DEATHSTROKE THE TERMINATOR

Real Name: Slade Wilson

Class: Human mutate

Occupation: Mercenary, big game hunter

Group Affiliation: Titans III, formerly The Society

Known Relatives: Adeline Wilson (ex-wife), Grant Wilson (Ravager I, son, deceased), Joseph Wilson (Jericho, son), Rose (Ravager, daughter)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Africa

First Appearance: New Teen Titans I #2 (December, 1980)

Powers: Deathstroke possessed superhuman strength, speed and intelligence; all abilities he gained from taking an experimental adrenocorticotropic hormone. He was a master strategist and wielded a power staff that shot deadly bolts of concussive force.

(Green Arrow III #74, 75) - Drakon and Deathstroke lured Green Arrow, Black Canary, Connor Hawke and Speedy to a warehouse using security footage of the crimelord Brick they were pursuing, and prepared to eliminate the heroes. The villains had them dead to rights, with Deathstroke making the small concession of promising to kill Green Arrow first so he wouldn’t see his family suffer when the Justice League of America arrived. The villains set off an explosive filled with kryptonite, making the decision to run away and fight another day.

(Faces of Evil: Deathstroke #1) - At Belle Reve medical technicians sedated Deathstroke and removed his artificial eye. The loss of his eye granted Deathstroke some odd clarity, and he had a nightmare about Wintergreen, Adeline, Grant, Jericho and Rose, the people closest to him, all of whom he'd destroyed or come close to destroying. The machines monitoring Deathstroke indicated that his body was no longer healing itself, and that the injury he sustained to his heart would kill him. As a favor to a supposed dying man who'd lost the will to live, they brought in Ravager so he could say goodbye to her and apologize. Ravager knew there was no way her father'd given up the will to live, and she would never accept apologies from him, so she tried to strangle him with plastic wire. Deathstroke fought back, and revealed that he'd fooled the medical machines using his total control over his entire body. He defeated his daughter and told her their cycle of violence was at an end. He railed against Geo-Force making him look like a fool, saying that the only fights he'd ever lost were the ones where he let his emotion override logic. He'd decided there'd be no more contracts for hire, from now on he'd only kill those he thought deserved to die, be they druglord or president. He escaped Belle Reve on a helicopter sent to contain him, and proceeded to blow up every trace of his past life, including bank deposit boxes and safe houses. He hated what he'd done to Rose, but he wanted her to hate him, so she'd never be like him. He wanted a new family, one that wouldn't betray him, and to this end he found a homeless girl he thought he could mold and offered her his hand, telling her everything would be okay.

(Blackest Night: Titans #1) - Deathstroke killed a H.I.V.E. member in remembrance of his son's death, and visited Ravager's grave to tell him H.I.V.E. was still paying for what they did to him.

(Titans: Villains For Hire Special #1) - Deathstroke assembled a team of assassins that he named the Titans. He chose metas with recent personal tragedies, promising Cheshire and the Tattooed Man that he'd see the killers of their children dead, promising Cinder he'd help her get the targets she couldn't reach, men of power that hurt children, and assuring Osiris that he'd be a friend and find a way to bring Black Adam and Isis back to life. They were hired by serial killer Dwarfstar to kill the Atom Ryan Choi, and ambushed him at home. Deathstroke stood back and watched as his team tore into the hero, but allowed Atom a brief respite when his girlfriend Amanda knocked at his front door, so he could convince her to go away. Atom was grateful, and Deathstroke assured him that killing him was just business, they weren't looking to harm anyone else. Atom fled to his basement ant tried to activate his JLA signal, but the Titans had disabled it. The Titans wore him down, and Deathstroke made it clear he was about to die, and commended him for not begging. Deathstroke killed him with a sword through his stomach, and delivered Atom's corpse in a matchbox to Dwarfstar. Back at their headquarters Deathstroke chastised his Titans for not working better as a team. Osiris told him they weren't worthy of the heroic mantle Titans, and Deathstroke told him that he had personal reasons for naming them after the heroes he so despised.

(Titans II #24, 25) - At the Titans hq Labyrinth Slade watched a fight between Cinder and Osiris. He scoffed that he was working with broken humans, but vowed to mold them into what he wanted. He assembled the Titans and told thewm they’d been assigned to kill Lex Luthor, who’d been reappointed head of LexCorp. In truth Deathstroke had been hired by Lex to ferret out the LexCorp members that wanted him dead, but he needed the threat on his life to seem genuine. The Titans attacked Lex, and after Cinder blew up Lex‘s limo he was forced to flee to the sewers with his LexCorp board members and his bodyguard, and his bodyguard revealed herself as Façade, a LexCorp project set loose on him by the board members to eliminate him. The Titans were angry at Deathstroke for having to lied about the nature of their mission, and Osiris attacked Deathstroke, but was easily put down. The mutinous LexCorp board members Cooper, Dyson and Monroe were killed, and Façade shape shifted into Cheshire in an attempt to escape, but Deathstroke simply shot both him and Cheshire. Cheshire recovered in the Titans medical bay, and Deathstroke accused her of being weak. He reminded her that he saved her from Drago, a target that ended up becoming her boss. She tried to claw at Deathstroke, but he subdued her, and was happy to see her acting more in character after he pushed her.

(Titans II #26, 27) - As Payment for the Titans job Lex adapted the Deftech schematics Cheshire and Tattooed Man stole, furthering Deathstroke’s goal of cheating death itself. Cheshire visited Lian’s grave and met with Arsenal, telling him he owed her for letting their daughter die on his watch. She told him she planned on killing Deathstroke, and to further her goal she had him join the Titans. The Titans took a job to rescue the son of millionaire Christopher Bockman. His son had been kidnapped by Elijah, who used the innocence of children to manufacture the drug Bliss. Jade and Tattooed Man posed as investors, and Elijah showed them his facility where he processed Bliss. The Titans made their move, and Elijah defended himself with his hired met humans, the Dominators. Arsenal found the harvesting chamber where Elijah kept the children, but also discovered that it contained a fail-safe that killed any child he tried to free. Arsenal cut the power to the harvesting pods, saving most of the children, and the Titans defeated the Dominators. Osiris lost control of his power and killed Elijah. Deathstroke furthered his master plan by stealing a sample of Bliss and abducting the Dominator DJ Molecule.

(Titans II #33-36) - Deathstroke wanted to fulfill his promise to Cheshire, and Cinder and the Titans traveled to the South Pacific to deal with Cheshire’s former employee Drago. Drago had actually coerced Cheshire into getting close to Deathstroke, and she and Arsenal took the opportunity to wound Deathstroke. Drago’s men restrained Cinder, and brought Deathstroke to their master. Deathstroke recognized Drago as Daniel Rogers, a soldier he’d served with, and abandoned in Afghanistan. Drago had vowed revenge since that day, and plucked out Deathstroke’s one good eye. Cheshire and Arsenal felt they’d fulfilled their promise to Drago, but he decided to change the terms, putting Arsenal and Cheshire in captivity. Arsenal’s cell was next to Deathstroke’s, and he revealed to Arsenal that his withdrawal was so bad because he’d replaced his heroin with Bliss. Drago revealed his origins to Deathstroke, how Jeremiah, the man Deathstroke thought would kill him, instead taught him his philosophy. His life‘s goal was to make people “enlightened“ like him, and he wanted to share what he knew with Deathstroke, but demanded he undergo a trial by fire. He dumped him in the caverns beneath his island, and told him to survive. The caverns were filled with the failed experiments of his second-in-command Dr. Rainn. Arsenal escaped captivity and freed Cinder. She killed Dr. Rainn, and agreed to trust Arsenal until the mission was over. Deathstroke’s eye healed, and he overcame Rainn’s Subhumans, and the Titans united to defeat Drago. Deathstroke was about to kill Drago, when Drago reminded him that he’d broken his promise in Afghanistan to never leave a man behind. Deathstroke spared his life, but made him promise to leave Cheshire alone. Cheshire was furious, but Deathstroke told her she lost the right to expect him to fulfill his promise to her after she stabbed him in the back. He told Cheshire and Arsenal that he’d call things even. He was not a forgiving man, but the Titans were almost done with their true goal. Reviving Jericho using the Methuselah Device. Arsenal tried to quit, but Deathstroke kept him in line by threatening him, and offering him another hit of Bliss. Arsenal realized he’d hit rock bottom. The Titans flew out of Drago’s airspace, and were confronted by the Justice League of America, who wanted Deathstroke to answer for his role in Atom Ryan Choi’s death.