WARNING: The next incorporates spoilers for the back-up story “Secret Conferences” from Batman #122, on sale now from DC Comics.
Slade Wilson could also be in the midst of a bitter battle between Batman and Damian Wayne’s Robin proper now, however Deathstroke’s best rivalry will all the time be with the unique Boy Wonder – Dick Grayson. This bitter feud started with the Teen Titans, stretching all the best way again to the Judas Contract storyline. Or at the least, that is what we thought.
The bitter rivalry truly started a few years earlier than Slade took the Teen Titans contract, as revealed within the Batman #122 backup story “Secret Conferences” (by Joshua Williamson, Trevor Hairsine, Rain Beredo, and Willie Schubert). On this newest story, which takes place simply because the Dark Knight adopted Robin as his crime-fighting accomplice, somebody put a success out on the Boy Wonder. This was a job for one of many best assassins within the DC Universe nevertheless it has modified every part.
Deathstroke took the contract on Robin and, while Batman stopped him earlier than he may even hearth a shot, it provides an entire new factor to this lengthy and bitter historical past. It was thought that the primary time Slade encountered Robin was alongside the Teen Titans and that the premise for animosity in the direction of the crime fighter got here from that staff.
Initially, Slade’s son, Grant Wilson, took a contract on the Titans however died earlier than he may fulfill it. Though this was resulting from enhancements given to him by H.I.V.E., Slade however blamed the Titans for his son’s dying. Deathstroke adopted his son’s unfinished contract, which turned the fateful “Judas Contract”. Not solely was this the largest betrayal in Titans historical past, after Slade planted Terra on the staff, however the story was additionally Dick Grayson’s debut as Nightwing. Subsequently, their fearsome relationship will all the time be related to Dick’s debut as his personal hero.
The rivalry solely grew because the years went on, particularly across the time of the Infinite Crisis. When Grayson tried to infiltrate the Secret Society of Supervillains, he skilled Slade’s daughter Rose and taught her to be a hero. Though an settlement that was struck between the 2 had Grayson cease educating Rose if Slade stayed out of Blüdhaven, Deathstroke went again on the deal and destroyed Nightwing’s dwelling metropolis within the Crisis occasion anyway. If that wasn’t unhealthy sufficient, he was additionally employed by Talia al Ghul not lengthy after to kill Dick when he was Batman – by taking management of his Robin, Damian Wayne. Is it any surprise their feud has endured for therefore a few years?
Though Dick would not realize it, as Batman stepped in, that is his and Slade’s first encounter. It would clarify why Deathstroke took issues so personally for all these years, going as far as to destroy Blüdhaven and take management of Damian. Even when each of these had been contracts, there are many others he may have accepted as a substitute. Slade blames the Titans for his son Grant’s dying and that is why he hates them however there was all the time one thing else to his hatred for Dick Grayson. Discovering out that he failed a success on the Boy Wonder twice, each with the Titans and earlier right here in Gotham, all of the sudden the depth of this rivalry makes extra sense. It goes past the Titans as a result of it has all the time gone past the Titans.
This backup story provides an entire new dimension to their decades-long feud. Deathstroke has a fame for fulfilling his contracts and solely a uncommon few have gone unfulfilled. The contract on the Teen Titans was certainly one of them and look how that went – they have been one of many villain’s greatest targets for years. So, the truth that the contract on Dick Grayson has been consuming away at him all this time, since he first turned Robin, explains why Slade Wilson has wished to harm him worse than he is wished to harm anybody else.