DC Comics 2016
Written by Christopher Priest
Breakdowns by Larry Hama
Pencils by Carlo Pagulayan
Inked by Jason Paz
Coloured by Jeromy Cox
Lettered by Willie Schubert
Deathstroke investigates a connection between Wintergreen’s kidnapping and their old special ops unit to find out which of Slade’s trusted inner circle has betrayed him!
As Christopher continues to tell Slade’s story it’s a great look at the events in his life that have shaped him into the man he is now. We open up with Adeline going out looking for Slade leaving Joey home alone. Not exactly the shy introspective teenager this time around as he has all his friends over to party while Mom’s away. Though when Adeline comes home Joey’s been kidnapped and an ominous message and photo are left behind.
Then it’s time to see for the story of Wintergreen’s abduction to come into play. It would seem that they’ve already decided which of the old gang was the most likely to rat him out, and did so they’ve come to pay him a visit. I like this because it continues to flesh out Slade’s days as a mercenary and tightens his circle of those he can trust. We begin to see why Deathstroke is much better off working with just Wintergreen and not having a network of people around who know too much about him.
As far as the past coming into play we see Wintergreen and Frederic talking about old times. Past missions to be more precise and in this we see how it they discovered a young girl with silver hair at an old safe house for them. Lillian ran the joint and it was a place Slade used to use a lot so it isn’t a stretch to put two and two together and come up with four. Seeing as how after the treatment Slade’s hair went to that very shade of Silver.
This puts Rose around Joey’s age if not just a skoch younger. Interesting thing to do really unless the conversation Adeline had with Slade when he blows her off, before she can inform him about Joey is the present. Hopefully this means that Joey was born early in his treatment and was still born with his unique ability whereas Rose born a little later has his enhanced reflexes and more of his current power set. It’ll be interesting to see how all this is going to play out as the story continues.
I’m loving the interiors here. It’s the kind that I find myself gravitating towards as it’s clean crisp and full of detail work. The page layouts, use of angles and perspective are great and the use of backgrounds here really help to fill out the story. The entire team does a great job in making the flow of the story easy to follow and a joy to behold.
So far this has been all about discovery, discovering who Slade is, what he’s about and how his family fits into his life. Not the fastest moving thing around but it’s incredible characterisation and the potential from what we see here is phenomenal stuff. Priest really is taking his time establishing personalities, motives, trust and the way Slade’s life is going to need to move forward. It’s like the beginning of one of those epic cable network television dramas that garner so much acclaim.