Review: Deathstroke #1

This issue essentially picks up right where the last issue left us. This issue progressed the story of the Clock King further. We find him holding a prisoner; the prisoner is one of the men that hired Deathstroke to kill the Clock King. There are a lot of threats and talk between the Clock King and the prisoner in regards to how he shouldn’t have tried to hire someone to kill him. Throw in a half-naked fight flashback between Deathstroke and his ex-wife along with some pretty stellar action scenes and you’ve got yourself a solid comic. The flashback was interesting because it wasn’t Deathstroke’s flashback, it was one of his longtime friend’s flashbacks because he walked in on them as they were finishing their crazy fight, sex party. This flashback did give us a sense of who exactly Deathstroke's wife was. She was the one that trained him to become an assassin; she was, in fact, kicking his butt pretty good in the fight scenes. His ex-wife is clearly jealous that he gets to go out and fight while she is stuck at home doing laundry and other chores.

DS_Cv1_dsConfronting the Clock King is no easy task because he is on a delay essentially, so any image you see of him is a hologram because it is in the past. Given Deathstroke's abilities and top notch fighting skills, he can stop the Clock King in this issue, but it is hard to say if this is the last we will see of the Clock King. I think there are many more opportunities to use him even if just for flashback purposes to give us more ideas as to how Slade became the world's most deadly assassin.

Overall, Priest does an excellent job; his writing is good quality, fast paced, detailed enough without becoming overwhelming to the reader. The story progression from the first one-shot issue was pretty solid. Details that were a little cloudy were cleared up a bit more, such as the Clock King's plan and his real power. This isn’t by any means the best writing ever, but I enjoyed it, and Priest gives you just the right amount of story to satisfy the reader by the end of the issue. There was excellent usage of the pages, giving flashbacks leading into more background for certain characters, possibly even hinting at a new assassin joining the game, Slade's ex-wife.

As the same from the last issue, the art has been excellent. Fantastic character details and the environments are clean, and you can clearly tell where the character is. The movement of characters is captured very well, especially in the half-naked fight scene. Overall this was a good read, might be worth the three dollar price tag, but honestly could probably go down to two dollars. If you are a fan of Slade Wilson as Deathstroke, then definitely pick this issue up. I think the creative team behind this series is doing Slade justice and giving the readers a well-paced, action-packed comic series that can compete with being some of the better writing out of the other DC Rebirth titles.

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Deathstroke #1 Writer: Priest Artist: Carlo Pagulayan, Jason Paz, Jeromy Cox Publisher: DC Entertainment Price: $2.99 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital

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Review: Deathstroke: Rebirth #1

Coming off one of my favorite comic runs by the previous Team Deathstroke, Christopher Priest, Jason Paz, and Carlo Pagulayan had a tall order with Deathstroke: Rebirth. Thankfully, the Terminator looks to be in capable hands. Rebirth establishes Deathstroke as a hardass and as usual, his family life is shown to be less than ideal. The more things change, right? The story uses flashbacks to establish a bit of Slade's relationship with his children, while present day, Deathstroke is on a mission to assassinate a classic villain. This villain is also under protection from the locals… who have hired Slade. Yeah, no honor among thieves. This changes though, when the assassination target gives Slade information about an old friend.

DSKREB_Cv1_dsThe writing is very dry. Slade doesn’t mince words, but there is a dry wit about his character that is worthy of a few chuckles. This book isn’t really going for that though. This feels like a very personal piece for Slade, as opposed to last time. World building was the big set up with Bonny, Tyler, and Daniels. This feels more about building up Slade as a person and as Deathstroke the Terminator.

This is only a prologue so there are some questions left, but there are key members of Slade's supporting cast shown so that’s always promising. These include Grant Wilson and Billy Wintergreen, who was absent from the previous run, and will hopefully stick around.

As far as the art goes, I’ll admit, I was on the fence. I remember seeing concept art for what Slade and Rose would look like and I wasn’t too keen on them. Paglayan and Paz really made those designs work. Likewise, their take on Slade in action was very well done. Poetry in motion would not be untrue to say of Slade, and the art

At the end of the day, this book is off to a solid start. The art and the story look like they’ll be very engaging going forward and if you’re looking to learn more about the man behind the mask, this looks like the book for you.

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Deathstroke: Rebirth #1 Writer: Christopher Priest Artist: Carlo Pagulayan, Jason Paz Publisher: DC Comics Price: $2.99 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital

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