Deathstroke #0

Once again, Liefeld gets the sole credit on the cover while three (THREE!) inkers are listed on the interior credits.

Is this a sad occasion or a happy occasion? Deathstroke #0 is the last comic book I'll ever read that was drawn by Rob Liefeld. Unless he ends up drawing Savage Hawkman #0 as well. Take a look at that cover? Just like the Grifter cover, Liefeld put a guard on the weapon (although this one is a sword as opposed to a gun on Grifter). And just like Grifter, he drew a shitty looking fake gun in a really awkward hand. But it's those guards on the handles of the weapons that just blow me away. Why doesn't he just practice drawing a hand holding a weapon since that's probably sixty percent of his job drawing super heroes? Across a twenty plus year career, he still would rather block the hand with a guard on the handle instead of waste time learning to draw a decent hand holding on to something. It boggles my mind.

Anyway, I'm really interested to see how Liefeld writes Deathstroke's origin. I'm sure it'll take place during Slade's Team 7 years. I have a feeling this is going to be a long read with a lot of scanning taking place.

Slade's new squadron moonlights as a boy band during times of peace.

If all of Liefeld's characters didn't stand around in the exact same action pose, I really wouldn't mind the grim, no eyes style of this picture. But every man is drawn the same. He only goes out on a limb to draw the kneeling guy and then he fucks that up. The guy is either kneeling on his toe with his knee still up in the air or his knee is in the grass with his foot on the pavement. Liefeld does tend to like Moebius strip-like appendages on his characters.

So the first page lets the reader know that Slade Wilson was a fighting prodigy. He was a legend! The best the army has ever seen!

It sounds like it's Slade Wilson's time to shine!

Apparently the new kind of war requires soldiers that have both of their legs and can run as opposed to that old kind of soldier standing still in the background, missing half of his left leg, and carrying a half-wooden gun. And how can a soldier's training be assessed without a crowd of officers standing on a cliff hundreds of feet above the action?

And how can they tell what's going on from that height when they won't open their eyes? Or don't even have any?!

Slade's future wife continues the narration with a weird molding of a diamond metaphor.

She continues, "I kept Slade close. Truth be told, he both frightened and fascinated me. I couldn't take my eyes off him. At least not when my eyes were actually drawn onto my face. It was a tough time being a drawing in those Liefeld years."

"The real secret to these techniques is that they only work if you're wearing a tight skirt and high heels."

Captain Kane teaches him how to fight by shooting all around him instead of just straight ahead. Even though they're in the army. And they should be fighting like a unit. I have a feeling that the Squadron Boy Band is going to go down in a hail of Deathstroke's circular defense gunfire.

How is she standing in that first panel? Is she already jumping and reacting to the target? She's amazing! No wonder Slade fucks her so hard she becomes pregnant with a couple of killers and a deaf mute.

Slade is so impressive that he graduates nine months later from Diamond Finding School. With honors! He's immediately put on a special ops team that the pentagon will disavow if anybody ever hears of them. The team is called The Blackhawks The Black Razors Task Force X Checkmate A.M.M.O. A.R.G.U.S. Team 7!

The members were Deadly Du Rag, Killer Kerchief, Deathpork, Black Mascara, and Deathstroke the Terminator.

Sometime between being given this first mission to Gamorra and being told what the mission was, Slade's hair turns white. Perhaps it was caused by the fluorescent lights inside the classroom.

Also, they fell in love. But that might have happened during the nine months of training.

Apparently the other guys in class learned about the mission but they didn't make the cut. Team 7 was not as cool a team as the men I named above. Instead it was composed of Slade Wilson, Cole Cash, Bronson, Dinah Drake, Amanda Waller, Alex Fairchild, and Kurt Lance. They're the best team ever assembled "capable of tilting the balance in any conflict." Apparently that's true! It's just they don't always tilt the balance in the right direction because they're immediately ambushed on their trip to Gamorra and Slade is shot in the chest by a sniper as the others hide in some nearby bushes.

Slade is immediately rushed off of the island and sent to his origin. Doctors saved his life by implanting new genes in him or something equally science-like. Whatever they did, he became Deathstroke! Super strong. Super quick. Super healable? But he still had two eyes!

Slade's near death experience pushed him further away from the military life and closer to Adeline Kane and their budding romance.

First off, he's obviously still not smiling. Second off, he hasn't smiled one time in this comic book.

Adeline and Slade were married six months later. Wintergreene, Slade's Alfred, was his best man at the wedding because he was Slade's only friend.

Adeline's bridesmaids were disgusted strangers given bouquets of moss to hold.

At some point, Wintergreene was kidnapped and about to be killed. Slade donned a mask and armor and a belt full of pouches and rescued him. Wintergreene now owed him a life debt which meant he would have to work for him for nothing for the rest of the comic book series. Hey, it's the way these things work!

Even though Adeline has become pregnant with Ravager, Slade's life has now turned into a dance of death with death dancers dealing death dances to the highest bidder. Or in less flattering terms, he became a mercenary. And people in his life still had no eyeballs.

Don't worry about reading those captions. They're simply death dancing analogies. I scanned this to show the no eyeball people.

Deathstroke continued to make money, earn reputation points, and gain enemies while his wife sat home with their two boys. Yes, their TWO boys!

The first confirmation in The New 52 that Jericho (Joseph Wilson) exists!

I know Adeline is going to die at some point. And I believe she puts out Slade's eye at some point as well. Grant grows up to be Ravager and then he dies. My theory is that Joseph is with Adeline when she dies and believed dead. But he actually survives although deaf and dumb from whatever happened. And with the power to enter people's bodies.

Years later, the Wilson family home was attacked. The west wing was destroyed by a rocket launcher and Adeline and Joseph were believed dead. But of course she isn't dead because she's narrating this story! Although that actually doesn't mean anything since more than one story in the New 52 was narrated by a corpse. And then while Slade is vengeance crazy, he gets shot in the eye by Korean Friend's Father.

Oh, and I guess Wintergreene was killed somewhere along the way as well. My mistake! It was his son Peabody that has been living as Slade's unpaid lackey.

Peabody has no eyes too!

And then the issue ends with a retarded shocker.

I'm glad Jericho is back and I'm glad Liefeld won't be around to fuck him up. I'm willing to bet he'll have his throat slit by Slade in a future issue so that he'll once again be mute. He might already be deaf from the rocket launcher attack.

Deathstroke #0 Rating:

Exactly, Anguished Fat Man. Exactly.