WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons Part 1, now streaming on CW Seed.
By any measure, Deathstroke is one of the most intense fighters in the DC Universe. Slade Wilson has cut down just about every fighter thrown his way across multiple continuities and super-teams. And now, Deathstorke has slashed his way into his own animated series on CW Seed, Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons.
While that series is just getting started, Deathstroke puts his lethal combat skills on full display by cutting off the arm of another one of DC's greatest fighters, Bronze Tiger, in two separate fights in the first episode of the brutal, bloody series.
In Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons, Bronze Tiger appears as one of Jackal's henchmen. The Jackal is a H.I.V.E. agent with a mysterious connection to Slade. In a failed attempt to bring Deathstroke into H.I.V.E., the Jackal kidnapped Deathstroke's son Joe to draw him into a recruitment meeting and try to bring Slade Wilson over to his side.
After Slade understandably refuses, Bronze Tiger and another, unnamed assassin attack Deathstroke, putting the assassin at the edge until he unleashes one brutal counter-strike. Wielding two swords at once, Deathstroke stabs his unnamed assailant through the chest and pushes his sword through Tiger's knuckles and out from his elbow.
But when Jackal reveals that he has a H.I.V.E. agent holding Deathstroke's son at knifepoint, Deathstroke twists his sword free of Bronze Tiger's arm, splitting the whole thing off above the elbow, before impaling Jackal on his sword. and killing the agent holding his son hostage. Despite all that, Joe still gets his throat slit by the end of the battle.
Since Bronze Tiger is usually one of the best fighters in the DC Universe, the results of this battle are especially shocking. After an attempt to stop a burglary triggered a bloodlust within him at a young age, Ben Turner turned to martial arts, where he trained under Richard Dragon. After being brainwashed to become Bronze Tiger and join the League of Assassins, he was eventually recruited onto the Suicide Squad for the trail of bodies he left in his wake. Within the Suicide Squad, Bronze Tiger flourished as one of the definitive members of the '80s team. Freed from brainwashing, he even proved to be one of the few decent people on the team.
While Deathstroke's Bronze Tiger seems to be more of a mercenary than a noble warrior, he still appears to have his usual combat skill and three-clawed gauntlets. That's part of what makes the results of his subsequent rematch with Deathstroke so surprising.
After Bronze Tiger and Jackal narrowly escape the exploding base where Joe was being held. Deathstroke carries on, spending the next decade trying to wipe out H.I.V.E. in all of its forms. However, the H.I.V.E. Queen contacts Deathstroke to tell him that they, once again, have his son, Joseph. Thanks to Deathstroke's genetics, Joseph has immense psychic powers that make him the perfect weapon.
When Deathstroke tries to recover his son, he encounters Bronze Tiger yet again. Now sporting a robotic arm, Bronze Tiger is a mercenary who's fought for both sides in an ongoing civil war. As Tiger tells Slade, he was hired by the Jackal to eliminate all other H.I.V.E. competition, which allowed him to take over the new organization as its head. But Bronze Tiger grew weary of working for H.I.V.E., which makes him the perfect person for Deathstroke to interrogate.
The subsequent fight between them proves that Bronze Tiger is almost evenly matched with Slade, until Slade stabs just around the robotic augmentations, ripping Tiger's arm off again. This proves enough for Tiger to reveal Jackal's location, which leads to Deathstroke leaving, but not before just shooting a missile in Tiger's face, just to make sure he finished the job this time.
Despite that, Bronze Tiger is merely seen being blown away from the force of the resulting explosion, which could make way for the villain to return to the world of Deathstroke.
Written by J.M. DeMatteis and directed by Sung Jin Ahn, Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons stars Michael Chiklis as Slade/Deathstroke, Sasha Alexander as Addie, Chris Jai Alex as Jackal, Faye Mata as Rose, Griffin Puatu as Jericho, Asher Bishop as Young Joseph, Colin Salmon as Wintergreen, Delbert Hunt as Tiger, Panta Mosleh as Lady Shiva, Imari Williams as President/Hive Pilot, Minae Noji as Secretary of State, Noshir Dalal as Kapoor and Castulo Guerra as General Suarez. The series is now streaming on CW Seed.