But I don't get Deathstroke's ongoing popularity either, especially when he's in books like this: from 2010,
Titans: Villains for Hire Special #1, "The Best Laid Plans" Written by Eric Wallace, art by Fabrizio Fiorentino; Mike Mayhew; Sergio Arino; Walden Wong.
This is shorter and slightly less blatent in trying to tug on the heartstrings, but otherwise it reads just like
Countdown to Infinite Crisis: despite a valiant struggle, a hero gets got, just to show the bad guys are hardcore. In flashbacks we see Deathstroke gathering his little team, largely by telling them whatever they needed to hear: for example, he promises Cheshire to solve her problems and help her restore her tarnished rep. Together, they gang up on the Ryan Choi Atom; hired by his foe Dwarfstar. Ryan puts up a good fight, before Deathstroke kills him, then delivers his corpse in a matchbox. (Who has matchboxes anymore?)
In their headquarters, complete with meeting table (and curiously, an extra empty seat) Deathstroke tells them they were Titans now, but the name choice wasn't business, it was personal.
Weirdly, for a 2010 comic that was bagged and boarded, this was in not especially great shape when I bought it. I can only assume an Atom fan threw it on the ground more than once. I do believe Dwarfstar would get his in
Secret Six #28, but Deathstroke remains bulletproof, which just stumps me. Sorry to end the week on a sour note, but we may be looking at another Deathstroke book later.
5 comments:
I know I would. Yeah the dark & gritty era of DC wasn't as profoundly interesting & a huge moneymaker as Dildo thought it'd be was it? While I preferred Ray to remain as the main Atom, they were actually building up Choi pretty well to the point he seemed like a natural choice to replace Ray. I know Ray was still around, just off exploring the microverse, as you do, leaving Choi to defend Earth & keep the Atom name going strong. For me, he was as good a replacement as Kyle was for Hal, even though we ALL wanted to keep Hal as GL.
That being sad, yeah I don't remember Slade getting any blowback whatsoever from this did he? Not from Batman (who'd have DAMN sure heard about this) The Outsiders, Titans, JL, no one. Sure looks like a metacommentary on how certain editors must've really felt about poor Ryan huh?
DC seems to have made Deathstroke into Villain Batman (never mind there are already like 5 Villain Batmans), probably ever since Meltzer had him beat up like 8 Justice Leaguers in Identity Crisis. And part of being Batman means never getting comeuppance for the crappy stuff you do.
Like how Bats never really suffered any consequences for letting Ted Kord go off alone to get killed in Countdown to Infinite Crisis when Batman knew the thing Ted was investigating was Batsy's own satellite he was spying on everyone with.
But yeah, it's a sad day for a hero when it falls to Amanda Waller to make sure one of the people responsible for your murder gets theirs.
Solid points @CalvinPitt.
Now that you reminded me that Batman knew what Ted was doing & just how deep he'd be going, it really is lazy writing & incredibly nonsensical that Batman would've let Ted do all that, especially with since he HAD to know Ted would find out about Brother Eye. And yet I don't think that was ever addressed or mentioned anywhere nor brought up by Booster or anyone else. Bruce definitely slid by that one w/o being taken to task for being so negligent.
The closest we got was in the OMAC Project mini that led into Infinite Crisis. Bats meets Superman, Wonder Woman and Booster at the moon Watchtower with Ted's bloody goggles (that Sasha sent him) and I think confesses this is some of his crap that's got out of hand. Booster actually tried to blast him with whatever energy his suit shoots, but Superman got in the way and promised there'd be consequences. Booster accurately notes this is bullcrap.
Infinite Crisis actually felt like it was going to play off that, when Batman tells Nightwing he's got to rally the heroes because against whoever is working against them, because everybody's sick of Batman's shit. Johns then promptly undercut this by Nightwing only getting one person (Superboy) to show up to his call to assemble, while Batman somehow got a team of at least half-a-dozen heroes for his attack on the Brother Eye satellite.
Including Booster Gold, who brought the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle. Credit to Booster for putting his pain aside for the greater good, but he owed Batman at least one solid punch in the face. I mean, Johns let Hal Jordan punch Batman when he cam back. Where's the justice for Booster Gold?
In conclusion, Batman, like Professor Xavier, is a jerk.
He really can be, and yeah Booster totally owes Batman a receipt for that. Ted too.
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