Slade Wilson : Contract Journal - Part 2

 Better late than never

The New Teen Titans #9 Like puppets on a string! 

Writer: Marv Wolfman 
Artist:George Perez

Colorist: Adrianne Roy

Letterer: Ben Oda

Inker: Romeo Tanghal 

Editor: Len Wein 
Cover: George Perez 

10/10 cover by the way 

Going to be brief with this one, since we're only here for the last page. This issue is(almost) a murder mystery, and Beast Boy is the leading character. Teaming up with Robin, they search for Puppeteer, as the cover kind of spoils who is the villain. This is a great issue, seeing Gar take the lead is always a good thing, since the character has more layers than most people think. Especially considering what happens in the next issue. Another positive aspect is the action, Perez always lands great action. The only possible problem is how things end, one could call this an abrupt ending.

And at the end, Deathstroke steals Promethium, making him even more of a threat. It's important to note that project Promethium was talked about before so it feels tied to the main plot.

The New Teen Titans #10 Promethium Unbound! 

Writer: Marv Wolfman 
Artist:George Perez

Colorist: Adrianne Roy

Letterer: Ben Oda

Inker: Romeo Tanghal 

Editor: Len Wein 
Cover: George Perez 

The comic opens with Slade studying the Titans, besides following the last issue ending since he was the last character seen there, here we have a clue to why the character became so popular. To put it simply, he's not like any other antagonist so far. He seems smarter and more human than anyone we have witness before on this series. He's also very similar to Batman. We get some dialogue explaining what's going on with Deathstroke during this time in a very natural manner, making this easy for new readers to follow. Comics that do this always have positive points with me. 

We also get to know Beast Boy more after, definitely a plus. The main plot begins with Deathstroke kidnaping Sarah Simms, Cyborg's love interest/friend and attacking Starfire. Thanks to his superhuman capabilities and the promethium, he manages to put a fight against her. In other words, he's one tough bastard. Anyway, Slade's plan was to put a speaker on Kory to give the Titans a message. He wants to make a deal, the Titans would have to be at ground zero of a bomb test or Sarah would die. Which is very "mustache twirling" villain-esc from Slade. 

However, knowing the truth about the bomb, the Titans plan out a way to survive the explosion and they confront Slade. As Slade tries to run, Gar goes after him and something quite unexpected happens. Deathstroke kills Beast Boy, for real. One could argue that this was obvious due to how much development Gar had, but the fact that there is nothing on the cover hinting at this makes it a shock anyway(Of course, he comes back, but still). 

 This is a great comic on its own. The art, the story progression, the characterization of the Titans, and of course, what it says about war as a business. I didn't talked about this topic on my review since i wanted to focus on the main plot, but this is a subject this comic touches, one more example of why this is such a legendary run. Good characters, good art and the will to talk about real life issues. 

That's it for today, if everything works out, next month I'll be finally talking about the X-men crossover. Thanks for the time and patience, have a good one.