A superhero and the guy she's babysitting.
"I've got more money than I'll ever know what to do with, Canary. But after everything I've done in the past, I don't deserve a good life. I don't get to just ride off into the sunset... and the only time I've ever been remotely happy in my life is when I was hurting people. What does that say about me?"
Deathstroke Inc. is a comic book launched as part of the DC Infinite Frontier initiative. Written by Joshua Williamson and drawn by Howard Porter, the series began in September of 2021.
After the struggles that he has gone through in trying to fight his nature, Slade Wilson has decided to once again don the mask of Deathstroke. However, he wants to direct it in the right direction, so he joins up with the organisation T.R.U.S.T., who task him with taking down supervillains. Of course, nobody really trusts Deathstroke of all people to stay on the straight and narrow, so he's partnered with Black Canary and Hiro Okamura.
The series will crossover with two of Williamson's other titles, Batman and Robin (2021), for the Shadow War crossover.
Deathstroke, Inc. provides examples of:
- Body Horror: H.I.V.E.'s human incubation has transformed one man's entire head into a beehive.
- The Bus Came Back: Dr. Moon makes his first appearance post-Flashpoint, while Monocle reappears after being dead since Forever Evil.
- Back for the Dead: And Deathstroke kills Monocle on the very next issue he debuts.
- The Chessmaster: Juliette Ballantine is using Deathstroke, Black Canary and Hiro to further her own secret agenda, and realizes that getting Dinah on side could lead to even more superhero recruits. She's essentially creating her own strike force to take out those who refuse to align with her.
- Covers Always Lie: A number of issue #1's covers feature Batman, and one even says "featuring Batman". He does not appear in the story, though some of his gadgets do.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Juliette, Prometheus and Dr. Destiny absolutely destroy Deathstroke and Black Canary, with neither even getting a hit in.
- Easily Forgiven: The Legion of Doom is still led by Lex Luthor after everything he did to them in Justice League (2018) (lying to the Joker about keeping the Batman Who Laughs alive and getting Cheetah, Grodd, and Sinestro sacrificed to be conduits for his power are the primary examples.
- Gender Flip: Juliette Ballantine is a female incarnation of Libra.
- Hypocrite: The series makes Dinah one, as in Justice League (Infinite Frontier), she was mad at Green Arrow for working with Checkmate without telling her, but when Slade asks her if he knows she's working with T.R.U.S.T., she deflects and it's clear he doesn't.
- Kick the Dog: When Dinah is seeing the illusion of a dying Juliette, they tell her that T.R.U.S.T. really was trying to do good and that Dinah's mother was part of T.R.U.S.T.... then pull out the rug before kicking Dinah's ass, with that part of the illusion being completely unnecessary other than to twist the knife.
- Klingon Promotion: Slade kills Juliette and Calculator and takes over the Secret Society, renaming it Deathstroke Inc.
- Legacy Character: Juliette takes up the mantle of Libra, and tells Canary that she's actually the original's sister. However, given that literally everything else she told Dinah in that scene was a lie to twist the knife of her betrayal, and her goal of safeguarding the multiverse, it's not actually clear if that's true or not.
- The Man Behind the Man: Juliette is working for someone, but it's not clear who. They're hidden, but they are directing her actions broadly, although she has a degree of autonomy. In issue #5, they're revealed as The Secret Society of Super-Villains. Uh-oh.
- Mission Control: Hiro Okamura, the second Toyman, functions as this for Slade and Dinah.
- The Mole: Dinah is actually working undercover within T.R.U.S.T. after Oracle learned they had acquired Batman's equipment. T.R.U.S.T. thinks she's there to keep Deathstroke in check and to honour her mother, who Juliette says has ties to the organisation.
- Powered Armour: Hiro uses one of Batman's old suits to take part in an outer space mission. While he was meant to be remotely piloting it, he actually wore the thing and joined in-person against orders.
- Pun: In issue #2, Hiro needs to hack a device to get the Weird out of it safely. Slade cuts the cables that have him plugged into it, saying he's also "hacking".
- There's No Kill like Overkill: Slade brings a minigun to attack what he thinks is a H.I.V.E. training facility where everyone is posing as suburban Americans. It turns out they're incubators, but not once is the minigun actually necessary.
- We Can Rule Together: Deathstroke offers this to Black Canary as his second in command within the Society as his sort of "balance". Dinah understandably tells him to pound sand.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Juliette's goal is to safeguard the multiverse, it's just that she's coercing people into working with her or taking them prisoner/killing them if they refuse.
- Wham Episode:
- Issue #5, which not only reveals the Shadow Council, but follows that up with Deathstroke shooting Calculator and Libra, and announcing that this means he's in charge now.
- Issue #7 reveals the origin of Respawn, the mini-Deathstroke from Robin (2021). Namely, that he was created using the DNA of Talia al Ghul and Slade, and served as a guinea pig and unwilling organ doner for Damian. Slade considers Respawn his son, and takes him under his wing.
- Wham Line: Deathstroke in issue #5:Deathstroke: There is another word for "Council". "Society."
- Wham Shot: Issue #3 ends with the revelation that Juliette Ballantine is a gender flipped Libra.
