Deathstroke #21

Hey DC! We already had Deathstroke #1! This is Issue #21!

I suppose this could be New 52 Deathstroke #1 Volume 2, or New 52 Deathstroke #21 Volume 1, or New 52 Teen Titans 23.2. I've been completely ignoring which series the Villains have been usurping because it hasn't always made sense. Plus I just don't want to put extra periods in the names of my jpg files. You never know what's going to screw up some internet code somewhere down the line! I just try to avoid all punctuation in my file names. I'm going to refer to this issue as Deathstroke #21 even though nobody else will notice after this paragraph in which I had to point it out for no fucking reason at all.

The issue begins with Deathstroke interrupting a group of mercenaries (or soldiers (or Wildstorm goons (or Image jerks (or 90s comic book bad asses)))) as they stand in a line on a roof in a basement for tactical advantageousness.

From right to left, they are: DEATHBLOW!, SPLINTERCELL KILLMURDER!, ASSASSIN'S CREED DEATHMACHINE!, BLOODMUSTACHE (with 80s cellphone accessory)!, MODEL OF GENOCIDE!, BLOODCOAT!, KILLER ENNUI!, and GOGGLES McDEATHHURT!

How ridiculous must both of these guys feel to be calling each other by a "death" name? You can tell Deathblow is more embarrassed by how stupid their names sound when heard one after the other than he is upset that Deathstroke is about to take his job from him. My other favorite moment from this opening page is that one of the writers names is Dooma! Perfect!

I think Anonymous would want me to make a penis joke here even though most penises don't spring directly from the kidney.

Deathstroke: "Come on, Deathblow. You were in fucking Grifter. We both know how this encounter is going to end."
Deathblow: "If you hadn't noticed, Deathstroke, I have seven ridiculously named compatriots to help put you down."
Deathstroke: "I'm not going down. You are going down."
Deathblow: "Really? We're really talking about making each other go down?"
Deathstroke: "Look who's talking, DeathBLOW!"
Deathblow: "As if "stroke" after Death is any better! Where'd we get our names? 'Shittiest Innuendos Я Us'?"
Deathjob: "Ha ha. You were in Grifter."
Deaththroat: "SHUT UP! I'LL FREAKIN' KILL YOU!"

After Deathstroke knocks down Deathblow and his Death Cronies, Slade hops in the elevator and a page of confusing shit takes place. Being that I'm not as dumb as my fourth grade teacher testified to, I know that Deathstroke and Deathblow end up fighting in an elevator shaft. But the whole scene is poorly plotted and drawn since Deathstroke begins in an elevator shaft barely as big as his body which then widens to allow Deathblow to throw a flying kick at him. Also (and I just had this thought), wasn't Deathblow black in Grifter? Now I need to go back and check!

Yep. He definitely was. Maybe this building just has really strange lighting.

Anyway, Deathstork Deathstroke makes it to the roof of the apparently only building in which the target can be sniped from. I'm not sure why Deathblow needed seven other people to come along with him to watch him snipe the target. Those sniper rifles can be pretty big. Perhaps Deathblow needed the extra teammates to carry all the pieces while Deathstroke managed to fit all the pieces of the gun in one parcel on his back.

That is a big fucking gun though. Don't feel bad, Deathblow. I'd probably need a few extra people to help carry it as well.

Unless Deathblow and his buddies have been paid to keep Deathstroke from killing the target! That might be why Deathblow was a little bit pissed when he realized he'd have to defend against Deathstroke. I guess with a name like "Deathblow," my first reaction isn't that he's going to be some guy's bodyguard.

While Deathstroke's bullet is traveling through the air, Slade has enough time to think about his first mission with Deathblow before they were super-heroes. He remembers delivering an Atari Jaguar to a children's hospital during a battle only to find out that the Atari Jaguar was a bomb. The children were heartbroken although if he'd have delivered Aliens vs Predator at the same time, they probably would have forgotten all about the war as they battled each other endlessly. Instead, Slade quit the Army vowing never again to cause children pain. Or maybe he just didn't like taking orders.

After that memory, while the bullet is still flying because Slade uses 90% of his brainpower and can think almost as fast as a regular person, Deathstroke thinks about his son Grant being born. Slade begins to remember how he needs to forget what Liefeld did to him and begin to remember some new stuff that makes more sense.

Like how Grant was killed in North Korea at the same time Slade lost his eye.

It's not just Liefeld's stuff that's being rewritten; DC apparently didn't like what Kyle Higgins did either. Because here Slade is treating Grant as if he was the best that ever was and did everything for his son because he loved him so much. As opposed to the way Higgins wrote the relationship where Slade treated Grant like a coach constantly berating the best kid on the team for not being better than the best. Also Ravager was killed by Midnighter in a an explosion instead of being gunned down by North Korean soldiers while Slade lost his eye. Oh well. It's not like I didn't expect Deathstroke's history to completely change seeing as how DC gave the character to Liefeld to sodomize as he pleased.

Slade realized that the soldiers knew where to find him because Adeline let them know so that she and Joseph could be safe. Still no sign of Rose Wilson though. She must be a clone of Deathstroke or Ravager since her history was never told in Superboy or Team 7 or Deathstork Deathstroke. Except the rest of the family recognize her back in Team 7 when they have to fight Majestic. Maybe her story will be told next while the bullet still hasn't exploded the target's head.

Except it isn't because the bullet finally hits the target and blows off his arm. Close enough. Immediately after, Slade stands up and a man in a suit hands him a briefcase. Really? The guy was just hanging out on the roof waiting to pay the killer? The man escapes by helicopter just as Deathstroke has to fight Deathblow and the Murdernauts once again.

"Noooooo! Why am I fucking white?! I'll be baaaaaaaaaaaa--!"

And finally, after two years of mostly shitty Deathstroke comic books, DC decides to introduce a little bit of Rose Wilson back story.

Although there's still a lot to be told. Like who is the mother? And how does Rose share so many memories with Joseph and Grant if she was raised separately and was so much younger? I suppose that's not really much of a question since this issue was simply to show that Deathstroke is getting a Rebooted Reboot.

Deathstork Deathstroke #21 Rating: I get that Deathstroke's history needed some serious straightening out. But if DC's go-to method is going to be rebooting a character every time they realize editorial didn't think things through enough while a writer was putting some stories together, they're just going to fuck up the whole reason for a Reboot. Yeah, yeah. The Reboot is all about money and getting more people to throw money at their products. Which is also why they Reboot a character that has received shitty treatment since the Big Reboot. Not enough people were paying to read Deathstroke, so DC kept changing the character until nothing made any sense. Although, really, it was just allowing Liefeld to write whatever the fuck he decided to write that really made no sense. When a writer comes onto a series and gives the title character's motivation as something that directly contradicts that character's motivation as seen in the previous issue, you've got a shitty writer that just doesn't fucking care about the characters and his fans. And you've got asshole editors that allow that kind of thing which seems a bit disrespectful of the previous writer (you know, Higgins).

Anyway. I didn't hate this issue or anything. It's just I feel the need to rank it really, really poorly because it's simply here to clean up a character that DC has handled poorly from the beginning. I'm also not a fan of just changing everything about a character with not even an attempt at an explanation. At least Twat Lobo makes sense in the grand scheme of the Reboot. It makes even more sense if Lobo still has his power where he can generate clones of himself from (while maybe not a single drop of blood since that could get too crazy) hemorrhoids or burned off genital warts. And maybe Lobo doesn't realize he has that power, so now Twat Lobo and Magenta Lobo and maybe other Lobos will start crawling out of the Universal Woodwork!