Deathstroke #7

In this issue, Deathstroke kills more people and still can't remember his son's name is Joey.

During the Sneak Peek, Deathstroke was contracted by Hephaestus to kill a God. He was given the God-Killer Sword (or swords?) and not told who he was supposed to kill. I suppose it doesn't matter because he's going to fail. I don't think the Greek Pantheon can spare any Gods.

Currently, Deathstroke lives on an island called Danger Island. It was given to him by The Dead Bastards because Deathstroke spent enough issues without money. I think Tony S. Daniel thought it would be cool to make Deathstroke down and out but then he realized it's harder to write a character who doesn't have access to unlimited funds. So now Deathstroke is rich again! And he knows people who can offer him contracts which he can be successful at and earn money doing after he fails at his current contract. Also, his testicles are silky smooth.

Oh. I guess technically he's still broke. But he has everything he needs provided for him on Danger Island and he's too broke to turn down contracts. So that makes writing Deathstroke even easier than I first described! Tony S. Daniel has a genius for lazy!

Killing a god is the exact kind of contract that Deathstroke loves! It's why he took the contract to kill Lobo way back when he was a totally different character written by Rob Liefeld. This is the kind of contract that will make an assassin's reputation for life! And Deathstroke needs a boost to his rep after getting his ass handed to him by Possum. Plus he's young and nobody recognizes him, so nobody believes he's the actual Deathstroke anyway. At least after he fails at this job, he can take off his mask and pretend it was somebody else.

Some of you reading this aren't reading this comic book. I'm angry and disappointed that you don't have to suffer through Tony S. Daniel's abominable turns of phrase. Like this one: "If I'd had a second to think, I would have never taken the contract. But even though I can think faster than everyone else in my line of work, there's no time for second guessing." Are you throwing up yet? I should have told you to pull up a wastebasket before reading that. I'm actually a bit jealous that I didn't come up with it! Although if I ever wrote something like that thinking it was actually good, I'd probably be Tony S. Daniel.

Hephaestus and the Spanish Inquisitor are standing around on the beach sipping Mai Tais and judging Slade. Slade is training to use the God-Killer Sword by battling monsters. After three pages of boring regular sized panels, Tony S. Daniel finally breaks out the first double splash page. Has anybody ever thought to maybe give Tony S. Daniel a copy of Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud? The only trick he knows is to tell a dumb story with horrible characterization for three or four pages and then surprise the reader with a huge action shot across two pages! Why am I even reading the slow-paced boring pages leading up to the double splash pages? They're obviously all Tony S. Daniel cares about! Why doesn't he just put out a poster every month instead of a comic book?

Here's more Tony S. Daniel writing. Do you have your bucket ready? "The power of the sword burns through my veins. Like it's part of me. But yet, separate."

With his training complete, Slade Wilson is ready for the assignment! Just kidding! First he needs to take a trip to Northern California while Hephaestus sputters and glares at The Spanish Inquisitor. But I'm all jazzed and erect about the fight with a god?! Which god will Slade be murdering? Allah? Jehovah? Jesus Christ?! I need to know! You can't just create fake tension by having Deathstroke go participate in a separate story until the end of the book when the target still might not be revealed!

The house in Northern California is right on the beach, probably a stone's throw from the Samoa Cookhouse. Slade has given the house to Rose even though Slade lost everything when Possum downloaded some kind of mental virus into Slade's head and then killed him. Anyway, before Slade runs off to get killed by a god, he needed to talk to Rose and give her a note to give to his son.

If my father gave me an envelope with a letter inside and the wrong name was on the envelope, I'd tear that fucker to pieces. His name is Joseph, asshole!

The main thing we learned during this scene is that Rose Wilson's hair bleeds when she cuts it. That joke is for the people who actually slogged through this book too.

After Slade leaves, Rose goes inside to find he left her a big bag of gold doubloons. She reads the letter to Joseph and then burns it (which might indicate she's actually got Joseph inside of her head). But now that she has all that money, she can get a monkey, name it Mr. Nilsson, and take her friends Tommy and Annika to the candy store!

Now that that intrusive fucking piece of the story is out of the way, the narrative returns to basically the exact moment after Slade finished his training with Hephaestus telling him about his target. Oh, also they've traded in Danger Island for Paradise Island. Deathstroke has to find the entrance to Tartarus where some Titan named Lapetus has been imprisoned. Who the fuck is that? Oh shit! I wonder if Hephaestus meant Iapetus? Deathstroke is probably going to kill the wrong god!

Deathstroke makes it into Tartarus after being lost on the island for 45 minutes which adds what to the story? I don't know. I'll probably learn the reason for it later! Also, Hephaestus decides to play Martin Stein to Slade's Ronnie Raymond and hang around him as a disembodied head saying distracting shit as they Dungeons and Dragons their way to the bottom of the level.

Sick humor? But that isn't sick or funny?! What is funny is that Tony S. Daniel and James Bonny thought Iapetus was Lapetus! Or maybe the letterer just fucked it all up. But it's not as fun to pick on the letterer.

Deathstroke smashes the statue which was probably the wrong thing to do. How do I know? Because Wonder Woman appears to tell Deathstroke how wrong it was! And she says that if he doesn't surrender to her, he's going to die. I wonder if David Finch is pissed that Tony S. Daniel is getting his pencils all over his girl? He'd better not double splash her next issue! Although what percentage chance could it be that the 2nd and 3rd page of next issue are not one big shot of Wonder Woman and Deathstroke charging each other? Zero percent? Or maybe zero? Possibly zero, right?

Deathstroke #7 Rating: -1 Ranking. This is not a good comic book. If you are still reading it and not a critic, you should be ashamed. I want you to send me your apology and I'll tell you how to make an act of contrition.