Deathstroke #8

This looks like one of those crappy one issue stories where Deathstork Deathstroke murders thousands of soldiers all by himself and puts down a rogue nation single-handedly.

Slade begins this issue with a flashback to show how big an asshole his father was. I thought his father was also some kind of a warrior type but he's just a lousy conman that owes everyone money.

Slade needs to find himself a sling blade.

Slade wakes back in his hideout, bandaged and recovering from the gunshots, fight with his son, and submarine being thrown at him. At least I think it's Slade. It could be a wax dummy of Slade.

He looks so lifeless! I don't think his healing factor has kicked in yet!

Back to Slade's flashback, we see that Slade's father gave him up to pay for a ten thousand dollar debt. Fuck, who would want to take a kid as payment? What a pain in the ass!

Back to the flashnow, Slade makes a deal to kill another crook. Maybe it's a crook. I don't think Slade is too particular. Slade kills him by blowing up the bomb that the crook threatens to blow up if Slade doesn't leave him alone. Slade walks away unharmed. But there's a slight catch.

Everyone else in the apartment building was killed as well. Who knows where the kid was hanging out to survive the blast.

After the job, Slade goes to visit his sick father in Gary, Indiana. Slade posts news articles of his successful jobs on the walls of the room where his father is stuck in bed. Slade, just like Grant, is just another insecure little jerk of a person who never received his daddy's love. And the need to be loved by his father is what drove his ambition. I'm so glad I didn't give a shit whether my dad loved me or not! Fuck all that drive and ambition! It just gets in the way of doing whatever the fuck makes you happy. And I own my own business now through dumb luck and always following the path that was best for me instead of remaining at shit jobs because of debt or children or a desperate need for material things.

I really hate this being the reason that Slade does what he does. Boooo!

Deathstroke Issue #8 Rating: No change. I didn't expect anything but filler from this issue and that's what I got! I believe Rob Liefeld is taking over next month (Yay! Mediocrity!) so Higgins wasn't going to start up a whole new story line for Rob to ignore. This story was supposed to be meaningful and maybe profound but I find the excuse for Slade being a great assassin dreary and depressing. He's trying to prove himself to a bastard that beat him and insulted him and once used him to pay off a debt? Bah! Forget that loser, Slade. Stop wasting so much of your life on him. He didn't give a shit about you. Eh. Oh well. What can you do?