Deathstroke #2

I began this entry about 20 minutes ago and forgot I was supposed to be reading Deathstroke as it sat in the scanner and I chatted on Facebook! Also, that cover is fucking confusing! What the hell is going on? Deathstroke has a big arm and a tiny foot and he's hopping over cars and there are robots and a sword and fire and ROAD RAGE CARPOCALYPSE! OMG! I'm so excited!

Did this comic take place before #carpocaplypse or after?

The comic begins in the secret back room of some diner. This is the bar where the Super Villains hang out. See? There's a woman in a tight body suit with a belt that holds gear or ammo. And there's a guy with a glass case over his head. And there's another guy with some suspender shoulder strap gear bag thing. And then the guy with the turban. Yeah, he's obviously a bad guy, amirite?!

Look! They both have a Laura Palmer!

Inside Deathstroke's Laura Palmer is the Thing That Has Yet To Be Revealed. No, it isn't an Elder God. I mean, it could be. But I doubt it. It's something mysterious that has pissed Deathstroke off to no end to the infinite power. That's a lot of pissing off! But the bald guy he's showing it too, the guy Deathstroke wants information from about the person who put him on the mission to get that Laura Palmer, isn't telling Deathstroke anything. In fact, he thinks he's covered his back for this meet up.

Does this guy not really know who Deathstroke is? Gonna take a lot more drunk super villains than this to take Deathstroke down.

And then I turn the page and laugh out loud. Deathstroke is right there with me!

And all he needs is a dagger!

Deathstroke kills everyone in the bar just for raising their hands. They never make a move on him before he starts cutting their heads in half. Seriously. Deathstroke knows what he has to do and he does it. Don't let some bald asshole with a Laura Palmer full of money get the advantage! If he thinks he has power over you, fucking start cutting people in half and show him he's a stupid fucking moron!

And he gets the point. He runs to his getaway humvee limousine to try and outrun Deathstroke to the airport. But it's Deathstroke? First you have to think: "Would this fool Batman?" If it wouldn't then you know it wouldn't fool Deathstroke! So the guy's getaway car blows up because Deathstork Deathstroke already placed explosives in it and now he's trying to escape Deathstroke on foot! He calls in back-up and a gigantic helicopter arrives to stop Deathstroke.

Really? I think it's going to take Stormwatch at this point. Or Batman. Or maybe Nightwing.

Well, this Mikel guy who Deathstroke is trying to kill also realizes it's going to take more than a big ass helicopter to kill Deathstroke. He also sends in a couple of guys on motorcycles with guns. But they lose their heads immediately. The helicopter is still somewhere off panel shooting at Deathstroke as the final back-up arrives:

This guy is the most retardedest villain of all! He has wheels for feet! He can only fight you if you're on the road!

Deathstroke gets really excited about seeing an actual super person with a stupid name attack him! Now it's time to really show what he can do! Nobody will produce any more stupid Laura Palmer's filled with embarrassing things when he starts killing off a few stupidly named super beings!

So Road Rage calls him out and Deathstroke grabs one of the motorcycles from the guys he just beheaded. And he ghost rides it into that bitch Road Rage!

This really works.

Regarding my caption on that last picture, here's a little story about ghost riding bikes into assholes. When I was 19 or 20, my friend Paul and I were hanging out drinking in my mom's basement (yes, I lived in a fucking basement. My nerd cred is off the charts). We decided we wanted to go get some snacks at 7-11. He hopped on my BMX and I grabbed my Hosoi skateboard and off we went. On the way there, some guy on the corner of a street my cousin lived on threw something at us. It was either an egg or a water balloon. I'd seen this guy, Eric Mellow, at the house on multiple occasions. I knew him from when he was in pre-school because I used to take the bus to elementary school with his brother Eddie. My first thought was it was this guy (now in high school, of course) fucking around. So I turned and yelled, "What the fuck, asshole!?" I seriously did not mean that statement in any way other than the way that you would say that to someone you were cool with. Really.

So the guy begins screaming his head off and comes charging across the street pulling his shirt over his head. I guess because you can't fight very well with a shirt on. As he ran into the circle of light cast by the street light, I realized I didn't know who this guy was! Still screaming, he threw himself against me. He fell on his ass and I was knocked back a step or two off of my skateboard. With the skateboard closer to him now, he began to reach for it as he stood up. As he was just standing and bending, reaching for my board, I see my BMX come sailing by itself from behind the van next to me. My friend Paul had turned around and ghost rid the thing into this guy. It smashed into him, knocking him down and allowing me to pick up my board. I charged the guy, swinging my board at him and yelling, "I'm going to fucking kill you!" I hit him once in the shoulder or arm with the trucks of the board and he turned tail and fled. I hopped on my board and headed back down the street thinking, "What the fuck was that?"

As I was propelling myself down the street, Paul had picked up the bike and was ahead of me. He looked back at one point and said, "Hey Jeff! Keep skating, he'll tire out!" I thought, "What the fuck is he talking about?" as I looked back over my shoulder and saw the biggest motherfucker I'd ever seen in Santa Clara running full steam after us. But even sprinting, there was no way he was going to keep up with me on my skateboard and Paul on the bike. So we rode off laughing toward 7-11.

We were still laughing about it in 7-11 when a car came screeching into the parking lot and sliding sideways into a space. The same guy (I would find out later his name was Jimmy Arthur) came barreling out of his car toward the store entrance. I was on the other side of the window and I gave him a what-the-fuck-are-you-going-to-do look since I felt safe in the store. Apparently rage filled morons don't care about things like that. He came at me, yelling at me for attacking his friend. I may have tried to reason with him. What can I say? I'm an intellectual! But as I did, I kept my skateboard up in front of me like a lion tamer keeps a lion at bay with his stool.

I don't know if it was the alcohol I'd had previously, or perhaps my skateboard blocked the swing, or maybe Jimmy Arthur just throws the fastest punches in the world, but I didn't see his fist until it connected with my cheek bone. The blow knocked me to the ground and I was absolutely stunned that I had just been punched by this neanderthal. Sure, I had made his friend bleed! But that was confused self-defense. When I realized I'd been hit, my mind exploded with one thought: "That fucker hit me!" Yeah, that was the extent of analysis of the events. I jumped up almost as soon as I hit the floor and I swung my skateboard at Jimmy Arthur's head. He blocked the blow with his arm and there was a deafening crack as the trucks connected with his forearm. His eyes grew huge and he seemed to realize the disadvantage he was at, especially with Paul just on the other side of the counter, cowering. I mean, acting as back-up. Jimmy, like his friend before him, beat a hasty retreat.

Paul and I didn't think much about it after that. Okay. That's a lie. We thought about running into this maniac every single day! Santa Clara isn't exactly Metropolis. A few weeks later, we found ourselves at a house party that was getting broken up by the cops. While everyone was milling about on the lawn, I ran into Eddie Mellow. Remember him from a couple paragraphs before? I knew his brother hung out at Jimmy Arthur's place, so I figured Eddie would know him too. So I asked him what Jimmy Arthur thought about the confrontation. Eddie's eyes grew huge and he stuttered, "That was you?! He works out thinking about you guys!"

So Paul and I took extra special care the next few months. But nothing else ever came of it. When I finally knew I was in the clear was when we were playing tackle football one weekend with a bunch of guys. And some friends of friends invited Jimmy and the other guy I hit. They walked onto the field without a hint of recognizing us. I kept expecting to lose my head in a tackle that day, but nothing happened. So I stopped worrying about retribution after that.

So that story was proof that Deathstroke ghost-riding the motorcycle into Road Rage would actually work!

After Deathstroke does that, he knifes Road Rage in the chest and throws him into the helicopter, causing it to crash on top of Mikel!

Yet another guy Vic Morrow'd in the new 52!

This entire sequence was being broadcast live by a newscopter. Deathstroke phones Christoph to let him know there shouldn't be any doubts about his abilities after this. And we still don't get to find out what's inside Slade's Laura Palmer.