstroke Year One to follow said details, i fully expect some retcons and changes and that's fine by me, some of it needs to be change in my opinion to restore one of Slade core aspects, he's the mercenary who never fails. Or at least he was and should be again. 

Thanks for the time and I hope to see you again here next week as we will be talking about Deathstroke Year One part 1. Have a good one.