The upcoming Deathstroke Inc. will delve into the morality of Slade Wilson and have the notorious mercenary ultimately choosing a side between hero and villain.
"That's what he says in issue #1, he's tried walking this line between, and it never works," Deathstroke Inc. writer Joshua Williamson told Newsarama. "He has to choose a lane. He needs to figure it out. That's part of what this book is about, is Slade realizing that. How can you live with yourself when you realize how awful you are? He has finally put together that he's a bad person."
Williamson, who is working on the series alongside artist Howard Porter, added that he was intrigued with the question of rooting for Slade, a character that he didn't particularly consider "to be a good person."
"I don't think he's deserving of a second chance and neither does he," Williamson said. "I wanted to explore what you do on the other side of figuring out you're a bad person."
As revealed in the story "Solo" in Batman: Urban Legends #6, Deathstroke will ally with Black Canary as odd bedfellows in Deathstroke Inc. Both characters are sponsored by the T.R.U.S.T. organization, a shadowy group that has appropriated Batman's old technology and is under surveillance by the likes of Talia al Ghul. Both Deathstroke and Black Canary have been at each other's throats many times in the past, and Williamson stressed that Dinah Laurel Lance "downright hates" Deathstroke. Nevertheless, the unusual coupling will demonstrate the lengths that Dinah is willing to go as she investigates T.R.U.S.T.'s motives, Williamson said.
Deathstroke, originally debuting in 1980's The New Teen Titans #2, has long served as a villain in the DC Universe, though he has on occasion fought alongside the Justice League, and even dabbled with the idea of reforming and leading his own team of young heroes in the 2018 story "Defiance."
Notably, Slade was involved in a questionable romantic relationship with the underage Titan known as Terra in the pages of the 1984 story "The Judas Contract." Christopher Priest's fifty-issue run on Deathstroke in the aftermath of DC's Rebirth initiative retconned the relationship to be non-sexual, but Priest said during a 2019 interview that he nevertheless considered Slade Wilson "an asshole" and "not a nice man" -- to the point where he disagreed with DC editorial's decisions to paint him as an anti-hero.
Written by Joshua Williamson and drawn by Howard Porter, Deathstroke Inc. #1 releases Sept. 28.
Source: Newsarama