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Characters / Deathstroke

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The Character

    Slade Wilson / Deathstroke the Terminator 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/deathstroke.jpg
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/6904873_images_65.jpeg
Now would be a good time to start running.

Alter ego: Slade Wilson

Species: Human

First appearance: The New Teen Titans (vol. 1) #2 (December, 1980)

"Inflict enough damage, take away the things he cares about, and it will all become too much."

Slade Wilson, better known by his professional nom de guerre of Deathstroke the Terminator (later shortened to Deathstroke after a certain movie came out), is a fictional mercenary, freelance assassin and supervillain in DC Comics who first appeared in The New Teen Titans (vol. 1) #2 (December, 1980). He was created by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez.

Originally, Deathstroke was intended to be a minor, one-shot villain but fan-reaction saw him become a regular, recurring character in not only the Teen Titans but in other series as well. He later starred, four times, in his own comic series. The first series ran from June 1991-April 1996, the second from September 2011-May 2013, the third from October 2014-July 2016, and the fourth began in August 2016.

Slade Wilson was just sixteen years old when he lied about his age and enlisted in the United States Army where he eventually reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. It was also in the Army that he met his future wife, and combat trainer, Adeline Kane. Slade was eventually shipped to Vietnam, where he would end up being rescued by his future right-hand man, an SAS commando named Wintergreen. After his tour in Vietnam, Slade was selected to be a test subject for an experiment designed counter truth serum. This left him with enhanced physical and mental abilities as well as a healing factor. Slade deserted soon afterwards to rescue Wintergreen after a vindictive superior officer sent him on a suicide mission. Deciding to put his skills and abilities to a profitable use, Slade became a mercenary.

Slade would eventually cross paths with the Teen Titans when his son Grant, following in his father's mercenary footsteps, took a contract from the Hierarchy of International Vengeance and Extermination (H.I.V.E) to kill or capture the Teen Titans. Grant died in the attempt and Slade agreed to finish his son's job. This would be the start of a long history of conflict between Deathstroke and the Titans. Because of his skills as a mercenary, Slade would eventually wind up duking it out with several DC heroes over the next three decades.

He has also appeared in:

He's also appeared as a playable fighter in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (voiced by Patrick Seitz), Injustice: Gods Among Us (voiced by J.G. Hertzler), and Batman: Arkham Origins (voiced by Mark Rolston) as a villain and DLC character.

Not to be confused with another comic book mercenary with the last name Wilson.

  • Abusive Parents: Slade is not the most loving father, Even putting aside how he was heavily involved in the deaths of both of his sons, you could make a case for this solely for Slade's daughter and the emotional manipulation and abuse he puts her through.
  • Action Dad: While his fatherly instincts leave something to be desired there is no denying that Slade is a badass.
  • Alternate Company Equivalent: Apparently, Rob Liefeld once mis-drew Slade "Deathstroke" Wilson by letting him have both of his eyes, and when Fabian Nicieza saw it, he jokingly referred to the "new" character as Wade "Deadpool" Wilson (Y'all know Deadpool, yes?).
    • Slade's original write-up — a veteran who took a supersoldier serum — made him a particularly cynical take on Captain America.
  • Anti-Hero: He has drifted into this category on a couple of occasions. It was most notable during the Total Chaos storyline.
  • Anti-Villain: Slade is a mercenary but he does have something of a fairly strong moral code. Of course, this has been subject to change from time to time and Depending on the Writer. Notably, the 2016 series by Christopher Priest goes to great lengths to shoot down the notion that someone like Slade could be considered anything other than a bad guy.
    Wintergreen: Much as you or I, or say, the Justice League would like to pretend otherwise..."mercenary," "anti-hero," and such...the "villain" label is the best fit, I'm afraid.
  • Arch-Enemy: To the Teen Titans as a whole. Now the Titans have gone through tons of Big Bads, and let's face it, Slade isn't the biggest or baddest. But he is the most persistent and most personal enemy the team has ever faced. Naturally, he shares a special rivalry with Nightwing.
  • Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: He is very good, he knows it, and he lets everyone else know it too. See how his mask is half black and doesn't have an eyehole on that side? He does that to emphasize how he only has one eye, and he will still kick your ass.
  • Badass Back: Deathstroke manages to skewer the Flash on his sword with a blind strike behind him, despite the fact that the Flash at that point is moving so much faster than Deathstroke that the villain must have looked like an inanimate statue to the hero.
  • Bad Boss: In one late-2010's comic, he's assigned a team of much younger subordinates. Despite them proving both competent and loyal (if a bit overeager), he's killed them all by the end of the issue.
  • Balls of Steel: Black Canary once managed to land a kick on Deathstroke right in the crotch, but this trope is used as he angrily replied that he was wearing over 50 pounds of body armor, so of course he was wearing a cup.
  • Big Bad: Of the Judas Contract, Titans Hunt, and the first two seasons of Teen Titans. While in scale he doesn't quite match Trigon, Deathstroke is still the most frequent of the Titans' Big Bads, also serving as this in some of Dick's solo series.
  • Big, Screwed-Up Family: Oh boy, where to start? You know, it's saying something when Slade may actually be the only sane one left in his immediate family. His wife, Addie, was ostensibly on the side of angels, but her methods weren't. They only seemed to get worse with time. Eldest son Grant was a Psycho for Hire who ended up killing himself when going up against the Teen Titans. Middle child Joseph "Jericho" Wilson was the White Sheep; a genuinely nice, artistic sort and a Titan in good standing...until he made contact with Raven's demonic side and the corrupted remnants of Azarath and went nuts as a result. Rose, the youngest, and the product of Slade's affair with a brothel keeper/mercenary, gouged her own eye out in an attempt to be just like daddy (that, before her Heel–Face Turn). So yeah.
  • Blood Knight: Some of his statements show that he really enjoys his line of work.
    (in response to Lagoon Boy requesting backup) "See, calling for help like that just pushes up the timetable. Now I can't savor the battle."
  • Boom Stick: One of his signature weapons is a power staff that fires lethal and non-lethal energy blasts from both ends.
  • Break Them by Talking: He is a master at this trope.
  • Breakout Villain: He was intended to be a minor, practically one-shot villain. He then got his role expanded to the Big Bad of a major story arc. Soon winded up getting his own comic book series and has become a fan favorite villain of the DC Universe.
    • While rarely the Big Bad outside of Titans comics, Slade is regularly The Dragon to one. This is particularly visible in the first Secret Six miniseries and Infinite Crisis, where he's the strongest of the Secret Society of Supervillains.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: In the DC Rebirth volume of the series, Wintergreen says that Slade genuinely loves his children, but is too fundamentally broken as a human being to show them the affection they deserve.
  • Character Development: He started the Cycle of Revenge against the Titans when his son got killed capturing them for a contract. The arc ends with his surviving son and wife turned against him, and a bunch of teen heroes that hate his guts. Slade gets a Heel Realization about this and eventually tells a vengeful Beast Boy that avenging the dead isn't worth it because everyone loses in the end. This goes away in the 2003 reboot, where he vows to kill Jericho again for making him kill Wintergreen.
  • Characterization Marches On: Slade was far more of a dirtbag in his earliest appearances, in sharp contrast to his eventual Anti-Villain status. One of his earliest appearances had him kidnapping Cyborg's love interest in order to lure the Teen Titans into a trap, something that would seem at odds with his Never Hurt an Innocent guidelines that would be established in later issues, and recreate the Doom Patrol's way of dying — a traumatic event for Changeling — For the Evulz. This can be explained by the creative differences between George Perez, who saw Slade as a ruthless villain whose "code" was only a personal justification, and Marv Wolfman, who did not see him as villain but as an honorable victim of circumstance. Thus when Perez left the title, Deathstroke's more noble characterization took hold.
  • Colonel Badass: Slade was a Lieutenant Colonel back when he was still serving in the US Army.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Slade's the type of guy who would stab you in the back or shoot you in the head before you even knew what was happening.
  • Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Lately, he's seldom referred to as Deathstroke, much less "the Terminator". He tends to be identified as Slade or Slade Wilson these days.
  • Consummate Professional: He'll kill anyone he's paid to, and at times even is paid in advance simply to be sure he is willing to follow through on a job to uphold his professional reputation.
  • Continuity Snarl: The entire Wilson family was more inconsistent than Hawkman in the New 52. As a result, the DC Rebirth series just rebooted them all.
  • Contract on the Hitman: Slade, going after an employer who betrayed him, is targeted by a second assassin, Jannissary. When Slade has Jannissary at his mercy and explains his motives, Jannissary gives him the money he had paid; Slade returns it before killing the employer.
  • Cool Sword: In Injustice: Gods Among Us he has a large (but not quite BFS-level) longsword that's serrated near the hilt.
  • The Corrupter:
    • He's tried to turn Nightwing evil, along with telling Arsenal he was gonna take his daughter after he killed him and raise her to be a mercenary assassin.
    • Slade also has a tendency to do this with mind altering drugs. He's done it on Rose and was later revealed to be doing it to Cassandra Cain in order to explain her Face–Heel Turn.
  • Crazy-Prepared: He's often depicted as an evil version of Batman (which makes him a good foil for Robin).
  • Cultured Badass: Slade is often seen sipping champagne and enjoying the finer things in life.
  • Dark Age of Supernames: A prime example of a character managing to stay top-tier despite a name that seems hilariously over the top today.
  • Deadpan Snarker: A noteworthy aspect of his personality since the beginning.
  • Deconstructed Character Archetype: Deathstroke Is a deconstruction of the Anti-Hero, Anti-Villain, and Noble Demon. Slade Wilson was once a mercenary with a code of honor. He took a job to take out the Teen Titans because he blamed them for the death of his son. Eventually, after he is defeated, he accepts that the Titans are not at fault for his son's death, gives up his Ventana against him, and even becomes an ally. However, his good characteristics eventually get deconstructed, and he shows himself as selfish and toxic. He finally gives up his code of honor and embraces becoming a villain. In his previous appearance, he shows himself to be more of a dirtbag than he let on when he kidnapped Cyborg's love interest to lure the Teen Titans into a trap, something that would seem at odds with his never Hurt the innocent guidelines that would be established in later issues, and recreate the Doom Patrol's way of dying — a traumatic event for Changeling just to be cruel. Later, it was revealed that he wasn't much of a good father and husband; he was neglectful and abusive to his two sons and led a double life that led to one of his sons being wounded and losing his voice. Eventually, after losing both his sons and ex-wife, he kidnapped and drugged his last remaining child, Rose, into being his apprentice; he embraced being a villain and even destroyed a city. Ultimately, Slade Wilson shows that, but with every good intention and personality trait he has, he's just too much of a toxic, cruel, and selfish person ever to be a good person. His best friend William Wintergreen says it best.
    Wintergreen: Much as you or I, or say, the "Justice League" would like to pretend otherwise..." mercenary," "anti-hero," and such...the "villain" label is the best fit, I'm afraid.
  • Depending on the Writer: Does he care for his children or are they his pawns? Is he really evil or just in it for the money? About the only thing that doesn't change depending on who writes him is that he's a badass.
  • Diminishing Villain Threat: He hasn't decayed into an easy-to-defeat villain all across the board but for certain Badass Normal heroes, particularly Batman and Nightwing, he's no longer a nightmare opponent who can easily manhandle them like in the early years, particularly during his first fight against Batman where Deathstroke relentlessly beat Bruce unconscious. Thanks to ongoing Power Creep, Power Seep, heroes like Batman or Nightwing have gotten to the point where they can defeat Deathstroke after an intense fight, stalemate Deathstroke while getting in equal or more hits, or in some cases, completely embarrass Slade by taking him out easily in a span of a page, like Batman once did when he attacked and defeated Deathstroke and Deadshot together.
  • Dirty Old Man: Shows this aspect on occasion. It became especially apparent during The Judas Contract arc.
  • Disposable Superhero Maker: Back in the 1950's, when Slade volunteered for the experiments that gave him his superhuman abilities, the serum eventually plunged him into a coma. The scientists decided to destroy the serum formula. Months later, Slade woke up with superhuman powers.
  • The Dragon: He's ended up serving in this position more than once in his mercenary career.
  • The Dreaded: Everyone is terrified of Slade. Mentioning that he's involved in something always leads to a collective moment of blind terror from everyone in earshot. He regularly shows exactly why he has such a reputation as well.
  • Empowered Badass Normal: Slade was already one of the best soldiers in the US Army when he was selected to be a test subject in an experiment to create metahuman super-soldiers. This left him with physical abilities just above the human norm and a healing factor of indeterminate strength. Couple that with his training and combat experience and you got yourself one hell of a mercenary. He's also scheduled to gain access to the Speed Force, meaning that he'll also be as fast as the Flashes.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: While Slade is not likely to win any sort of father of the year award anytime soon, he does genuinely love his three kids. He also does genuinely love his butler, Billy Wintergreen.
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • He was shocked that Beast Boy was willing to become a murderer and besmirch his hero reputation to avenge Terra, perpetuating the Cycle of Revenge that Deathstroke started. It gets so bad that Slade tells Beast Boy, after getting him to show he can't kill an unarmed man who deserves death, that he's a hero and it's not worth avenging the dead.
    • In Infinite Crisis he sides with Alexander Luthor's team but openly questions why they're doing so much to protect rapist and sexual harasser Doctor Light.
    • In Villains United, even he was disgusted by how Cheshire had sold out her own team and rewarded her for it by shooting her in the gut.
    • He was sickened by a village massacre his unit participated in during the Vietnam War.
    • He does not seem in agreement with the Red Lion's racist beliefs, since he himself is an indiscriminate killer. However, he works with him on his "ethnic cleansing" anyway because he's getting paid well for it.
  • Evil Counterpart:
  • Evil Mentor: He does this as a hobby. He once acted as an Evil Mentor to Terra, before he realized too late that she was even more evil than him. He also tried to turn Nightwing evil in the "Renegade" storyline, but Nightwing turned that around by acting as a Good Mentor to Slade's daughter Rose which led to her Heel–Face Turn. He also founded an Evil Counterpart to the Teen Titans twice. In Outsiders, while fighting Arsenal, he once mentioned that after he killed Roy he would take Lian and raise her to be an assassin. Slade in general has a disturbing interest in corrupting the next generation of superbeings.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: He's been voiced by Ron Perlman and Fred Tatasciore. And played by Manu Bennett, which made him sound very deep.
  • Expy:
    • Deathstroke bears some resemblance to the Marvel character Taskmaster, who debuted several months beforehand. Both have some similar design elements (such as the buccaneer-style boots and color scheme), their powersets are roughly similar (Deathstroke's brain enhancements compared to Taskmaster's "photographic reflexes"), and have similar roles; however given the short period of time between their respective debuts it's likely coincidence (the visual similarity may be because they both were first drawn by the same artist, George Perez). Interestingly, their character trajectories have also mirrored — Slade became nobler than the bad-to-the-bone murderer he started as, while Tasky was a True Neutral mercenary who lived a Nothing Personal motto has become more amoral and Slade-like as time goes on. But Deathstroke also inspired a rather memorable Expy. A lot of people forget that Deadpool was originally a blatant copy-cat of Deathstroke.
    • Another Marvel character who has some similarities with him is the D-list anti-hero Solo. Both met their wife while serving in the military, both gained their powers as part of a military experiment, and both use a sword in tandem with firearms.
  • Eye Scream: He lost an eye when his wife shot him for endangering their son Jericho (which led to Jericho getting his throat cut and losing his voice).
  • Eyepatch of Power: He wears one over where used to be the right eye when he's unmasked.
  • Fashionable Asymmetry: His mask is split between black and orange. Underneath, one eye is cybernetic.
  • Foil: He's everything Batman hates or stands against: immoral, homicidal, gun-toting, and remorseless. Also, contrast the way they treat their children: Batman is quite stern with his sidekicks, he does instill to them moral lines they should not cross and tries to prevent them from being like him but Slade, although he loves his children, is horrible to his kids and essentially has them follow in his footsteps.
  • Friendly Enemy: Deathstroke and Beast Boy developed a relationship like this in the later '80s and early '90s. Beast Boy was about to fight him to the death when Deathstroke appealed to his humanity by showing up without his mask, stating that it was the faceless mask that he wanted to kill, not the person behind it. They later talked things over in a diner. Of course, this got reversed once Deathstroke jumped back off the slippery slope into cold-blooded villainy.
  • From Camouflage to Criminal: After his experiences in the military, Deathstroke became a merc/assassin for hire.
  • Genius Bruiser: He's a very good planner and manipulator as well as a Super-Soldier.
  • Get It Over With: Once a young assassin named Janissary came after Deathstroke. The fight ended with Janissary's hanging by one hand from a bridge with Deathstroke standing over him and telling Deathstroke to end it. Deathstroke retorted that if J wanted him to kill him, J would have to hire him.
  • The Ghost: Played for laughs in Teen Titans Go!: Right at the beginning of the infamous episode "The Return Of Slade", the Titans set off to fight him, however, he is defeated off screen, in the span of three episodes and one Tv Movie where many plot threads were resolved. Slade is never mentioned again after that, and the rest of the episode is about clowns.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: He and Beast Boy meet in a coffeeshop to discuss the death of Terra. This happens AFTER Beast Boy tried to kill him (and was unable to go through with it).
  • Gun Nut: He always carries multiple firearms and he knows how to use them.
  • Guns Akimbo: He has been known to dual-wield pistols and SMGs.
  • The Gunslinger: Mainly of the Type C variety but occasionally drifting into Type A and B territory.
  • Handicapped Badass: You see how his mask only has one eyehole? That's because his wife shot out the other eye. Doesn't slow him down.
  • Harmful to Minors: He pumped his daughter full of mind control steroids and let her carry around a chunk of cancerous meteorite in her eye socket, the eye which she gouged out herself so as to make her "just like him." Slade still claims he had Rose's situation "under control." It's also implied he ordered the hit on her foster parents.
  • The Heavy: plays this role in most arcs he appears.
  • Hero Killer: He's killed a couple of heroes, including Phantom Lady and Ryan Choi's Atom. Then in the trailer for DC Universe Online, he almost kills Batman.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: Is he a good(-ish) guy? A bad guy? Somewhere in between? The answer tends to change. For his part, Wintergreen has decided that Slade's just a violent man who has only ever been on his own side.
  • Heel Realization: After witnessing Terra die because she let her hatred consume her, and seeing Jericho use his powers to possess his own father, Slade realized what a similar situation he was in with his hatred for the Titans and stopped going after them, opting to retire. He even lets Beast Boy have a free shot to gun him down while unarmed, and has to admit he never saw himself as a bad guy. Later the man would come out of retirement as an anti-hero and frequent ally to the Titans. It didn't stick, however; the 2003 reboot undid that.
  • Hired Gun: The guy will fight for whoever pays him.
  • Human Head on the Wall: Deathstroke was possessed by his son Jericho, who murdered Slade's loyal butler Wintergreen and mounted his head on a wall.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: He's a damn good shot with just about any type of firearm. To give one example, in Young Justice (2010) he's introduced by shooting a shuriken thrown by Sportsmaster with a handgun. Pretty impressive for a guy who only has one eye.
  • Invincible Villain: In the hands of clumsy writing he can be this. His most infamous showing was in Identity Crisis (2004), in which he single-handledly beat Green Lantern, The Flash, Black Canary, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Zatanna, and The Atom with minimal effort. In this fight, he demonstrated faster reflexes than Wally West and enough willpower to convince a Green Lantern ring to not attack him. The encounter ends with the entire Justice League on the floor spitting up blood, and Slade quipping that this League, made up mostly of new faces (in Comic-Book Time terms, anyway) to superheroing, is so much weaker than the old one... despite the fact that many of them (Wally in particular) are far more powerful than their predecessors. You'd also think that an arrow to the eye would have done something more than force him to retreat, but he was just fine afterwards.
  • Insane Troll Logic: Something that seems to carry through his incarnations. It's always applied when he gets into a feud, however, especially if it concerns the Titans. Grant took a contract on the team from H.I.V.E., the organisation that also later gave Grant powers similar to his father. When fighting the Titans, Grant's body fails him as a result of the serum that gave him his powers. Does Slade blame H.I.V.E., the organisation that used the unstable formula on Grant? No. Does he blame himself for his awful parenting that led to Grant running away from home to be a mercenary? No. Does he accept that Grant made his own choices? No. He blames the Titans because... reasons?
  • It's Personal: He originally went after the Titans because his son got killed going after them and he views them as having taken his family away from him. Slade realizes he went too far when Adeline and Jericho help Nightwing fight him, and Jericho possesses him.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Particularly under Christopher Priest's pen. For all Slade's pretensions of being a Noble Demon and love for his family, it doesn't change the fact he's an amoral, manipulative, and all-around selfish monster who inevitably hurts the people around him through his cruelty.
  • Karma Houdini:
    • While below it's mentioned he eventually dealt with some karma for The Judas Contract, in the long run Slade got away with raping a mentally unstable teenage girl he trafficked and groomed while said teenage girl was forever remembered as an insane sociopath. Even when Beast Boy asked about Slade's "relationship" with Terra, the fact that Slade was old enough to be Terra's father was never really commented on.
    • The second Titans volume may have ended with Slade's overall goals failing, but he still gets away with the brutal murder of Ryan Choi. This is later addressed in Convergence, when Slade gets his ass kicked by both Ray Palmer and a newly Back from the Dead Ryan.
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: He received no long-lasting consequences after The Judas Contract, the arc in which he was the Big Bad, with it all being brushed under the rug or pinned on Terra, and for a while was even friends with the heroes he'd attempted to have killed. On the other hand, the Titans for a while made it clear they wouldn't hold back if he ever fought them again, and Beast Boy was prepared to murder him; they make good on that threat when he seemingly shoots Impulse; even when they learn it was Jericho in Slade's body, the Titans reestablish their hostility and kill him in a Bad Future. Jericho also joins the Titans after helping fight HIVE, establishing his side.
  • Knee-capping: He once shot Impulse in the kneecap while brainwashed by Jericho. To add insult to injury, thanks to the accelerated healing abilities of the Flash Family, the doctors in the ER had to re-break it repeatedly because it kept healing automatically but incorrectly.
  • Knight of Cerebus: Things are never Lighter and Softer when Slade's around. Never.
    • ...except in Tiny Titans, where he's the school principal.
  • Manipulative Bastard: He's not quite as good at this as some other DC characters. Most of his targets tend to be damaged teenagers a generation or two younger than him, hardly the most challenging targets. When his powers of persuasion aren't enough to get them to work for him, he's not above using blackmail, death threats, mind controlling drugs, and Psycho Serum to force them to join him. However, he can sometimes get the better of grown adults in his scheming, such as in his second appearance in NTT #10 where he plays the HIVE for chumps.
  • Master Swordsman: He's up there with the best of them. Even when you think you've dodged his sword strike, you'll soon find he never really missed and was actually aiming for another part of your arsenal, which is now rendered unusable.
  • May–December Romance: Shortly after his introduction it was revealed that both Slade and Terra had shared an intimate relationship, despite Terra being fifteen years old and Slade having joined the Army in the late 1950s, early 1960s. DC Rebirth retcons this, so that he never slept with her and only kissed her in order to manipulate her into helping him.
  • Military Supervillain: An ex-military that has attended at Korea and Vietnam wars. Here, Slade mastered every fighting form of guerrilla warfare presented to him and was soon promoted becoming a legend in the Army. Indeed, was chosen for a secret experiment in an attempt to create a meta human Super-Soldier.
  • Mind Screw: Break Them by Talking, Mind Rape, manipulation, yeah, conversations with Slade tend not to be so good for people's sanity.
  • Mirror Universe: In Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, Slade is the President of the United States.
  • Morality Chain: Wintergreen is this for the entire Wilson family. His Undying Loyalty makes him complicit in Slade's shadier dealings, but he always tries to bring out the best in him and his children. Wintergeen's death at the hands of the Jericho-possessed Deathstroke pre-Flashpoint destroyed any chance that Slade could ever go through a true Heel–Face Turn. Rose at least managed to eventually turn good.
  • Moral Myopia: Deathstroke's beef with the Titans started because his son Grant died trying to kill them. Note that the Titans didn't actually kill Grant - he died from the Super Serum H.I.V.E. injected into him to give him the same powers as his father. For this, Slade felt he was justified in planting a mole in their team and plotting their deaths.
  • Motive Decay: He started out as a ruthless, though not wholly unscrupulous, an assassin who only came into conflict with the Titans as part of fulfilling a contract that his son died trying to complete, having blamed them for his death, and seemed to value his reputation above all. When he dropped the contract and finally made peace with his son's death, he actually became rather amiable towards his former targets. Then he became a Card-Carrying Villain and doing things like injecting his only surviving child with a Psycho Serum and implanting a chunk of radioactive kryptonite in her eye socket and nuking Bludhaven to spite Nightwing (a character he had previously had a lot of respect for).
    • Following the reboot, Deathstroke is back to being a Consummate Professional who's concerned with maintaining his reputation as he gets older. No connection to the Titans, though he still can't maintain a decent relationship with his family.
  • Movie Superheroes Wear Black: In Teen Titans (2003), Young Justice (2010) and Arrow, Deathstroke's trademark blue and orange costume is replaced with black body armor.
  • Multi-Ranged Master: It's not unusual for Deathstroke to be carrying pistols, assault rifles, submachine guns, sniper rifles, etc... all at the same time.
  • The Musketeer: He is skilled in the use of both melee weapons and guns and regularly carries examples of both types at once.
  • My Suit Is Also Super: His suit in the New 52 runs is (Depending on the Writer) made of Nth metal (the stuff that comprises Hawkman's mace and flight harness) or Promethium (the metal that comprises Cyborg's body). The DC Rebirth run has him upgrading to a "gravity sheath" suit from Dr. Ikon, which allows him to take blows from Superman of all people.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Deathstroke the Terminator.
  • Never Hurt an Innocent: Another one of those things that depends on the writer. During the controversial Titans issue where he murdered Ryan Choi, Deathstroke notably spared the life of Choi's girlfriend Amanda, stating that she had nothing to do with the battle.
  • Never My Fault:
    • His entire motivation for hating the Teen Titans and trying to kill them was that he blamed them for the loss of his family. In reality, Deathstroke himself was the one who drove them away with his life as an amoral mercenary. He got a Heel Realization about this when Jericho and Adeline defied him. Averted in one storyline when he eventually realized he was a terrible father. He enacted a scheme to endear his remaining two children to the Teen Titans so they could have the family he couldn't give them.
    • This has also been averted in his 2014 series, where he acknowledges that he's been a terrible father and desperately tries to protect both of his children, ultimately ripping out his newly restored eye with his bare hands when the Olympian gods demand he provide a sacrifice in the form of one of his two living children.
  • Never Say "Die": In the animated version of Teen Titans, he was never called "Deathstroke" or "the Terminator", merely "Slade". Since without the "Wilson", "Slade" just sounds like another codename, it didn't feel too out of place. In the French dub of the show, however, he is called Deathstroke.
  • 90% of Your Brain: Slade had this as one of his powers (though it's not stated outright in the series, only the comics). Later retconned in saying that his grey matter got re-routed and reprogrammed, allowing him to use his brain in various ways that regular humans do not.
  • Nothing Personal: When he spears Phantom Lady through her torso, she asks him why. He responds with this:
    "Sorry, darlin'. Just business."
  • Old Soldier: He joined the Army in the fifties and fought in Vietnam. Just now, though, he is a soldier of fortune. For contrast, he was in the army before most of the Teen Titans were born.
    Deathstroke: [to Batman] You've trained yourself to fight. I've trained myself to kill.
  • Older Than They Look: He served in Vietnam, yet his healing factor has slowed his aging.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: No one will ever forget that he worked with a teenager and slept with her, as she infiltrated the Titans. Beast Boy calls him out for it in the 2003 reboot of how he likes hurting kids and blames someone else for his actions.
  • One-Man Army: When you take down the entire Justice League single-handed it is safe to say that you are this.
  • Only in It for the Money: This is a motivation he frequently has Depending on the Writer. In some stories, the easiest way for Batman and Robin to get Deathstroke to stop hunting his mark is to pay him off.
  • Pet the Dog:
    • After he's let out of prison, Beast Boy challenges him to a Duel to the Death and is on the verge of Jumping Off the Slippery Slope. Slade knows Beast Boy blames him for Terra's death and betrayal...and goes to meet him anyway. Wintergreen begs him not to because he knows it won't end well. Deathstroke ignores Wintergreen and shows up unarmed, challenging Beast Boy to strike him down. Gar ends up being unable to do it because he can't attack a defenseless man and is mad at himself for not being a killer. Slade then treats him to breakfast and talks him through his understandable anger and grief; while it's not cool that Slade scapegoated Terra, he tells Beast Boy that revenge helps no one in the long run and the kid shouldn't throw his life away for a dead girl.
    • When a child was caught in the crossfire of a fight between Deathstroke and some assasains he protected the boy from them.
  • Pick on Someone Your Own Size: While he is an equal opportunity criminal mercenary, he holds a personal grudge against the Teen Titans (and former Teen Titans) who are all much younger than him — especially Dick Grayson.
  • Power Creep, Power Seep: He can be portrayed as someone who can hold his own against members of the Justice League of America, and be able to knock out the Flash, but also struggle against someone like Nightwing.
  • President Evil: Inverted in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, where his Good Counterpart is President Wilson.
  • Pressure Point: He knows how to apply them.
  • Professional Killer: According to Bart Allen in one Teen Titans comic, Deathstroke is the best assassin in the world and if someone wants someone else dead they call him. If they can't afford Slade they call Deadshot, and if they can't afford him they call Merlyn.
  • Psycho for Hire: He's an international hitman and one of the DCU's most well-known villains.
  • Psycho Serum: The formula used in the military experiment left him a crippled wreck for months or years, with brief periods of increased strength and intelligence. Later, after the military cut him lose, Slade revealed that he'd started faking the bouts of weakness at some point to get out on his own.
  • Private Military Contractor
  • Race Lift: White in the comics and animated series. Played by mixed-race actor Manu Bennett in Arrow.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: He took advantage of Terra's mental instability and groomed her for a sexual relationship, raping her on multiple occasions and getting away with it because everyone focused on her being "insane." Decades later during DC Rebirth the relationship was retconned so that Slade only kissed her to make Terra calm down after rejecting her advances, and yet now those who were aware of what he did felt Slade crossed a line.
  • Red Baron: The Terminator.
  • Reed Richards Is Useless: He once assassinated a philanthropist who was reverse engineering super-villain technology for benevolent causes (i.e. using freeze guns to reverse polar ice cap melting). No reason was given as to why Deathstroke was hired to kill the philanthropist.
  • Revenge Myopia:
    • In his first story arc, Deathstroke blamed the Titans for the death of his eldest son Grant. Except a) the only reason Grant died was because he underwent the same super soldier experiment that gave Slade his powers but which proved fatal to Grant and b) Grant died trying to kill the Titans. And despite not wanting his son to follow the same path as him, Slade chooses to blame the Titans for Grant's death rather than go after H.I.V.E., the organization that performed the fatal experiment on Grant.
    • In Infinite Crisis, Slade destroyed Blüdhaven, the city Nightwing protected by dropping the super villain Chemo, a monster made of radioactive energies, into it. When confronted by Batman, Nightwing and Robin (Tim Drake) Slade goes into a rant about how Nightwing had turned his family against him when in reality Slade had either turned his back on his family or did a good enough job of making them hate him himself. Interestingly Slade did learn a lesson after this, arranging a complex gambit to get his children Jericho and Rose to fully embrace the Titans as family because he felt he couldn't be a good father to them.
  • Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Slade started out as a Teen Titans rogue, turned towards antiheroism, and then became (after Identity Crisis (2004)) a sort of generic DC Universe villain, being as much of a dick to as many superheroes as he could manage. It should be noted that he's never let go of his grudge against the Titans since he never completed his contract against them (a bit of a blow to his merc cred). He even went so far as to harass Damian Wayne, his Arch-Enemy Nightwing's protege. These days, he generally tends to be considered a Bat-Family adjacent villain.
  • Ruthless Modern Pirates: He's been involved in piracy once or twice in his career. Notably in Flashpoint: Deathstroke and the Legend of the Ravager.
  • Shoulders of Doom: In the New 52 continuity, Depending on the Artist.
  • Silver Fox: He's usually portrayed as being well into middle age or older and with grey hair but he is ruggedly handsome and in excellent shape.
  • The Sociopath: His earliest characterization painted him as this before his evolution into a '90s Anti-Hero or Noble Demon Anti-Villain in later appearances. His Sociopath status is now Depending on the Writer (Christopher Priest, for example, has gone on the record saying he thinks Slade Wilson is "ultimately amoral and a sociopath" and that's what he writes him as.)
  • Stealth Expert: Slade is exceptionally skilled at sneaking up on enemies and disappearing just as quickly.
  • The Stoic: In contrast to Marvel's Deadpool wackiness, Deathstroke is often portrayed as cold and calculating and often emotionless. This allows him to be an effective assassin and mercenary.
  • The Strategist: Slade is the greatest strategist and tactician. Always calculating his opponents moves before hand; he has been compared to Batman in terms of tactical methods. Even against metahumans he has proven more than a match for them all at once with time to prepare. Roy Harper once claimed the Slade was, "The worlds greatest tactician."
  • Strong and Skilled: He has enhanced abilities and is a highly trained soldier with years of combat training and experience in numerous martial arts such as Karate, Judo, Ninjitsu, Muay Thai, Kung Fu, Krav Maga, Taekwondo, Boxing and Brazilian Jiujitsu. He can go toe to toe and even defeat some of the best martial artists in the DCU, including Batman himself.
  • Strong as They Need to Be: As dangerous of a fighter and as popular as he can be, Deathstroke is still subject to this from time to time. At his best, he'll be written to defeat some of DC's top martial artists like Batman or Bronze Tiger, trip up and take out speedsters like The Flash, stalemate Superman, and out-fight scores of some of the most powerful heroes alive, including members of the Justice League and/or the Teen Titans (and if certain hallucinogenic tests are to be believed, he'd just as easily kill scores of heavy hitter supervillains including Ultra-Humanite, Zoom, Black Manta, and Vandal Savage with only minimal Ikon Suit power). Then other times, a few no-name characters will be able to get the drop on him and/or pose a serious enough threat to him that one has to seriously wonder if the guy having trouble fighting a D-Lister villain is the same Deathstroke who could make defeating Flash or Green Lantern look easy.
  • Superhero Team Uniform: "Deathstroke's Teen Titans" wear black and white suits.
  • Super-Reflexes: Deathstroke possesses enhanced reflexes, flawless dexterity and coordination. His reaction speed allows him to automatically and casually dodge point blank gunfire from multiple assailants.
  • Super-Strength: On the low end of the spectrum but he's still much stronger than any human. Black Canary even commented when fighting him that she'd forgotten how powerful his blows are.
  • Sword and Gun: Seems to have a preference for a broadsword and a Colt .45 autoloader.
    "Do you prefer steel or lead?"
  • Talking Is a Free Action: Deathstroke pulls this in the X-Men/Teen Titans crossover "Apokolips...Now." He's overseeing construction of a psi-phon, a device to absorb Phoenix's residual power when a cigar appears and its smoker asks for a light. While taking a fraction of a second taking a swing at the smoker (Wolverine, whom he misses), Deathstroke says:
    I'm impressed. I didn't think anyone could get the drop on me. You should have struck while you had the chance, fella. That bit of bravado will cost you. What?!—I missed!
  • Team Dad: Evil version. During the Titans East storyline, he even acted more fatherly towards Inertia than he did to his own children as part of his plan to get the Titans to accept them. He gave the little psycho the serum he needed for Super-Speed while warning him not to abuse it, advised him to dump his even more psychotic girlfriend, and hooked him up with the Rogues in Central City once everything went south for Titans East.
    • Word of God from Eric Wallace specifically described Slade as this for his mercenary in the most twisted sense possible.
  • The Unapologetic: One of Slade's biggest flaws is his absolute refusal to apologize for his actions. The most glaring case of this would be his manipulation of Rose, where even after she had a psychotic breakdown and gouged out her own eye, Slade continued to insist he "had it under control." As far as he's concerned, everyone else should be apologizing for not going along with his plans.
  • The Vietnam Vet: As mentioned, he fought in Vietnam alongside Wintergreen. This also applies to his Arkhamverse counterpart, who compares Batman to a troublesome Viet Cong member.
  • The Vietnam War: Slade's a Nam Vet. He also met Wintergreen there and he first met Kane when she was training American soldiers in new fighting techniques for deployment in Indochina.
  • Villain Protagonist: Four ongoings, a Flashpoint miniseries, and a Faces of Evil one-shot.
  • Walking Armory: Slade never has just one or two weapons on him.
  • Warrior Therapist: Evil version.
  • Why Won't You Die?: He actually asks this to a alternate universe version of himself, which doesn't look at all like Deadpool.
    Deathstroke: Will you please just die!
    Earth-3 Deathstroke: Why do you hate yourself so much?
  • Writing Around Trademarks: He was originally just The Terminator. Unfortunately, the movie made that problematic, so he was termed "Deathstroke the Terminator". However, these days he's best known as just his first name, Slade, with "Deathstroke the Terminator" usually just the title of the comic.
  • Would Hit a Girl: He'll also abuse them to the point that they go insane if he feels that it is necessary.
  • Wound That Will Not Heal: Despite having a Healing Factor his eye never seems to grow back. This may be psychological, as it happened as a result of his son being crippled and he may feel he deserves it.

The Wilson Family

    Adeline Wilson nee Kane 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/adeline_kane.jpg

The wife and former senior officer of Slade Wilson's, she also later becomes the leader of H.I.V.E. She maintains a strained relationship with Slade, and is also the person who damaged his right eye.

  • Driven to Madness: She at one point received a blood transfusion from Slade, with said blood containing the same serum that heightened his reflexes and made him immortal. It made her insane.
  • It's Personal: Sums up her entire approach getting Slade imprisoned.
  • Mama Bear: She shot out Slade's right eye because his stubbornness is what led to Joseph getting his throat slashed.
  • Parental Favoritism: Adeline was closer to Joey than she was to Grant.

    Grant Wilson (Ravager) 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/grant_wilson.jpg

Slade and Adeline's oldest son, Grant took after his father and became a mercenary. While he doesn't possess any of his father's enhancements, he's still a skilled mercenary. Famously died performing a contract on the Teen Titans, which led to his father taking on said contract.

Pre-Flashpoint:

  • Jerkass: From what we see of him when he's alive, he emotionally abused his girlfriend, antagonized Starfire when she came to Earth, was very gung-ho about following in his father's footsteps so that he could kill people, and blamed the Titans for his own failings to the point where he tried to kill them and died with nothing but hatred in his heart.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: He's killed off pretty soon after being introduced, and most of what we learn about him is through his family.

Post-Flashpoint:

  • Abusive Dad: His 'DC Rebirth incarnation is verbally and physically abused by Slade.
  • Posthumous Character: He's long dead, and we only see him in some flashbacks through Slade.
  • The Un-Favourite: His DC Rebirth incarnation comes off as easily his father's least favourite child, and is seemingly more often berated by Slade than Joe is, though Slade does come to care for him after his death.

    Joseph "Joey" Wilson (Jericho) 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jericho.jpg

Slade and Adeline's youngest son, Joseph Wilson is able to control people's bodies through eye contact. He was a longtime member of the Teen Titans, although he occasionally found himself fighting against them.

Pre-Flashpoint:

  • Archnemesis Dad: He explicitly joined the team to stop Deathstroke, his estranged father.
  • Body Surf: What his power amounts to. When eye contact is made, Jericho is able to enter another's body and control their motor functions (except their speech). If the person is unconscious when Jericho enters, he can also speak through them, but retains any speech patterns the person may have (such as an impediment, lisp or accent).
  • Camp Straight: Is a sensitive artist who was almost also gay, but his creators decided against it in fear of fueling the sensitive artsy gay stereotype. Jericho was instead shown to be a ladies' man and had romantic ties with Raven and Kole.
  • The Casanova: Manages to attract quite the women in his time.
  • Cute Mute: He was mute due to his prideful father not wanting to divulge his employer and thinking that he could save his son before he was killed.
  • Eye Scream: At the end of "Deathtrap" in Titans vol. 2. He got better, at any rate (with a previously-unheard of ability to regrow the eyes).
  • Hand Signals: These are a necessity, due to the mute factor. Perez also insisted on utilizing them for the character in lieu of constant thought bubbles and internal monologues, allowing the readers to pay more attention to Jericho's hand signs and body language.
  • Face–Heel Revolving Door: Has it just as bad, if not worse than Raven. He started out good but was driven insane by evil spirits from Raven's father's home dimension. After his father killed him to stop his rampage Jericho clung to existence as an evil spirit being. Years later he was revived and purified of his evil. Then he went evil again due to spending too much time in Superboy's clone Match. Now, he's well...kind of a mess to be honest. It's not clear at this time whether he's good, evil, or even functional.
  • Hot-Blooded Sideburns: One of the things he's most known for were his muttonchops from the 80's.
  • Sensitive Artist: Jericho is a gifted painter and, before he lost his voice, was a prodigious singer. He is also depicted as the most empathetic member of the Titans, managing to earn Raven's trust almost immediately and being the only one who makes an actual effort to figure out the source of her turmoil.
  • Shown Their Work: The sign language he uses is accurate.
  • Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Raven. Their relationship hasn't been mentioned at all since the NTT era.
  • White Sheep: Was the least violent of the Wilsons. Although, his stint of evil at the start of volume 3, Deathtrap, and the New 52 avert this.

Post-Flashpoint:

  • Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: A downgraded version regarding the Titans: Following DC Rebirth, he no longer a connection with the Titans. While he hasn't been show directly interacting with them leaving his relationship to the group unknown, during Dark Nights: Death Metal, he, alongside his sister Rose, was grouped with Titans villains Jinx, Gizmo and Mammoth when the different teams of Titans assembled with Donna Troy questioning their group's presence.
  • Adaptational Sexuality: The DC Rebirth relaunch of Deathstroke establishes that Jericho is pansexual and has a rather fluid view on sexuality in general.
  • Body Surf: A power consistent across all of his post-Flashpoint incarnations is that he still has this power.
  • Continuity Snarl: When first introduced, he's not mute but is otherwise the same kid. Then he was reintroduced again, but his real name is Jericho. By the DC Rebirth series, he's back to being Joseph Wilson, mute guy who possesses people, with Jericho as a former superhero identity he used.
  • Cool Big Bro: He acts as this to Rose.
  • Daddy Issues: Oh, yes. While he was seemingly treated better than Grant, he still doesn't seem to particularly like his father, and helps Superman to capture him. However, he also really cares about his father's approval.
    • His wish for that approval likely flew straight out the window after Slade repeatedly slept with his fiancee, and then seemingly killed her (he insists he didn't). He straight up tried to kill him after the fact.
  • Hand Signals: Once he's written as mute again. However, he also possesses a device that broadcasts his intended thoughts, though he does still use a translator.
  • Heroic BSoD: Suffers a relatively minor one after he beats the stuffing out of his father Slade for seemingly killing his fiancee on the day of their wedding and almost killing Rose for trying to calm him down. By the time of The Lazarus Contract he seems to be better though.
  • Like Father, Like Son: Jericho believes that he's just like Slade, and makes it his life mission to never become him. Wally doesn't believe he's anything like him, at least.
  • Parental Favouritism: Seems to have been Slade's favourite son, as he wasn't averse to the rougher lifestyle Slade preferred, while Grant was.

    Rose Wilson (Ravager) 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/RavagerDC_9063.jpg

Rose Wilson is the daughter of Slade Wilson and Lillian Worth, a Hmong woman. She has a complicated relationship with her father, but eventually takes up the Ravager name as both a villain and member of the Teen Titans.

Pre-Flashpoint:

  • Antagonistic Offspring: Has a strong hatred towards her father, Slade. Justified, considering he used a Psycho Serum to make her Brainwashed and Crazy screwing up her and her life even after she was freed from his control.
  • Anti-Hero: Strongly Type III.
  • Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Rose and Wonder Girl (Cassandra "Cassie" Sandsmark) can generally work together during missions, despite their constant bickering.
    • During DC Special: Cyborg #5, while fighting clones of Wildebeest and Equus, Rose and Cassie share a mutual moment of respect.
    • During the comic book Crisis Aftermath: Battle for Bludhaven, when the other Titans, including Cassie, are captured by soldiers, she single-handedly fights through them demanding "[her] friends" are to be released. Since she didn't say "My Friends and Cassie" it's strongly implied that despite their constant bickering, she does see her as a friend.
    • While out on her own stealing adrenaline stimulants to boost her Precognition, Rose's subconscious chose Cassie as the one to represent her conscience.
    • In Issue 94 of the 2003 Teen Titans run, when Wonder Girl disappears into another world and Red Robin announces they go after her, not only does she not make any sort of comment about leaving her, you can even see a slight, pleased smerk on Roses face when he does the announcement.
  • Ax-Crazy: Though she got better.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Superboy.
  • The Big Guy
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: When she originally became Ravager, Slade kept pumping her full of the same drugs that enhanced his speed and reflexes. At the same time the drugs made Rose unhinged and psychotic, to the point she stabbed her eye out in a desperate attempt to prove to her father they were the same. It's telling once the drugs wore off she was horrified beyond belief at what she'd done to herself and tried to leave Slade before he forcefully gave her another injection. What made Rose agree to let Slade use the serum on her the first time was after he'd orchestrated the deaths of her foster parents by anonymously hiring his brother Wade, and tricked Rose into killing Wade thinking he was working alone.
  • Bullying a Dragon: Just to mess with them, Rose disrupted Cassie's and Kara's reunion by firing a rocket at them knowing it wouldn't harm them. Keep in mind Cassie and Kara both have super strength and are tough enough that Rose's swords would be ineffective against them. Luckily for Rose, while upset, the two simply decided to talk somewhere else.
    • This can, of course, be extended to every time Rose verbally fights with Cassie. While Rose did survive the one time Cassie did punch her, considering how effortlessly she has been shown to break her swords and that Rose herself lacks super strength on the level to go toe-to-toe with Cassie, Rose's chances of winning a fight against her are questionable.
  • Calling the Old Man Out: After she, Slade and Jericho dealt with the Black Lanterns attacking them, Slade suggests they start over. Rose furiously calls him out on that pointing out that she tracked him down for a while just to kill him and that he messed them up too much to ever make amends.
  • Covert Pervert: In New Titans Vol. 2 , she holds down Kyle Rayner during a training exercise and looks in his face thinking "Oh, the things I could do to him." while smiling.
  • Daddy's Girl: When she was Brainwashed and Crazy.
  • Dark Action Girl: She became this when she took on the Ravager name.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: She spent her first 14 years growing up in a brothel without a father before being kidnapped by Slade's half-brother Wade. Her mother and Slade's friend Wintergreen saved her but at the cost of her mother seemingly dying. Wintergreen then trys to have her father Slade take her in but he refuses. She later joins the Titans before moving in with a foster family. All seems well...until Deathstroke anonymously puts a hit out on her resulting in her foster parents getting killed right in front of her and her getting kidnapped again by Wade. Only for Deathstroke to swoop in and "save" her leaving her vulnerable to get drugged into obedience by him to the point where she cut out her own eye to be more like him. After finally getting freed from Slade's control and returning to the super-hero community she is left with few friends and met with hostility, especially from Wonder Girl and Tim Drake, the former of whom never tired of reminding her of what she did while Brainwashed and Crazy, no matter how much good she does or how often she proves her loyalty to the Titans, whom she considers her family, resulting in constant bickering between the two and Rose even leaving twice. As a result, she ended up developing Jerkass traits and became unable to healthily cope with grief.
  • Depending on the Artist: Her eyes alternated between being colored blue or green, until colorists finally settled on blue. Her later appearances had her sometimes looking like a younger teenage girl and shorter, or being taller with a bit more muscle. And there's whether or not her pre-Flashpoint self looked as white as Wonder Girl, or if her Cambodian ancestry was even slightly reflected.
  • Dual Wielding / Katanas Are Just Better: She currently wields twin energy katanas that can cut through anything except flesh, and briefly merge into an energy shield.
  • Enemy Mine: With Deathstroke against the Black Lanterns.
  • Eye Scream: In pre-Flashpoint continuity, while under the influence of Psycho Serum, she cut out her own eye to earn Deathstroke's approval.
  • Eyepatch of Power
  • Family of Choice: Sees Titans Tower as her home and the Titans as her family, even though to most of her teammates follwing One Year Later until the last incarnation of the team before Flashpoint, she is The Friend Nobody Likes. When she overhears Robin and Cassie discussing how they consider her a lost cause and Cassie suggests throwing her out, she is visibly hurt.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: During Rose Wilson's time with the Teen Titans following One Year Later, her relationship with her teammates is strained, getting so bad she quit the team. When Rose considers coming back, they vote on whether to let her back in, while letting Bombshell (Amy Sue Allen), who betrayed and tried to kill them out of her own free will, ironically framing Rose as a traitor in the process, back on the team. As Rose points out, it's telling that they let a former traitor back on the team without reservations while continuing to condemn her, something even Bombshell acknowledges, pointing out that if they give her a chance, Rose deserves the same chance. She ultimately quits the team for a second time after only two days.
    • Even when she saves the team, such as during the Battle for Bludhaven, they usually call her out for her Anti-Hero methods rather than thank her for the rescue.
    • Averted with the last incarnation of the Teen Titans before the New 52, where she was on good terms with most members, especially Superboy and Damian.
      • Full-on defied with Bart Allen (aka Impulse/Kid Flash) whom she first met when she joined the Titans in the Post-Zero Hour incarnation of New Titans and with whom she was never shown to have bad blood at any point in time.
    • On an individual level, Rose has the most antagonistic relationship with Wonder Girl as Wonder Girl blames her for all she did while Brainwashed and Crazy as if she did it by choice out of her own free will. Sadly, even when it appears that Rose is making peace with Wonder Girl, Wonder Girl reveals she still dislikes her and does not trust her.
    • Played with with Tim Drake. Initially, he openly stated to Rose that he only let her on the team as a favor to Nightwing. Though while their relationship was rocky most of the time, they did have some positive moments. Ultimately played Straight when he ended up agreeing with Wonder Girl that Rose was a lost cause, causing Rose to leave the team.
      • Subverted when they reunited years later and he admitted to being genuinely happy to see her again. Their relationship improved afterwards.
    • Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes) is initially very friendly towards Rose. However, Jaime later reveals to the rest of the team that he is afraid of her.
    • Static has a somewhat positive opinion of Rose, given that she saved him from the Dark Side Club. It helps that he had no prior interactions with Rose, so he doesn't judge her based on her past. Rose admits that she at least respects him for his fighting ability.
    • Despite arguing Rose only saved her and the others from the Dark Side Club out of selfish reasons, a sentiment Wonder Girl vocally supported, Aquagirl later stated she did want her on the team until Rose's fight with Bombshell, staged by the latter to test Rose's loyalty.
    • Zig-zagged with Bombshell. Their disdain is mutual and very apparent, especially after Bombshell is let back on the team without any of the reservations shown to Rose. However, after Wonder Girl breaks up a fight between the two, which was staged by Bombshell to test Rose's loyalty to the team, and immediately pins the blame on Rose without a second thought, Bombshell does try to defend Rose and explain to Wonder Girl that she started the fight. And while Wonder Girl initially shoots down her attempt, Bombshell does manage to explain it to her off-panel. Later, when the Teen Titans discuss whether to let her back on the team, Wonder Girl informs the others of this while Bombshell, despite making no secret of her dislike for Rose, advocates for Rose being allowed back on the team saying that if she deserves a second chance, Rose does, too.
    • Played with with Miss Martian. She was Rose's roommate until Rose snapped at her (not knowing Miss Martian was so sensitive it would make her cry) after Miss Martian threw a pie in her face imitating the movie The Three Stooges she previously watched on TV. She left the Titans shortly afterwards. While later explaining that it was due to the general dysfunctionality between the Titans during her time there, she still vocally resented Rose. However, much later, when Rose and Bombshell almost got into a fight during Jericho's return, Miss Martian kept them apart telling Bombshell that Rose did nothing wrong and has proven her loyalty to the Titans many times.
    • Defied with Kid Devil / Red Devil (Eddie Bloomberg) who, for a long time, was the only friend she had on the team following One Year Later. 
  • Hates Their Parent: Zig-zagged, surprisingly. Considering he used a Psycho Serum to make her Brainwashed and Crazy screwing up her life even after she was freed from his control, she justifiably spent a long time hating him and trying to track him down to kill him. But when she finally did, they were interrupted by Black Lanterns. When they were about to kill Slade, she couldn't let him die after all and fights with him. As seen through the eyes of the Black Lanterns, she still felt love for him. In the end, while she decides not to hunt him down anymore, she still openly resents him and decides to cut him out of her life completely.
  • Headbutting Heroes: With Wonder Girl.
  • Hired Guns
  • Jerkass with a Heart of Gold: Despite her aggressiveness towards most people, she does have her moments such as when she chooses to check on an injured Kid Devil rather than argue with Wonder Girl despite the latter verbally challenging her or during the Battle for Blüdhaven when she urged the other Teen Titans to return to the city to help rather than stay away as the US government told them to or when she urged Firebrand to not go against the government troops as it would cause innocents to die.
  • Legacy Character: She is the fourth character with this name. Ravager was originally the alter-ego of another Deathstroke's son, Grant Wilson, while working as a mercenary for H.I.V.E. assigned to kill the Teen Titans until his death. Bill Walsh, a terrorist responsible for slitting Jericho's throat as a child, later used the identity to attack Deathstroke by taking advantage of his vulnerability. Slade's half-brother Wade La Farge also used the identity to target him, although he was later killed for this.
  • Macho Masochism: While drugged with Psycho Serum, Ravager demonstrates her loyalty and worthiness to her father by gouging out her own eye.
  • Master Swordsman
  • My God, What Have I Done?: After she gouged her eye out the Psycho Serum Slade used on her was starting to wear off, and after realizing what she did to herself she was horrified, stating she'd never try to make herself like Slade. He responded by drugging her again.
  • No Sense of Personal Space: Crawled into Tim's bed naked more than once. He did not approve.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: Her time with the Teen Titans was very strained because Wonder Girl and Robin treated her actions under Slade's control as if she'd committed every murder of her own free will, despite knowing what Slade did to her. It got so bad Rose briefly left and allied herself with Clock King after hearing Cassandra and Tim say she was a lost cause.
  • Pitbull Dates Puppy: Rose had a fledgling almost-romance with the tenderfoot Eddie "Red Devil" Bloomberg during their time on the Titans together, including such scenes as Rose lighting her cigarette on Eddie's fire breath and even an almost Love Triangle when Eddie mistook her for showing interest in Blue Beetle. She naturally took it hard in the end when Eddie died.
  • Seers: She has limited precognition (usually a few seconds at most).
    • Combat Clairvoyance: She is sometimes able to use her precognitive abilities to 'see' her opponent's next moves, although her visions come and go.
  • Shameless Fanservice Girl: Has no problem undressing in front of Kid Devil to go skinny dipping or to crawl into Tim Drake's bed naked. Justified, as she grew up in a brothel and, as such, has been exposed to casual nudity for most of her life at that point.
  • Ship Tease: In the last period pre-New 52, Rose seems to have developed a flirtatious relationship with Kid Flash, who has remarked that her eye-patch is "sexy". She also begins flirting with Superboy for a brief period.
  • Son of a Whore: Her mother worked in a brothel in New York where Rose would spend the first 14 years of her life.
  • Unable to Cry: A literal example. After the end of her Brainwashed And Crazy-phase, Rose is rarely shown grieving. Rather, she usually does something else like play with her phone or go skinny dipping. Even the times she DOES show to be affected by someone's death namely when trying to comfort Roy Harper at his daughters funeral, she is not shown shedding a single tear. While at first, this comes off as a Jerkass trait, the first issue of Blackest Night: Titans reveals that she is simply unable to healthily cope thus doing her best to ignore the grief instead.
  • Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Before Deathstroke drugged her into villainy, she used to be a fairly normal, sweet girl even serving as Roy Harper/Arsenal's daughter Lian's caretaker in Titans (1999) Volume 1.
  • Villainous Lineage: Discussed and used against her. People were willing to write Rose off as a lost cause after she became Ravager simply because she was Deathstroke's daughter. Slade especially believed Rose was always destined to be a killer because of their relation. Even after it became common knowledge that Slade drove her nuts by constantly drugging her, people such as Wonder Girl continued to look down on Rose feeling she's psychotic anyway just because she has her dad's blood in her.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: After returning to the Teen Titans, Rose and Cassie have a talk. While initially meant to resolve their inter-personal conflict, it quickly devolves into bickering as Cassie tells Rose why she doesn't like her ending with Rose angrily bringing up Conner's death at the hands of Superboy Prime. This leaves Cassie speechless for a moment before storming off telling Rose to do what she wants as long as she stays clear of her for the time being.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Injected with the same serum that enhanced her father Deathstroke, Rose has increased reflexes, stamina, and strength, but is also prone to psychotic episodes.
  • White Hair, Black Heart: Rose has beautiful white hair, but is an unrepentant Professional Killer and Blood Knight.

Post-Flashpoint:

  • Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
    • An upgraded version reagarding Slade: While still complicated, the relationship between Rose and Slade is more stable in DC Rebirth compared to her Pre-Flashpoint version. While she still likes doing things to piss Slade off like marrying his former tech-guy, she no longer hates him showing multiple times that she loves and cares for him and wants him in her life.
    • A downgraded version regarding the Titans: Following DC Rebirth, she no longer is or has been a member of the Titans. While she barely interacts with them, during Dark Nights: Death Metal, she, alongside her brother Jericho, was grouped with Titans villains Jinx, Gizmo and Mammoth, even antagonizing Donna Troy after Donna questioned Beast Boy regarding their presence in the grand assembly Titans teams.
  • Adaptational Villainy: In the New 52, she is a teenaged mercenary hired by the shadowy organization N.O.W.H.E.R.E. to act as a handler for Superboy after he destroyed the N.O.W.H.E.R.E. lab used to create him in self-defense.
  • Ambiguous Criminal History: In Catwoman Vol.5 #62, she was is part of the Suicide Squad and is said to "have been returned to [her] cell" following the successful end of the mission Catwoman also took part in, too. in. Since the Suicide Squad is made up out of criminals and she is imprisoned somewhere, it stands to reason she committed some sort of crime and got arrested for it. However, it's not revealed what crime she committed.
  • Anti-Hero: The DC Rebirth version started out as a Type II. While she was by no means a hero, she also wasn't one to kill others, as lampshaded by Shado.
    • This changed later starting with the Lazarus Tournement arc in Robin (2021) as well as after she joined Stormwatch where she would revert back to a Type III, be it not to the extend she was pre-Flashpoint.
  • Ax-Crazy: In the New 52, she starts this way and stayed it for a long time.
    • She's calmer in DC Rebirth, although her father's machinations do push her. She later develops a split personality and/or gets possessed by an ancient Hmong warrior-queen.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Superboy.
  • Blood Knight: In the New 52.
  • Brother–Sister Team: With her brother Jericho while part of Project Defiance.
  • The Chosen Many: Inverted. Initially, being a Ravager just means being a member of the Ravagers, a team of Elite Mooks. When she eventually starts going by Ravager, no mention is made of any previous user of the name. By the time of DC Rebirth, the name is still solely used by her, though Grant does exist and is indeed a dead mercenary. Whether he ever used the name is up in the air.
  • Continuity Snarl: Along with all of the Wilson family, her New 52 history was very unstable. Initially, it was said that Adeline was her mother and she works for an organisation called N.O.W.H.E.R.E. as part of a group called the Ravagers. She makes little mention of this when she later shows up in the second Deathstroke series. The DC Rebirth series specifically says Lillian Worth is once again her mother, and presents an entirely different backstory for her, aside from being Slade's daughter.
  • Dark Action Girl: She's a strange case. She's a mercenary... but seemingly prefers to not kill and takes jobs to prevent contract killings. She's not averse to killing, however, and will maim at the drop of a dime.
    • Her "Willow" persona has none of her scruples, and Rose is horrified that she killed multiple people in that state—including Joey's fiance.
  • Enemy Mine: The New 52 version with the Ravagers to save a town.
    • Again only a few issues later when N.O.W.H.E.R.E. send Deathstroke after her and Warblade as well as the Ravagers.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Despite der Adaptational Villainy, she still insists on saving a town of people in issue 8 of The Ravagers, much to her partner Warblade's disapproval, and then lets the Ravagers escape, despite knowing her boss would kill her for that.
  • Pitbull Dates Puppy: She married Hosun, Slade's former tech guy. Although the motive was obstensibly (to Hosun) to avoid getting murdered by Slade, and (to Rose) to piss Slade off, they got along well. Rose breaks down when he is killed.
  • Race Lift: Her mixed heritage was erased in the New 52 after DC made her Adeline Kane's daughter instead of Lilian Worth's. Following DC Rebirth, Lillian was her mom again and Rose's mixed ethnicity restored.
  • Seers: She has limited precognition, which is later explained as her brain going into overdrive and analysing every detail it can to give her a clear mental picture of probable events.
    • Combat Clairvoyance: It seems like her 'visions' only activate around danger, or at least what she interprets as danger.
  • Ship Tease: With Jason Todd. She even calls him "Lover Boy". In Catwoman Vol.5 #62 she is said to have been last seen in his arms before being recruited for the Suicide Squad off-screen.
  • Tsundere: Starting in DC Rebirth. This version of the character is a lot more calmer than the previous two but will still get quite aggressive when feeling wronged.
  • Victory Pose On Person: In Deathstroke (Rebirth) #4, Rose beats Nightwing in a training exercise and subsequently poses on his upper body.
  • Villainous Friendship: The New 52 version with Warblade. Well, as much as one can be friends with an Ax-Crazy Blood Knight as Warblade, anyways...
  • Vitriolic Best Friends: With Fairchild, to the point that Fairchild left something behind for Rose to find if anything happened to her.
    • Is this with Terra too in the DC Rebirth comics. Despite them acting as The Rival towards each other, Rose shows that she actually does trust Terra when they're tackling missions together, is comfortable sitting next to her on a bus and talking (even if the two of them still have nothing nice to say to each other), and even refers to Terra as her "friend" when she demands an enemy let her go.

Associates

    William Wintergreen 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wintergreen_001.jpg

Slade's close friend and a former SAS officer, he essentially serves as Slade's assistant.

  • Battle Butler: Was a trained SAS officer.
  • Evil Counterpart: With Slade being an essentially evil Batman (with enhancements), Wintergreen is his Alfred. While he's British, polite and caring, he's also not averse to harsher acts, and clearly has no problem with Slade's activities.
    • Even Evil Has Standards: That said, Wintergreen still sees red lines that oughtn't be crossed and is distressed when Slade appears to cross them, though he still serves him out of loyalty. A notable case of this was "The Judas Contract", where Wintergreen thought it was unwise for Slade to put personal stake and emotional attachment into his contract by doing it out of revenge on the Teen Titans for Grant's death, and for him to be exploiting and romancing a dangerously unstable underage girl in order to advance his plan.
  • Undying Loyalty: For Slade after he'd saved his life from a Vietcong prison camp in the Vietnam War.

    Matthew Bland (The Red Lion) 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/red_lion_dc.jpg

The dictator of an unnamed country and sort-of friend of Slade Wilson's. Oh, he's also Evil Black Panther.

Other Media:

Western Animation:

Live-Action Films:

Live-Action TV Series:

Video Games:

Alternative Title(s): Batman Deathstroke

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