Characters / Teen Titans (2003): Slade

Teen Titans (2003) Main Character Index
Teen Titans (Core Team) | Supporting Characters | Enemies (Slade)

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Slade Joseph Wilson

Voiced by: Ron Perlman ^{Other voice actors}Hidenari Ugaki (Japanese), Régulo Ríos (Latin American Spanish, Seasons 1-4), Luis Miguel Pérez (Latin American Spanish, Season 5), Pierluigi Astore (IT), Pierre Dourlens (FR), Steve Kratz (SW)

Powers/Abilities: Empowered Badass Normal, genius-level intellect (seasons one and two); invulnerability, flight, teleportation, pyrokinesis (as Trigon's lackey)

"I am the thing that keeps you up at night, the evil that haunts every dark corner of your mind. I will never rest - and neither will you."

A mysterious character whose motives are unknown, but vaguely seem to revolve around the conquest/destruction of Jump City, with more plans stemming from there. Slade is the first major antagonist of the series and appears in all five seasons in some form, and is a major villain in three, driven to recruit one of the Teen Titans as an "apprentice" in the first two seasons and an undead servant of Trigon the Terrible working for the promise of being restored to life in the fourth. A master tactician and a martial arts expert capable of defeating Robin easily, Slade is aided by hordes of robotic minions (even going to the extent of having "Slade-bots", or android stand-ins for himself to avoid being exposed to the risk of capture, ala Doctor Doom) and the services of three mutant metahumans; Overload, Cinderblock and Plasmus. Notable for this show, which didn't really care about giving the actual names of various superheroes and supervillains, he is never called by his alias from the comics, Deathstroke. Generally regarded as the villain of the show among fandom.

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A-D

• Aborted Arc: The end of the first episode implies his motivation was to get revenge on the Titans for some unspecified incident. This is dropped for the rest of the series, leading to Slade's characterization as a creepy criminal mastermind with only vague motives, so we never find out exactly ''what'' he was seeking vengeance for.
• Abusive Parents: In the tie-in comics of the show, his daughter, Rose, appears. Questioned why does she have to follow her father's footsteps, she implies Slade had been anything but a kind father, raising her to become Deathstroke the Junior. And knowing already how Slade treats his apprentices, he probably didn't bother to spare her at least.
  Rose about Slade: I was groomed to be like him... trained to grow up to be just like him. This is who I am.
  Jinx: No, you have a choice... It doesn't have to be this way. You can choose to fight the Titans or fight on the same side.
  Rose: Choice? What choice? Even since I was a child, I was taught to hurt, to destroy... To fulfill my father's legacy...
• Action Dad: Jericho and Rose appear in this verse, but Slade is never shown having any connection to his son, while Rose appears just in the tie-in comic books.
• Actually a Doombot: Fond of using these as decoys, but the two most notable examples are shown in "Masks" and "Things Change".
• Adaptation Dye-Job: From a distance, Slade's eyes are depicted as black, but in close-ups, their true color is shown to be a very dark shade of grey. In the source material, his eyes were always blue.
• Adaptation Distillation:
  • Emphasizing the character as a planner and a Big Bad, making him more subtle and menacing than his counterpart.
  • In the comics, he was usually known simply as The Terminator until a certain movie came out. Then, an old codename he'd had, Deathstroke, was dusted off and he became known as Deathstroke the Terminator, which sounds literally like overkill. In the comics, Slade is just the character's real first name. Even some comic fans agree that simply calling him Slade is a distinct improvement.
• Adaptational Intelligence: In the comics Deathstroke was a mercenary for hire and while he was certainly very intelligent, he was more of a tactician first and foremost, and was mostly working either for cash or the occasional personal vendetta. Here, he displays far greater scientific acumen and has a greater penchant for long-term plans and grandiose schemes, and starts off as more of a chessmaster who has control over all the major events in the series and eventually becomes the team's own boogeyman.
• Adaptational Villainy: In the comics, Deathstroke the Terminator was less supervillain and more recurring mercenary foe. Eventually he came to have a personal rivalry with the Titans over the accidental death of his son, but he still wasn't out to blow up cities (well, unless someone paid him to). Slade, by contrast, is a diabolical monster of a man with a fetish for torture and destruction.
• Aim for the Horn: "The End", has Trigon dishing out a Curb-Stomp Battle on the Titans until Slade, having formed an Enemy Mine with the heroes, decides to help out by ambushing Trigon with a scythe, slicing away one of his horns and reducing his powers greatly. After, he cuts the other one too.
• All According to Plan: Slade's true purpose for sending the HIVE Five to conquer to Titan Tower, was to make himself known to the Teen Titans, especially Robin. When the headmistress promises to discipline her agents for their failure, Slade acknowledges he didn't care if they failed or succeeded; the message was delivered and received all the same.
  Slade: Actually, your agents served my plans quite well. I never expected them to succeed. They were merely messengers, and the message has been received.
• All There in the Manual:
  • The tie-in comics dive a little bit more into Slade's background too and explain possible plotholes or reveal crucial aspects about his character such as:
    • How he looks unmasked. Issue 49 shows a portrait of him somewhere in Africa, and he looks quite close to his comic counterpart. This also implies he may have an assassin before the start of the show, because in the 80'comics, he retired from being an assassin in Africa for a while.
    • That he fathered at least one canon child, which is his daughter, Rose. This still doesn't clarifies if Jericho, who appears in the cartoon is related to him in any way. Only Rose is confirmed to be his biological child, while Grant is never mentioned.
    • From where he gets his apparent infinite army of robots and mechas. Turns out he is paying Professor Chang to create a part of his tech.
  • The official character presentation videos confirm that he has same enhanced abilities as his comic counterpart. It's easy to confuse him for another mere human with Charles Atlas Superpower such as Robin in the cartoon when in fact he is a metahuman with actual superpowers.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Slade blatantly assaults the Titans Tower several times. One notable occurrence was when Slade attempted to destroy the base, but it turned out to be a Batman Gambit to have Terra earn the Titans' trust by saving it.
• Almighty Janitor: Season 4 has Slade return completely with pyrokinesis and commanding a demonic army. While he is even more menacing than before, he is nothing but Trigon's zombified lackey. Even Raven realizes that Slade is already insignificant as his own army won't listen to him any longer. He is even grabbed by the fire demons, while his orders to be released are ignored. It's Raven who frees him.
• Always Someone Better: Robin has frequently proven himself a skilled and capable leader of the Titans, but Slade regularly overpowers and defeats him.
  • On the flip-side, both Raven and Beast Boy have proven capable of beating Slade in a one-on-one fight.
• Arch-Enemy: The nemesis of the Teen Titans. Slade has notably wronged every member of the team on a personal level across the series, but he shares a particular enmity with Robin.
• Archnemesis Dad: He is an evil Parental Substitute to both Robin and Terra, pressuring both of them into following in his footsteps and trying to cut them off from their friends. Both turn on him when he goes too far.
• Armored Villains, Unarmored Heroes: Slade wears something of a dark armored costume, while the Titans wear no armor. (Except for Cyborg, who is a walking armor for logical reasons.)
• Asshole Victim: He dies a gruesome death by falling into molten lava. Given how heartless and sadistic he is, it is nothing but a very well-deserved fate for him. Furthermore, while he enjoys his time with Trigon's powers after his resurrection, everyone involved with Hell up to Raven and his own mooks knows he is merely a slave and holds absolutely no authority. The humiliation all drives Slade insane, but he deserves all of it. What's more, when he fulfills his "deal" with Trigon, the demon strips away his powers and kills him again.
• Ax-Crazy: Underneath his stoic and charismatic façade, Slade is a man who loves to torture, beat and kill.
• Back for the Finale: He makes his only appearance of Season 5 in the Grand Finale as a Sladebot.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Slade pulls one with Robin at the beginning and ending of their fight against Trigon's demons. Robin is not pleased.
• Bad Boss:
  • After Cinderblock brings to him, a young man kept in a cylinder, Slade orders for him to be awakened. And when the man awakes, he begs for Slade not to, as he will turn into the mindless monster known as Plasmus. Slade's answer? 'Your human form is useless'.
  • When he forces Robin to become his apprentice, Slade constantly taunts and threatens the Boy Wonder with killing his friends.
  • When Terra was ambushed by the Titans, she was forced to pull out in spite of Slade's orders. Once she got back, he beats her down. Next we see of her, she's missing pieces of clothing, her skin is periodically bruised, and her bandages were ripped out.
• Baritone of Strength: His voice is at once deep, soft, smooth, and inhumanly creepy, fitting for the Titans greatest foe.
• Badass Minds Think Alike: He and Robin perfectly synchronize their movements without any planning while fighting Trigon's demonic creatures.
• Badass Normal: Even though Slade looks like he is suffering from an even worse case of Charles Atlas Superpower than Robin, he's a subversion. Word of God confirmed that Slade does in fact have enhanced strength, reflexes, and regenerating abilities like he does in the comics.
• Baddie Flattery: On rare occasions he does compliment his adversaries, such as Robin, but it is hard to tell when he is genuine or just trashing them.
• Bad Samaritan: Slade presents himself as the only person who understands Terra's problems and promises to help her control her powers. In reality, he's exploiting her insecurities to groom her into his apprentice, and once Terra has betrayed the Titans, thus burning bridges with everyone who ever cared about her, Slade is quick to show what an abusive control freak he really is.
  Slade: Earthquakes, avalanches, mudslides. Everywhere you go, you try to do good... and everywhere, you fail. So everyone turns against you. You lack control Terra, and when you lose control, you are more dangerous than anything I've ever seen. But it doesn't have to be this way, I can help you, child.
  Terra: You can?
  Slade: Right now you are "rough around the edges". You need more than obstacles courses to overcome your problem. You need a teacher, a mentor. Come with me, Terra, and I can teach you to shine.
• Batman Gambit: Naturally expected from the Evil Counterpart of the Trope Namer. The entire Titan Rising is one giant Batman Gambit.
• Behind the Black: In "Betrayal" Terra sees Slade's reflection on a mirror, but when she turns around she can't see any sign of him. There is a very clear shot of Terra looking behind her while the mirror in front of her still shows Slade's motionless reflection.
• Berserk Button: He hates when someone makes him lose his cool, outdoes him, or when his apprentices disobey or betray him.
• Betrayal Insurance: Slade pretty much expected Trigon to betray him, so he prepared in advance by wearing a magic ring that protected him against his former master, even as the fire-powers he acquired were taken away from him.
• Big Bad: The overall villain of the series, and Arch-Enemy of the Teen Titans. He's specifically the main antagonist for the first two seasons, but what prevents him from being an Arc Villain is that he maintains a consistent presence across the entire series, even in seasons where he's not the main threat.
• Blaming the Victim: Slade justifies his manipulation and control of Terra this way.
  Slade: She wanted control, and that's what I gave her; my control, her body.
• Blatant Lies: To get Robin to help him, he claims that he disapproved of Trigon's attempt at destroying the world. Except for the fact that Slade himself assisted in bringing about The End of the World as We Know It and only really wanted to kill Trigon as payback for the latter backstabbing him. Well played, Slade.
• Blood Knight: Slade is very subtle about it, but he clearly enjoys brutalizing and subduing people by humiliating them in a fight. In season 1, he constantly mocks and provokes Robin in one of their fights, and after beating him down, Slade laughs.
  • After his return in Season 4, he becomes borderline Ax-Crazy.
• Bond Breaker: Very much adept at getting the Titans to turn on each other.
  • Manipulated Terra's insecurity over her powers by training her himself. Once she got her powers under control, she goes back to the Titans and reaffirmed her friendship with them, but with a catch - she was sent as The Mole.
  • He left a chemical reagent in a mask that Robin kept. Once Robin picked it up, it infiltrated Robin's brain, implanting an illusion of himself into Robin's mind. The more Robin fought, the more realistic and harmful the hallucination became. The other Titans couldn't see Slade, so they thought Robin turned paranoid, and it prompted Robin to alienate his friends before all was said and done. All that physical and psychological damage nearly led to the Titans losing their leader and their friendship falling apart, the closest Slade's ever come to victory.
• Break the Badass: Slade is more than willing to give the most violent, sadistic, toughest, cold-blooded, mentally torturous beatdowns when provoked.
• Break the Haughty: As he's escorting Raven to Trigon, he has a conversation with her about their circumstances. Slade, as smug as ever, coolly asserts how he is in control but Raven doesn't buy it and sees him as a fool. Slade abruptly snaps and raises his fist to strike her but is pinned down by his mooks. Raven then relentlessly taunts him about how powerless he actually is as Slade can only scream in vain and demand the servants of hell to obey him. It gets worse when he meets Trigon; the demon refuses their bargain and spells out reality for Slade before vanquishing him.
  Trigon: I GRANTED YOU THESE POWERS, I CAN TAKE THEM AWAY!
• Break Them by Talking: If you let this guy get under your skin, you'll lose the fight without him needing to lift a finger. He twists Robin into a shadow archetype of himself, and nearly kills him with words in "Haunted". He corrupts Terra in two conversations. What he did to Raven counts as mundane Mind Rape.
• Broken Faceplate: At the end of the season 1 two-parter, "Apperantice", when Robin defeats him by breaking his mask apart.
• Brought Down to Badass: A variation. Trigon brings him back as fire-powered zombie, then he double crosses him by removing Slade's powers. In this new condition, Slade lacks even his enhanced powers he had as a living being. Anticipating this, he manipulates the Titans for one of them to join him in finding kid Raven, when actually he wants to retrieve his flesh and blood body back.
• Came Back Strong: After his death in Season 2, his return in Season 4 came with a Healing Factor, Playing with Fire, and the ability to summon fire-based elemental entities at will. He lost these powers after his second death, because Trigon took them away.
• Came Back Wrong: After his second resurrection following Trigon destroying the majority of the world in ash and fire, Robin gets a look at his new Nightmare Face, which is essentially just a skull. It's likely that at that point, he was nothing more than a skeleton in armor until he finally brought himself back to life for real.
• Card-Carrying Villain: In "The End, Part 3", one of Trigon's servants declares that he can't hope to defeat "pure evil". Slade's response?
  Slade: Actually... I'm not such a nice guy myself.
• Characterization Marches On: Early episodes emphasized his nature as a Card-Carrying Villain and Diabolical Mastermind. He really hit his stride in the second half of season one, when the emphasis switched to his Break Them by Talking and creepy, creepy obsessions with Robin/Terra/Raven.
• The Chessmaster: There's always a plan with this guy. Always. Even after he dies, he's got a couple of aces left up his sleeve.
• Collapsing Lair: He destroys his own hideouts just to escape.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: His forte. All of the main Titans went through this at some point.
  • Laser-injects nanobots into the Titans' blood streams, repeatedly tortures them through those machines, and blackmails Robin into serving as his apprentice under the threat of murdering his friends.
  • He's very fond of psychological torture. He's done it to Robin, Raven, and even Beast Boy (the youngest Titan). Slade exploits their insecurities and worst fears, and in Beast Boy's case, cruelly taunts him about Terra's betrayal.
  • He created a neural suit that attaches itself to Terra's nervous system. It's impossible to remove, and it allows Slade to control her for whatever he wants, regardless of her will. Every time he controls her, she's visibly twitching in pain as she struggles to resist.
  • Brandishing a spikey, electric knife and shocking Robin while he was strapped to a hospital bed.
• Combat Pragmatist: Is a master, he always uses every advantage he can get, and if the tides turn against him, most likely he will run away. He is also fond of retreating, to tire out and disorient his opponents. He's also extremely fond of using robotic doubles, that he remotely controls, from an unknown and safe location. During the trilogy series of episodes "The End", there was one scene where Slade was pitted against an undead giant, who was guarding an underworld "soul vault". He couldn't defeat the Gatekeeper one-on-one, so he planted a bomb on the door, causing an explosion that killed the guard and released the souls within it, including the one belonging to Slade.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Or comic book animated series, in this case. It's probably a combination of Never Say "Die" and the fact that "Deathstroke the Terminator" fits comic Slade (a mercenary killer) much better than his animated counterpart (a mastermind who generally avoids getting his hands dirty, though he's more than capable of doing so if necessary).
• Composite Character: Word of God gives no indication that they were aware of it, but this version of Slade inadvertently mirrors the original Wildebeest from the comics, who was himself a Diabolical Mastermind of no clear identity or motive.
• Conditioned to Be Weak: In Season 4, when Raven mops the floor with him, he doesn't fight back only because he received orders from Trigon to not harm Raven in any way. And he's clearly not happy about holding back.
• Consummate Liar: Slade lies whenever he needs to achieve his aims, and he is also quite skilled at telling half-truths.
• Contemplative Boss: He always waits and talks to his apprentices standing with his back to them, looking at a large screen. Slade does it only when he is in a good mood.
• Control Freak: Like you wouldn't believe. Slade is very possessive of his apprentices and will isolate them in whatever way he can so that they're dependent on him. Terra is the worst case by far, as he literally fuses her armor to her body and controls her body through it in the event she decided to rebel against him.
• Cool Helmet: Come on, admit it! This guy's helmet is cooler than any mask in the show.
• The Corrupter: Seasons One and Two as part of his apprentice recruiting process. It doesn't work with Robin but Terra goes full supervillain.
• Corrupt the Cutie: Doesn't take too much for Slade to get under the skin of a very naïve, but emotionally frail Terra to make her his apprentice.
• Crazy-Prepared: He's essentially played like an evil version of Batman (which makes him such a good foil for Robin), and naturally he has a significant fanbase because of it. Even after his death at the end of Season 2, his gear is still booby trapped with hallucinogens for anyone who would take it.
• Creepy Monotone: Constantly. It even echoes every time he talks.
• Dark Is Evil: Slade wears a black armored uniform, tends to sit on the shadows, and is a remorseless cold-blooded terrorist.
• Deadly Euphemism: Play-words for 'death' animated by a chilling creepy voice.
• Deadpan Snarker: Slade has a dark, dry, understated sense of humor, and has been known to drop snarky one-liners, particularly during Season 4.
• Deal with the Devil: Been on both ends of this one. In season two he's the Devil to Terra's Faust, teaching her to control her powers in return for her services as The Mole and then The Dragon. In season four he's the Faust to Trigon's Devil, agreeing to act as his agent in bringing about the apocalypse in order to get his mortal body back.
• Decoy Getaway: One of Slade's favourite modus operandis is using 'Slade-bots'.
• Demoted to Dragon: After his stint as the Big Bad of two consecutive seasons, Slade is resurrected as Trigon's messenger in Season 4. However, he takes a considerable level in badass since this grants him demonic powers that allow him to take on all five Titans at one. However, when Trigon betrayed him, Slade forges an Enemy Mine with the Titans to bring about his downfall.
• Demon of Human Origin: After his death, Slade was resurrected by Trigon as a zombie with pyrokinesis powers.
• Diabolus ex Nihilo: For the entire run of the show, Slade's backstory and motives were never revealed, at best just being hinted at, despite him being a very complex character and the Big Bad for the first two seasons, the Dragon with an Agenda in the fourth, and a major presence throughout the series. The heroes, especially Robin, speculate as to who he is, but nothing concrete is ever reached.
• Diabolical Mastermind: This version of Slade seems to be a criminal mastermind rather than a mercenary for hire like in the mainstream DCU.
• Disney Villain Death: Double Subverted in the Season 2 finale of Teen Titans. Terra throws Slade off a cliff, but he catches himself on the rock, pulls himself back over the edge and grabs her by the throat, at which point she blasts him over the edge with her full powers unleashed; only then we see him dying for good when his mask dissolves in the lava.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Slade's manipulation and predation are allegories border-lining on sexual and domestic abuse. He gets uncomfortably close to Robin after beating him, his treatment of Terra is similar to child grooming, his Mind Rape of Raven looks a lot like Attempted Rape, and Robin's symptoms in "Haunted" are very reminiscent of those who were male victims of sexual abuse. Additionally, he gets possessive of Robin and Terra and tries to isolate them from their friends so that they're wholly dependent on him, even if the relationship is one-sided and toxic.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Slade only serves as The Dragon to Trigon so he can return among the living. He then manipulates the Titans to take his body back, after Trigon refuses to respect their bargain.
• The Dreaded: In a series full of villains who return on and on, Slade is the only one who makes the Titans terrified of his eventual return even after he died right in front of them. They have a worried expression every time they have to face him.
• Dying Deal Upgrade: Trigon a Dealwith The Devil to Slade in the fourth season, giving him a number of demonic abilities and Demoting him to his Dragon.

E-M

• Empowered Badass Normal: Make no mistake, he is a metahuman and is implied by the creators that he got his powers under similar circumstances as the comics.
• Enemy Mine: He ultimately teams up with Robin and the Titans to take Trigon down.
• Entitled Bastard: Slade has this mindset towards his apprentices, but it's especially prevalent with Robin. After blackmailing Robin into becoming his apprentice, he has the cheek to call Robin ungrateful when he naturally values his friends over an apprenticeship he never wanted.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Played with. In "The End, Part II," he states that what Trigon did, even he wouldn't wish upon the world. That being said, he makes it clear that he doesn't regret what he did, and is only helping the Titans because it suits him.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He suffers from this, particularly in season one and two. It's the reason he comes off as a Smug Snake when he's up against the heroes and a Manipulative Bastard the one time he's pitted against another villain.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Robin (both have very similar personalities and skills, but Robin uses his to protect the innocent while Slade uses his to commit crimes and acquire power) and Raven (Raven is a demon by birth and a heroine by choice; Slade is human by birth, harbinger of the apocalypse by choice).
  • He also serves as this to Batman; a skilled, manipulative, and intelligent mentor, but while Batman had the best intentions (for the most part), Slade is frequently abusive and treats his proteges harshly.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: In Season 4, he cuts a deal with Trigon to come Back from the Dead in return for helping him Take Over the World. Once Slade fulfills his end of the deal, Trigon double-crosses him. Slade anticipated this would happen and took precautions.
  Slade: The moral of the story: never make a deal with an interdimensional demon without a little protection.
• Evil Is Bigger: Slade stands taller than all of the Titans; at times he seems to be fully aware of this, as he occasionally towers over them for intimidation.
• Evil Is Not Well-Lit: Slade is introduced as a shadowy silhouette in his first scenes; his hideouts are always low-key lighted and most of his important scenes never happened during daylight.
• Evil Is Petty: Slade will taunt anyone at anytime. At some point, he forces Robin to steal from Wayne Enterprises, of all places.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: For all his stoicism, Slade is prone to snarking and bullying. More obvious in season 4. In one particular case, after brutally killing the Keeper of the Hell Gates, he quips with quite a joyful voice:
  Slade: Don't get up. I'll let myself out.
• Evil Mentor: Slade enjoys collecting apprentices, only to twist them into shadows of themselves.
• Evil Overlord: This version of the character is depicted as such rather than a mercenary, sending minions to do his bidding and manipulating from behind the scenes rather than fighting the heroes himself.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Though his voice is soft and even rather than deep and booming.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Though he usually has a soothing deep voice, he sounds a lot more gravelly the angrier he gets.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: In season four when he joins with the Titans against Trigon, who wants to destroy "all things mortal".
• Eye Scream: The way he became one-eyed is a total enigma, though his skeleton indicates his eye was slashed out rather than being shot like in the comics.
• Explosive Leash: Slade uses a fake Doomsday Device to infect the Titans with deadly nanites attached to their red cells and they absolutely have no idea.
• Expressive Mask: Slade has only one eye hole which tends to widens and move, depending on what the character wants to convey.
• Face Framed in Shadow: In his first appearances, he's never shown in proper light.
• The Faceless: Throughout the series, his face is never shown, which adds a thick layer of mystery to his villainous nature. When his mask comes off in the "End of the World" episodes, it reveals a skull with red eyes and a scar over the right eye socket. Since he's technically dead at this time, it still doesn't reveal anything about him.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: His mask is split between black and orange.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • According to his character introduction, his single-minded determination stops him from seeing outside the box.
  • His sadism and Lack of Empathy regularly lead him to underestimate the bond and trust the Titans have with one another. It's what leads to his first real defeat at the end of Season 1 and ultimate demise in Season 2. This also ties in with...
  • Obsession and his need to control others. He could've easily killed the heroes many times over the course of the first two seasons had it not been for his fixation on getting Robin, and later Terra, under his wing. Slade goes to great lengths to get both heroes on his side. And both times, it ultimately backfires, with the latter part getting him killed in lava for his troubles.
• Faux Affably Evil: While he was generally cold and distant in the earlier seasons, he still had some moments of this. In Season 4, he's significantly more Faux Affably Evil than normal as Trigon's Dragon, which just makes him, if possible, even creepier.
• Fiery Stoic: For all the enthusiasm of his acquired fire demonic powers, Slade is still the same unemotional and aloof man by default.
• Final Boss: Serves as the main antagonist of the Grand Finale (not considering the robot the other Titans fight), tormenting and calling Beast Boy out over trying to make Terra remember her past.
• Finger-Tenting: Slade crosses his fingers every time he is convinced his plans work.
• Finger Poke of Doom: Slade does this to Cyborg without any effort at all.
• Flying Firepower: In Season 4, post-resurrection Slade has powers like flying and pyrokinesis abilities.
• Flaw Exploitation: Slade manipulates both Robin and Terra for his own means.
  • He sets up a chain of events in Season 1, exploiting Robin's goal-oriented mindset and increasing obsessiveness to catch him, in order to isolate him from his friends and to make the Boy Wonder his apprentice.
  • Takes full advantage of Terra's insecurities in one conversation, implanting the seeds of doubts in her head.
• Follow in My Footsteps: He quotes it verbatim to Robin. His variation on it is quite creepy, though.
  Slade to Robin: For some time now I've been searching for an apprentice. Someone to follow in my footsteps. And Robin, I've chosen you. Congratulations.
  • In the tie in comics, his daughter, Rose, mentions about how he tried to mold her after himself.
• For the Evulz: Played with. One of the biggest enigmas about Slade is why he is evil in the first place. Nobody knows what his philosophy or motivations for being a villain are, or why he even wants an apprentice. Most of the actions he takes are completely psychological, making him unpredictable. In Season 4, When Robin asks him why he enjoys making people to suffer, he simply answers " It's what I do best". On the same time, he points out to Robin that not everything is "cut and dry".
  • In Season 1, he points out to Robin that "Betrayal. Destruction. Revenge" is what makes them alike, implying that his motivation, while still in the dark, runs deeper than just For the Evulz.
• Freaky Electronic Music: Slade's leitmotif.
• Gadgeteer Genius: As evidenced by the fact that more than once the Titans, especially Robin, have fought what they thought was Slade, only to find out it was a robotic replicant. The chemical agent from Slade's mask that made Robin have hallucinations about fighting Slade counts for double because it was activated somehow after he was already dead, meaning he must have planned ahead for it.
• Genius Bruiser: He's a master planner and manipulator as well as one of the best fighting characters in the series.
• Genre Blindness:
  • Not too bad most of the time, but here's a big one; he situates his lair underground just above a large lake of magma like a good cliché superhero-genre villain would. So, of course, it directly leads to his first death in Season 2 when Terra drops him into it for a lava bath.
  • Here's one more; he works for Trigon in order to regain his body despite the fact that Trigon is literally the incarnate of all evil and therefore lacks any sense of loyalty. Sure, he technically didn't have a choice since it was either do his bidding or die, but it's really jarring that he was so surprised when Trigon betrayed him. Especially considering Slade is a snake of a guy himself.
    • That being said, he did acquire a magic ring in order to protect himself from Trigon's powers just in case the latter betrays him, so he obviously never fully trusted him to keep his word.
• Good Counterpart: Future Robin as Nightwing is this for Slade. Season 1 ends with Robin telling Starfire that despite their similarities, the one thing that will ever stop Robin to become like Slade, is having his friends by his side. Is hard to believe that is just pure coincidence that the first episode of Season 2 shows that future Robin became Slade, a stoic loner lurking in the shadows with no friends, completely dedicated to his job.
• Guyliner: An odd take on this trope; he has something of an eyeliner on his mask, around the eyehole.
• Handicapped Badass: The black half of his mask lacks an eyehole. In his trip into the Underworld, his mask is knocked off after fighting Trigon's demons, revealing a missing eye in the same side.
• Harmful to Minors: Slade does shit-tons of monstrous things to our heroes, pushing the G-rating to its limits.
• Head Bob: Slade is a subtle example because of his stoic nature, so he is given also an Expressive Mask to mimic facial expressions.
• Healing Factor: As a zombie in Season 4, he has a gruesome one which allows him to contort and snap his joints back into place.
  • The writers have confirmed that he had all his comic book powers, including his Healing Factor, even before being zombified.
• The Heavy: He may only be Big Bad of the first two seasons (and the three subsequent Big Bads all rate higher on the Sorting Algorithm of Evil in different ways^note Brother Blood has more individual power, the Brain is physically weak but has a global organization and more expansive plans, and Trigon is a demon lord who personifies evil and is packing enough power to fry the planet in seconds) but he appears more often and has a more personal enmity with the team than any other villain, and is generally the villain who is most strongly associated with the show. Being a major Knight of Cerebus also cements his stature.
• Hey, You!: When he makes Robin and Terra his apprentices, he refers to them almost exclusively as "Apprentice" or "My Apprentice" showing he veiws them more as tools than any meaningful partnership.
• Hidden Agenda Villain:
  • By the end of the show, we still don't know what his overall Evil Plan was. His aims in a given season are also usually enigmatic. Even after Terra seemingly accomplishes his goals by eliminating the Titans so he can take over Jump City, all he does is revel in making it a Ghost Town.
  • It is subverted when he comes Back from the Dead in Season 4. Robin immediately assumes he's carrying out some new secret plan. Slade himself claims to not be planning anything this time, and he was completely honest. The plan was Trigon's; Slade was merely the errand boy.
• Hidden Villain: Slade starts out like this, being introduced in the first episode as a shadowy chess master, but not even named or revealed to the heroes until later (and it's even longer before they meet him face-to-face and learn of his plans).
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: "You must be overjoyed to see me like this, Robin. Desperate, weak, vulnerable."
• Imaginary Enemy: After his death in season 2, Slade returns in "Haunted" as a Hallucination, beating the crap out of Robin and nearly killing him. What's worse is that he somehow planned for this to happen long before, as Robin has inhaled an hallucinogenic gas that auto-activated from one of his remaining masks.
• Implacable Man: Even if Slade backs down, he will return to taunt the Titans. More so in Season 4, after becoming The Dragon to Trigon.
• In Love with Your Carnage: He finds tapes of Robin fighting his friends "thrilling", tracks down Terra for her destructive power, and is fascinated when he learns about Raven's big secret.
• In Name Only: Except for the iconic mask and collecting children as a hobby, Slade barely has anything in common with his comic iteration. In the comics, he is Deathstroke, an assassin for hire, always written as an Anti-Villain with a sense of honor, who usually sides with the good guys if caught up in a grand conflict between good and evil. As far as he is concerned, he is just doing his job, and is not some guy out to destroy or change the world. In the cartoon, he is out to take over the world and even sell it to the God of Evil. As Slade, he is a psychotic Manipulative Bastard who brings more in mind someone like Ras Al Ghul , with his obsession to find the perfect apprentice. Slade also never acknowledges the existence of his children, which is his most important characterization in the comics.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Mr. Perlman looks similar to Slade without the mask, if Slade's face looks like it does in the comics.
• Instant Expert: Despite never having any sort of fire-based powers before his death, the resurrected Slade is shown to be very adept and creative at using his newly acquainted pyrokinesis abilities in Season 4.
• I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: He infects the Titans with nanobots and threatens to kill them if Robin doesn't become his apprentice.
• Jerkass: The closest thing to Slade being nice is his emotional manipulation.
  Slade: I'm not such a Nice Guy myself.
• Just Between You and Me: During the Apprentice Arc, it looks like Slade suffers a bad case of Bond Villain Stupidity when he randomly announces the Titans of his plans to detonate a Chronotron bomb, even giving them time to save the day. A deconstructed case though; it turns out Slade deliberately invokes this trope, fully aware of the Boy Wonder's paranoiac obsession with catching him and the Titans' chronic need to save the day. Unfortunately the heroes bite the bait and the time bomb turns out to be a fake, leading to them being infected with deadly nanobots, while Robin is forced to become his apprentice if he doesn't want to watch his teammates suffer a gruesome death.
• Just Toying with Them: In Season 1, Slade reveals to Robin that all his cryptic clues, plans, and sparring were just his way of testing him.
• Karma Houdini: Though he fails all of his objectives and spends a stint of time being dead after falling into lava, he ultimately is able to revive himself after Trigon betrays him and disappears, never having to fully pay for his actions.
• Kick the Dog: Slade inflicts painful torture onto the Titans just to subdue Robin to his will, and literally kicks Terra and Robin for disobeying him.
  • The way he bullies and taunts Beast Boy in "Betrayal" is petty even for him. Slade also coldly rubs it in when he finds out about Terra's betrayal.
• Knight of Cerebus: Things are never Lighter and Softer when Slade's around. Never. One early episode starts out as a Lighter and Softer episode, then halfway through, Slade unexpectedly shows up and things get real serious, real fast. What sets him apart so much from other scary villains, is that he plays with the psyche of the characters a lot.
• Lack of Empathy: Slade is aware of how much harm he brings to others, but it doesn't mean he cares. When Robin calls him out for helping Trigon destroy the world, he coldly says "It's what I do best."
• Lethal Lava Land: For some reason, Slade's second lair is located around a magma chamber, which serves as the place of his demise at Terra's hands.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Slade is no saint by any means, but in comparison with the show's version of Satan, he is less antagonistic. He ends up helping the Titans defeat Trigon, even if it is more for his own benefits and less for saving the world.
• Lightning Bruiser: Slade has a fast-paced fighting style that he combines with his enhanced agility, putting emphasis on deadly blows at every hit.
• Mark of the Beast: When Slade returns in Season 4, he's got a red glowing sigil on his forehead —symbolizing his deal with Trigon to go with his new— fire-based powers and infernal army. When he loses the powers, the sigil disappears as well.
• Malevolent Masked Man: That mask is not just for aesthetics.
• Manipulative Bastard: His other forte, best shown with Terra and Robin. He exploits their weaknesses in order to twist them into his apprentices.
• Mind Rape:
  • Taunting Raven with her Anti Anti Christ status, complete with forcing her to witness terrifying visions and tearing her clothes.
  • It happened to Robin during "Haunted", what with that hallucination-drug and all.
• Mind Screw: Break Them by Talking, Mind Rape, manipulation, it's all there. And boy, do Robin and Terra bite the bait.
• Mission Control: Slade oversees from his lair every move of his apprentices in missions leaving them with little intimacy and autonomy. He often gives them his orders like this, and in the case of Terra he assists her and advises her on how to take down the Titans.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: He increasingly becomes more abusive toward Terra until it gets physical. Reasonably, she betrays him.
• A Molten Date with Death: His first death, courtesy of Terra after she has enough of his abuse and manipulations. He gets resurrected by Trigon in Season 4 to act as his agent in order to get his flesh and blood body back, with Slade's current form being nothing but his skeleton.
• More than Mind Control: This is Slade's chief weapon on people, using a combination of Mind Screw and psychological manipulation to convince his "apprentices" they have no choice but to serve him. He is very successful with Terra and the Thunder and Lightning Brothers.
• Movie Superheroes Wear Black: An animation example. His blue-and-orange suit has been replaced with a gray-and-black uniform, although his mask is still half-orange.
• Motif: Mirrors and reflective surfaces.
• Motive Decay: Inverted. He starts as having no clear reason for being evil. In season 4, he has a clearer goal: serve Trigon in order to regain his flesh and blood body back.
• Mr. Fanservice: Slade is a mysterious man, wearing a form fitting dark armor◊ that emphases his huge muscular build. Needless to say, the camera◊ pays loving attention◊ to his rear.
• Mysterious Past: Slade is a very enigmatic individual, and nobody knows anything about him or his background. Still, the show makes a few references to his comic counterpart. In Season 4, he makes several allusions to his past, like admitting enjoying working for others; and when he taunts Raven about her fate, he tells her 'it's always the quiet ones', clearly talking about Jericho. And speaking of Jericho, he and Rose do appear in this 'verse, but their presence and Slade's total ignorance of their existence while searching for new apprentices just make everything even more confusing about this guy.
• Mythology Gag: In the tie-in comics, there is a huge portrait of Slade in Africa, which is a nod to his 1984 counterpart as Deathstroke, who lived there for a while after a short-lived retirement.

N-Z

• Never Bareheaded: Slade never takes his helmet down, not even when no one is around.
• Never Found the Body: In the Season 2 finale of Teen Titans (2003), Slade is thrown into a pit of lava. Later, in the third season, Robin comments that "he was never captured, never found" to justify his Slade paranoia. Cyborg immediately points out the absurdity of it all, "The dude fell in a pit of lava, who lives through something like that?" Ironically, it turns out that he did actually die, but he manages to come back anyways with some help from Raven's demon father.
• No Face Under the Mask: Slade just loves to troll anyone who is close to unmasking him:
  • In "Masks", Robin defeats him and removes the mask, revealing a Sladebot armed with a self-destruct timer for a face.
  • In the season four finale, Slade's mask is knocked off, displaying a bare skull with a single blazing eye, since he was The Undead.
  • And in 'Things Change', Beastboy gets the chance to unmask Slade, which is also just another robotic duplicate.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Slade tends to beat the hell out of the Titans, sometimes individually and sometimes all of them simultaneously.
  • He has been at the other end too, but usually he either let it happen intentionally out of pragmatism or is actually a Slade-bot.
• No-Sell: Showed some signs from the very start; when he gets blasted by the Titans at the end of Season 1 and still gets up, or when he is badly wounded by a Beastboy in bear-form, which mildly annoys him. In Season 4, when Slade returns having pyrokinesis powers, he isn't very fazed by the Titans attacking him; laser-incineration, snapping his neck, or slamming him between two walls does nothing.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Slade gives a total new meaning to Foe Romance Subtext; he tends to get uncomfortably close to Robin whenever they encounter each other; while in Terra's case, his mannerisms are almost sexual, going as far as controlling her body. The fact that he tells to Beast Boy 'my control, her body' really doesn't help his case.
  • Then there's the whole 'Birthmark' episode...
• Not So Stoic: While he's normally calm and collected, he becomes enraged occasionally. When this happens he fights a lot more frenzied and tends to raise his voice.
• Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: Slade has no apparent source of income but still has an endless supply of advanced technology and Mecha-Mooks, no matter how much times the Titans break his stuff. In the tie-in comics, it's shown that he used to live in an enormous manor before his disappearance, and his robot commandos were bought from Dr. Chang, so one can assume he is very, very rich. He has a portrait of himself in Africa in the tie-in, a nod to the 1984 Titans version of Slade who used to live there. In the cartoon proper he also makes a few vague references of his past, implying he may have been a mercenary in this 'verse too, but nothing is really confirmed.
• Oh, Crap!: He tends to generate a Mass "Oh, Crap!" reaction from the Titans whenever they have to face him.
  • Of course, it wouldn't be fair to not mention that he gets one in "The Prophecy", when Raven gives him a good old-fashioned ass kicking.
  • When Beast Boy rises above him as a bear, it's one of the few times Slade looks legitimately scared. He walks away with more physical damage than from any other (one on one) fight.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Inverted with Slade. The Titans think "Slade" is just his nome de guerre, when actually, he blatantly uses his real name the whole time.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: You know things get REALLY serious when a smooth-talking character like Slade raises his voice. Happens twice in the finales for seasons 1 and 2.
• Our Zombies Are Different: During Season 4, Slade was magically resurrected by the demon Trigon as a Revenant Zombie. He comes back with a really sickening Healing Factor and lack of response to pain in addition to other new supernatural powers. Though his mask and body suit hides it, underneath Slade is shown to be a desiccated, walking skeleton with an eye (he only had one eye before his previous death). Slade was likely restored to a fully living human state following his assault on Trigon's demonic guardian who held what Slade wanted.
• Out-of-Character Moment: In "Forces of Nature", Slade displays magical abilities and summons a huge fire monster...despite being an Empowered Badass Normal like in the comics.
• Parental Substitute: Slade tried to install himself as a twisted father figure to Robin during the events of "Apprentice" Arc.
  Slade: Who knows? I may even become like a father to you.
• Pick on Someone Your Own Size: His main targets are a bunch of teenagers, and his comic book form used to be the Trope Image. Justified, the Titans may be kid heroes, but it doesn't mean they don't pose a serious threat. This version of the Teen Titans is far more powerful than their comic counterpart, making the protagonists among the most dangerous beings on the planet. They also are battle-hardened combatants at a quite young age. Slade sometimes engages them for this very reason.
• Playing with Fire: In Season 4, Slade returns possessing pyrokinesis powers.
• Post-Mortem Comeback:
  • After his death in the second season finale, one of his masks was confiscated by Robin. Slade left a chemical substance in the dust that infiltrated Robin's central nervous system, forcing Robin to see, hear and feel Slade, even when he wasn't there. The more he fought the illusion, the more harmful it became, but it could only be seen in the dark. It led to one of the best episodes in the series' run.
  • Also occurs in that he literally comes back from the dead as a servant of Trigon. In fact, the above event foreshadowed this when it turned out the dust was activated by a radio signal from outside the Tower.
• Psycho for Hire: Implies in Season 4 that he may have been a Hired Gun in his past. As Trigon's messenger, he takes a sadistic pleasure to torment the Titans, especially Raven.
• Real Name as an Alias: Slade's real name is Slade Wilson. Not that the Titans have any idea.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: A villain to another villain example happens in the first issue of the tie-in comics. Gizmo created a simulating program in order to study the Titans' battle tactics and weaknesses. He, Jinx and Mammoth lose against the virtual Titans. Slade brutally deconstruct their own flaws as a team.
  Slade: ... They defeated you like the real Titans always do! Enough with the games. It's time to get more... realistic. Try a little more cooperation and less competition amongst yourselves. That was your "glitch".
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: A variation. Slade wears an orange and black mask, while his Sladebots have a red mark at the center of their faces.
• Refuge in Audacity: The Titans assume that "Slade" is an alias, and never figure out his real name. Unbeknownst to them, Slade is his real name, and he's been blatantly using it the whole time without them even realizing.
• Resurrect the Villain: At the start of the Season 4 Story Arc, he's resurrected from his Season 2 death in lava by the demon Trigon as an undead ghoul. Unlike most cases, Slade is successfully Demoted to Dragon by his villainous resurrector, and Slade goes along with it due to Trigon promising to complete Slade's resurrection in exchange for helping Trigon bring Hell on Earth — until Trigon double-crosses Slade near the arc's end. Regardless, in the season finale, Slade successfully gets himself restored to full life.
• Revenant Zombie: When he's resurrected in an undead state by Trigon. He's driven not by his zombified nature but by a Deal with the Devil to ensure Raven is made aware of her impending destiny and cooperates, in exchange for Slade being restored to full life (Trigon's Exact Words were that Slade will "get what you [he] deserve[s]").
• Reverse Arm-Fold: Slade's default body position that just makes him even more intimidating.
• Riddle for the Ages: The exact deal with Slade himself is never revealed, or what he exactly wants. Did he used to be a mercenary too, and for some reason changed his career into a psychotic terrorist? Why does he always hunt new apprentices when his children, Jericho and Rose, canonically exist, especially when he actually trained the latter to follow his path since childhood?
  • 'Who is Slade?'
• Rugged Scar: After having his mask knocked off by Trigon's fire demons, it's revealed that Slade has a deep cut over his missing eye.
• Rule of Symbolism: Slade's lair seems to be nothing more than a hodgepodge of giant turning gears, but they are meant to represent his strategy inflamed with multiple plans that need to work smoothly. When he makes a mistake, the gears also stop. After his plans are finally destroyed, Slade chooses to destroy the entire hideout.
• Sadist: Slade just loves to make others suffer. He combines physical and psychological torture.
• Sadistic Choice: Slade promises Robin that if he disobeys his orders as his apprentice, he will make Robin watch him torture his friends. And oh, boy, he does keep his word.
• Shadow Archetype: Slade represents, in some ways, an adult evil Robin. Both are skilled martial artists, intelligent and highly competitive, and obsessed with victory. Robin even has a dream about their similarities, where he fights Slade and unmasks him only to discover himself wearing the mask.
  • On a more subtle note, he is this to Batman as well.
• Sigil Spam: Slade just loves to put an S shaped sigil with orange background everywhere, over his robots, his weapons, has badges and uniforms with the S even for his apprentices, and even the gates of his estate have the S on them.
• Slouch of Villainy: Slade enjoys making himself rather comfortable on his throne. If he gets up, chances are he is going to beat the crap out of you, as Robin unfortunately finds out.
• Smug Super: Slade tends to taunt the Titans and anyone for the matter about their skills or abilities, and he usually can back up his claims. For a guy whose only powers are Healing Factor and enhanced reflexes, he proves a challenge for even all five Titans to bring down.
• The Sociopath: Shown clearly in Season 4. Robin points out how he has no remorse for ruining others' lives for the sake of his own benefit, and Slade's response is "It's what I do best." Robin calls him a psychopath, which is something different.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Slade tends to talk with a baritonal, yet soft voice.
• The Spook: Unless you infer he has the same origin as his comic counterpart, there's no backstory to him whatsoever. We never get a good look at his face or even learn what his endgame is (beyond finding an apprentice). This fuels Robin's obsession over Slade even after he dies, as he unhealthily investigates his closed profile day and night to find out more about him. Cyborg calls him out on it, citing Slade's dead and Robin should move on.
• Stalker without a Crush: Slade is the poster boy for this trope. He stalks Robin, Terra and Raven because he is fascinated by their abilities.
• Starter Villain Stays: He's introduced in the pilot, and would repeatedly menace the Titans as the main antagonist of the first two seasons. Besides coming back in the fourth thanks to being Back from the Dead.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Slade does this twice in "Betrayal". First, Terra spots him in the reflection of a mirror at the diner, but when she turns around he’s vanished. Later, he suddenly appears in Beast Boy and Terra’s ferris wheel car without any warning or any real explanation as to how he got there.
• Superhero Movie Villains Die: Slade is killed off for good in this adaptation, whereas in the source material, he usually has Joker Immunity or his Healing Factor on his side. Justified, since while he has them same powers as his comic counterpart, nobody can realistically survive falling into lava. It takes literal demonic resurrection for Slade to bounce back, otherwise he'd have stayed dead.
• Super-Strength: Not as much as other characters, but there are hints that he is abnormally strong regardless of how much training he received. He was capable to create a breach in a floor made of metal with his punch, can fight Beast Boy's animals and overpower them and his kicks can send someone several meters in the air. Then again, he is a metahuman like his comic counterpart.
  • After becoming empowered by Trigon, his Super-Strength is quite obvious.
• Take Over the City: Among all the villains who have tried to take over Jump City, Slade is the only one who managed it successfully, with very disastrous results for the city and its inhabitants.
• Take Over the World: Possibly what his Evil Plan is about in Season 2.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: He is evil, darkly humored, and stands at 6'4".
• The Stoic: There's a grand total of one short diabolical chuckle that he does in all of his appearances, and even then, it sounds unnatural and creepy. There are also a few instances where his eye widens or when he loses his cool.
• Terms of Endangerment: Slade sadistically teases the Titans with pet names like 'dear child', 'my boy', 'birthday girl', and so forth.
• Telescoping Staff: Slade's preferred weapon is a collapsible bo-staff. He always carries one with him.
• Thanatos Gambit: Slade even had a plan in the event of his death. He put a neural agent in his mask, triggered it and infected Robin, causing him to hallucinate a phantom Slade everywhere. Robin's non-stop fighting against the phantom would either lead to his death from overexertion, like Raven points out, or forcing the Titans to immobilize him.
• To Hell and Back: He assaults Hell's gates and retrieves his soul to truly bring himself back to life in Season 4.
• Torture Technician: Electro-shocking, nanobots created to kill from the inside out, Mind Rape, etc. See Cold-Blooded Torture intro for more details.
• Troll: Slade seems to enjoy toying with and creeping people out. And unlike most examples, Slade's moments lack anything remotely funny; they only show how dangerous, creepy, and sadistic he can be.
  • He sends a Slade-bot to meet and fight Robin in "Masks", and makes said robot to explode, almost killing Robin in the process. During the Apprentice Arc, he also makes the Boy Wonder steal from his former mentor.
  • Torments Raven about her status as Apocalypse Maiden, leaves her to fall from a tall building after she faints from the stress, and nonchalantly says "Oh, and happy birthday" while watching her plummet to her death.
  • He stalks Terra and Beast Boy on their date, sits the entire time in the Ferris wheel cabin with the two (who were both unaware of his presence), and interrupts them just when they're about to have their First Kiss.
• The Undead: After his demise, Slade returns as a non-living entity possessing psychokinesis demonic powers. Trigon later strips Slade of his new powers, turning the latter into a skeletal zombie. Well, sorta.
• The Unreveal:
  • The first season ends with Slade's mask getting smashed into half by Robin, but the darkness obscures his face.
  • The fourth season have his mask knocked off by one of Trigon's monsters. We finally get to see his face, but only a skull.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Slade does this in the first season finale after his mask gets knocked off and he decides he's had enough. He does, however, trigger his lair to self-destruct so that the Titans won't be able to follow him. The season four finale has a variation; he gets flung away by Trigon from the final battle and isn't seen again. Later on, though, Robin expresses his belief that Slade survived and returned to his villainous ways.
• Villain Has a Point: In "Things Change", Slade tells Beast Boy that the reason for Terra not remembering him is because she chooses not to. Turns out he was right.
• Villainous Valor: Slade will pull a Villain: Exit, Stage Left when things aren't going in his favor, but he's most definitely not a coward. Trigon's disposal of him leaves him without powers, but it doesn't stop him from fighting a superpowered minion to regain his flesh and blood body, and later helping the Titans against Trigon despite overwhelming odds.
• Villain on Leave: Slade is the main antagonist for the first two seasons of Teen Titans, makes no appearance in the third season except as a hallucination, but returns in full force in the fourth season as the main antagonist once again and as The Dragon for Trigon.
• Villain Takes an Interest: Robin and Slade. The similarity is emphasized whenever they fight each other, and especially when they fight together, as their fighting styles are nearly identical.
  • Terra has a bit of this, too. She allows him to mentor her and... things go downhill really quick.
• Villainous Demotivator: When Terra runs away defeated by the Titans, she returns to Slade for refuge. Too bad his answer was a brutal beating.
• Villainous Face Hold: When Terra tries to leave him, Slade uses the suit to electrocute her, then grabs her jaw and holds her face still while bragging about how she can never leave him. He does something similar to Robin and Raven as well.
• Villainous Rescue: In "The End Part 3" after the Titans (minus an age-regressed Raven, who is deemed no threat) are captured in an energy field by Trigon, a flaming demon weapon-wielding Slade appears out of nowhere to attack Trigon, freeing the trapped Titans.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Teen Titans is a lighthearted show, until you remember it also features the most evil incarnation of Deathstroke ever, barring the DCAMU incarnation. Here, he is turned from an Anti-Villain with sympathetic reasons into a creepy mastermind with no redeeming qualities who runs on taunting, Mind Rape, torture of any kind, Hannibal Lecture, and Foe Romance Subtext, and enjoys delivering many a brutal No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• Villainous Vow: "Next time my plans will succeed, and the Titans will pay!". He says this line at the end of the first episode, but after his Characterization Marches On, he is never shown hating the Titans or wanting revenge on them, despite all the vile things he does to them throughout the series.
• Warrior Therapist: He helps Terra come to terms with her lack of control by taking control, both physically and mentally.
• We Can Rule Together: Slade's hidden motive all along was revealed to have Robin join him by his side. The Diabolical Mastermind finally resorted to outright Blackmail — apprenticeship in exchange for his friends' lives. At least, he used the word "apprentice," but what he really seemed to want was a son:
  Slade: Who knows? I may even become like a father to you.
  Robin: I already have a father.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Slade, of all people, calls Robin out in Masks, when he exposes him as Red X, pointing out how " two wrongs don't make a right".
  • In Season 5, he tells Beast Boy that trying to make Terra to remember her past is only adding onto her pain.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Played with. In Forces Of Nature, he embodies a mysterious old man with white hair that resembles his comic counterpart. In the Season 1 finale, Robin cracks his mask, revealing a silhouetted head with grayish hair. Teen Titans Go! #49 reveals that Slade is a Silver Fox with white hair and beard.
• Wicked Cultured: Slade has his own butler who serves him tea or coffee as shown at the end of episode 1. The series' comics also show he owns an immense mansion, resembling a British castle.
• Would Hurt a Child: He's the main archenemy to the Titans, a group of teenaged heroes.
• Would Hit a Girl: He has no qualms over hitting girls. Just ask Terra or Raven.
• Yandere: Sort of a villainious parental type. Displays some disturbing possessive tendencies over Robin and Terra.
  • When Slade forces Robin to be his apprentice, he turns into a disturbing father figure. At one point, he gets really angry at Robin, beats him and pins him down, pointing out how he could offer Robin everything, yet the Boy Wonder cares only about his "Worthless. Little. Friends."
  • While, in Robin's case, it can be argued that Slade was just trying to become like a father to Robin even with the worst of implications, in Terra's case it's much more ambiguous. He presents himself as a Warrior Therapist, in exchange for Terra spying on the Titans for him, treating her quite decent at first. But when she tries to run away with Beast Boy, he interrupts them, acting as if he was jealous of them. The fact that he says "She never even liked you" to Beast Boy, doesn't help his case either; and in the later episodes, he takes full control of her body, implying he can do whatever he wants with Terra. The sexual undertones of their relationship in the show, are most likely intentional from the creators' part, given that the characters had an explicit sexual affair in the '80 Titans comic books.
• You Can't Fight Fate: In "The End, Part II," Robin calls him out on helping Trigon destroy the world. Slade responds that while he did play a part in The End of the World as We Know It, even if he wasn't there, it wouldn't have changed anything; Trigon's coming was inevitable.
• You Fight Like a Cow: He does love to trash others while still keeping his aloofness.
  Slade to Terra: Impressive. Unless, of course, you were aiming for me.
• You Have Failed Me: Played straight with his treatment of Terra, who is physically abused for failing. He didn't do anything to Jinx, Gizmo, or Mammoth for losing to the Titans, mainly because he didn't expect them to win, and because he wants to show them what the Titans were capable of (and to make Robin wonder "Who is Slade?").
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Trigon makes sure Slade is at the receiving end of it. Slade has anticipated this long before.
• Xanatos Gambit: This is Slade's MO:
  • Sending Cinderblock to release Plasmus in the first episode. Both Robin and Cyborg notice this is the plan of someone very intelligent.
  • Sending Gizmo, Mammoth, and Jinx, to eliminate the Teen Titans, while knowing from the very beginning they will get their asses handed by the heroes.
  • The whole Red X ordeal. He knew the whole time Robin was Red X, so he let Robin believe that he was falling into Robin's trap and be caught, when in fact, it was Robin the one who fell in his trap. He didn't even bother to go in person like he promised to Red X, he sent a Sladebot.

Minions and Machines

Robot Commandos

During the All Your Base Are Belong to Us part from Betrayal

Ninja-like, robotic foot soldiers in Slade's army, mass-produced by Slade's facilities which he seem to have an unlimited supply of.

Sometimes referred as Slade-bots, both by audiences and the show itself.

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• Boring, but Practical: They may be weak, but their low cost means Slade can deploy them by the dozens. They're also intelligent enough to operate machinery, vehicles, control panels and work especially well in stealth-based missions - notably, "Betrayal" had a few hundred of them infiltrating Titans Tower to wipe out the Titans, a feat unsuitable for the oversized Blockers.
• Elite Mooks: There's a sole Sladebot in "Masks" who has higher speed and durability compared to the others (notably when it somersaults all over the place avoiding Starfire's starbolts and Cyborg's sonic cannons), subdues Beast Boy (in anteater form) by stomping on the tongue and later drags Robin and Starfire a mile across the sea with jet-boots before it finally deactivates. It appears to be a custom-made model meant for Slade to converse with Robin.
• Expressive Mask: Like their boss, their face-masks can change expressions (mostly the eye-slits expanding when surprised by Titans) despite being robotic.
• Expy: They're the show's equivalent to the Foot Clan Soldiers from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987), being ninja-like robotic minions employed by the Big Bad that the heroes defeat with little effort.
• Mecha-Mooks: Slade's minions he often uses to aid in his schemes and battle the Titans on his behalf.
• Robotic Reveal: Their debut in "Masks" misleads audiences into thinking they're human soldiers, what with their ninja-like outfits and face-concealing gear. But then they visibly fizzle out when taken down by the Titans, and one of them deactivates after showing Slade on a video screen from its face.
• Villain Decay: They manage to give the Titans trouble early on in the series, with two or three of them even giving individual Titans a run for their money (even discounting the one Elite Mook mentioned above). As the series wore on, the Titans destroy them by the dozens solo. It's justified, since the Titans became more experienced fighting them and grew stronger.

Blockers

Another robot variety, gigantic white mono-eyed drones. They only show up sporadically in the series (ironically, their debut in "Final Exam" beats their smaller, more frequently-seen Sladebot counterpart by 6 episodes).

Sometimes called H.I.V.E drones, due to being affiliated originally with the H.I.V.E.

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• Cyber Cyclops: They have a gigantic red eye as their sole discerning facial feature, which they can fire (powerful, but painfully slow) Eye Beams from.
• Giant Mook: They're still mooks at the end of the day, but their increased size and strength makes them marginally more difficult in a fight than the Sladebots.
• Mook Carryover: They're primarily manufactured by Hive Academy (revealed as early as the season 1 episode, "Final Exam" and seen again in season 3's "Deception") for training their students in combat. It's unknown how Slade have them in his army, but given Slade's vast connections with the underworld it could be assumed he had some sort of deal with the Hive.
• Power Pincers: Blockers use pincer-like claws for close combat.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Their legs are disproportionately small compared to their upper bodies.

Worm Robots

Worm-like mechas sent by Slade to attack Jump City, and later on, Titans Tower. However there's more to them than it appears...

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• Combining Mecha: Three of these robots can combine themselves into a gigantic tunneling ring.
• Feed It a Bomb: The first worm appears to be defeated in this manner, when Robin managed to drop a handful of explosives into it's maw (with a bit of help from Terra). But then it simply tunnels away.
• Kill It Through Its Stomach: The three worms attacking Titans Tower from the surface are destroyed when Cyborg drills a hole through one of them, allowing Beast Boy - as a mouse - to enter and sabotage their circuits from within.
• Red Herring: The Titans (alongside the recently-recruited Terra) assume Slade deploys his giant worms to attack the city because, well, that's what villains do. They're actually decoys used by Slade to help Terra regain the Titans' trust.
• Sand Worm: A robotic version, gigantic mechanical worms deployed by Slade.
• There Is Another: The one worm mecha that attacks Jump City before getting defeated by the Titans? It's one of six, which the Titans found out after chasing it into Slade's underground lair.
• This Is a Drill: The mecha's head can be a gigantic laser, or flipped around into a drill for tunneling purposes.

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