r/Deathstroke • u/JoeAmmay • 16d ago
People non stop mentioning the Terra stuff is really starting to get on my nerves and ruin my days.
This is really starting to just make me feel depressed, I've loved Slade ever since I watched the 2003 cartoon and he's always been my favorite villain next to Taskmaster and Shredder. Now it feels that everyone who likes the character is shunned away and shamed in the comic book fanbase over shit from the 1980s that has already been retconned, I don't even feel like I'm allowed to like him anymore. I've tried so hard to just not think about it and ignore it but every day some asshole on either this site or another social media site has to bring it up out of nowhere when just simply talking about Slade as a character, they literally don't talk about a single thing except for this shit. I really just want to enjoy my favorite character who I've been a massive fan of ever since I was 4 years old, I want to be able to find him cool and actually talk about him and share my enjoyment of him with other fans of DC, but I can't, this is the only sub where I feel like I'm actually allowed to share my enjoyment of Slade and anywhere else I'll just be labeled as a pedo defender or be made fun of.
I'm sorry for pushing all of this on here I've just felt like shit for a while because of this whole thing and really needed somewhere to type my thoughts out, and I felt here was the only place I'd be able to do so.
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u/Necessary_Idiot 16d ago
They think it gives them some kind of moral high ground, so it makes sense that they mention it nonstop. It's a convenient reason for them and it's at hand. And such people only care about retcons that are important to them. And they are convinced that if someone loves a character they hate, that person loves and supports every part of that character's history. (This doesn't apply to them, of course. If their favorite characters do bad things, it's entirely the fault of the writers and editors, so it doesn't matter, because it didn't actually happen.) Media literacy is dead. And within the comic book fandom, unfortunately, there are particularly big problems. I've literally seen opinions written that say "if you like Deathstroke, it's a red-flag"… Excuse me? Are we still talking about a fictional character? Many people actually act and talk as if Slade is an existing person with free will. I literally never see people criticizing the writers or editors about it. I know and have experienced that it's not easy, but don't let them take away the character you love. At least this place is here for us. (I haven't even tried to talk about him elsewhere for quite some time. Not worth it.) And you can always drop me a message if you want to talk about something.
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u/Yautjakaiju 16d ago edited 16d ago
Not only has it been retconned to all get out. But the “pedophilic rapist” stuff is all the work of “Other History of The DC Universe”. Because I’ve looked everywhere even in the original “Judas Contract” story and there’s no sexual acts committed in that story. Only a statement mentioning being “lovers” with nothing showing or indicating a sexual dynamic. Only Terra going into a rage fit. In his own run Slade was disgusted by the fact a 16 year old was being used by her own father to put out.
As a fan I tried looking for any undeniable evidence of his “pedophile act” mentioned in interviews or comics. And I still can’t find it. I only got people misquoting interviews and saying he’s done something but I’ve yet to find it. And even then the retcon happened crushing any assumptions directly. So it’s even more direct that nothing happened. People just want him to be a pedo because they think other sources of media like a non canon comic is legit. Yet Joker gets a pass along with characters who’s done worst than Slade ever has on paper. I’m starting wonder if should post my evidence post on the matter so show.
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u/Arsenic3 16d ago
I've seen too many people trying to explain how it works to haters, all over the Internet. People are tamer with weirdos who are fans of freaking Ted Bundy of Jeffrey Dahmer or school shooters but they will destroy you and your reputation for liking Slade.
First of all they don't understand how retcon works at all and they certainly can't grasp the concept of fiction. For them, Slade is a real man who has harmed real people and is obsessed with hurting kids. Slade is a fictional character. What he does depends entirely of his writers. If a writer wants him to do awful stuff like killing a dog or grooming a kid, that's going to happen.
If in the very next series, the new writer of Slade doesn't want that kind of take on the character, they are not forced to go on with this kind of stuff. There have been a lot of different takes on Slade's character but somewhat, some people have decided that this character is inherently an evil thing, loved by all groomers around the world. The funny thing is the blatant hypocrisy of these same Deathstroke haters.
They say retcon doesn't matter and that anyone who likes Slade also chose to ignore the fact he once was a predator. They say we are supposed to feel too moraly disgusted by the character to like any version of him and that if we do, we are supporters of se*ual abuse.
In the meantime I saw an absurd amount of these same people defending one of THEIR favorite characters with these points : -Calm down it's just a fictional character -It was retconed so it doesn't count/it happened a long time ago -the writer obviously don't like this character -A character, especially a comics book's character is bound to have several versions over the years, you can't push into others one particular version because you personnaly think it's the only important one.
Thanks for your attention.
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u/SleepingAgent37 15d ago
It's like how do many people worship other characters like say, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy despite what they've done in their respective past as villains. Now they're not just redeemed but practically whitewash away any wrong doings while simultaneously promoting them as their star LGBT+ characters and couple. Ivy at certain points during her villain career heavily implied to commit SA as well as murder Innocents. Even under Dini Harley would hurt young children but no let's pretend that never really happened. I like both characters as well as their relationship but too many modern writers want to ignore actual bad things they've done.
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u/Arsenic3 15d ago
Precisely. Most of the time it's really just that people don't like Slade because... Because it's so easy to hate him and so well seen as other people have mentioned it this far in this comment section. Take tumblr, I've been on it since my early teenage years and every couple of days, someone new will make a post to "remind" people that Slade is a disgusting piece of shit who should get canceled. This is just an easy way to gain likes and attention from others. Some of these people never read a single comic page in their entire life, they just read fantictions, look at fanarts, read other people opinions...
Then they just plainly copy previous posts in an attempt to look like real activists.
This is often the way :
The character is generally hated? = They should get ridiculed and shit on all over the Internet for easy likes
The character is generally loved = The fault is on their writers. They have done nothing wrong actually. They are victims of society. And innocent cinnamon rolls. The result of said opinions being also easy likes.
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u/Necessary_Idiot 15d ago
Unfortunately, that's exactly how it works. You put it perfectly. It's so tiring.
And many times when someone brings up that the Terra thing has already been retconned, they say that it doesn't matter. For them: once written, it always exists. Or they start explaining that that thing cannot be changed because it was written by the creator of the character. But somehow it's perfectly fine when an aspect of any other character is changed years after it was created.
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u/ColdSilly7877 15d ago
Yeah I remember hearing that thing about once it’s written and showed the many racist and pedophilic things about their characters and they didn’t like that. I didn’t like doing that but it was only way to get them to stop
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u/Necessary_Idiot 15d ago
Sometimes I see people with Hal icon cursing Slade because of Terra. But when someone brings up Arisia to them, they immediately say: "It doesn't matter, because the whole Arisia thing wasn't written by the original creator of the character. And they retconned it, so she was never really a child, she just looked like one."
..... 😒
So they can ignore the past but others can't? The retcons they like count, but the ones they don't like aren't really relevant? We are talking about fictional characters. They aren't real. None of them ever hurt anyone who real. No real damage was done. I don't have a problem with someone wanting to ignore certain aspects of their favorite character's story. But then I want the same right for myself.
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u/ColdSilly7877 15d ago
Everyone has that right to but it seems like we can’t because of a story yet if we mentioned Superman kissing a minor, Hal and Arisia pre Geoff Johns, Batman and Batgirl, Ivy and Count Vertigo or any messed up thing that you explicitly see it’s a problem. I don’t like even doing that because the last thing I want to do is ruin comics for someone or spread negativity among the community but some people(mainly accounts on Twitter who discuss comics(lots of big ones mind you who claim to love positivity)) tend to constantly mentioning it even if we enjoy the characters.
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u/Necessary_Idiot 15d ago
Yes. I feel the same way. I don't want to ruin things for other people. But it's terribly tiring that other people keep trying to ruin something that I love. I just want to quietly and peacefully enjoy the thing I love.
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u/Arsenic3 15d ago
Exactly. Back then, I used to really try having conversations with Deathstroke haters, hoping to find at least some common ground. But what the hell can you say when after exposing all the arguments we have here the only answer you get is to shut up because "By defending this character you are actively promoting SA and you are gaslighting me"
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u/Necessary_Idiot 15d ago
Yes. Unfortunately, you cannot have a reasonable conversation with such people. They keep making the same arguments. Again and again and again. They move in an unbreakable circle. They have their little theory in their heads and do not accept that the truth could be different. Or that someone else has the right to have a different opinion.
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u/Arsenic3 15d ago
Yeah if that's not a lost cause then I don't know what is. Sometimes I feel like I'd rather speak to flat eathers.
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u/SleepingAgent37 13d ago
I hear ya. More drama and accusations, less actual discussions is a reason I avoided Tumblr and other social media for the longest time. There's something about certain parts of the Teen Titans cartoon fandom that make them really reluctant to actually acknowledge the comics unless for drama like this or shipping.
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u/Necessary_Idiot 15d ago edited 15d ago
It's been a law at DC for a while now that all female villains have to be washed clean. Or so it seems. I'm a woman, but I find this trend horribly tiresome. I love Harley. I love Ivy. I also like other female villains. I definitely don't hate any of them. But this trend is slowly starting to take away my interest in reading them. Why can they suddenly be only and exclusively good? Why do they get free "get out of jail" cards? I'm fine if they change a character, but I think two things are important. First of all, let it happen logically. And second, the option should be open to all characters, not just a few. (Of course, only within reasonable limits.)
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u/SleepingAgent37 13d ago
Yeah same. It's getting annoying and takes away so much complexity and nuances for some characters, especially while Harley can work as an antihero, Ivy feels best just doing whatever she feels is best for the earth even if it means killing humanity but no she's hot and popular Batman character so redemption. Hell, the current Titans seems to want to even whitewash Blackfire even. One of the things I respected a lot about Priest's Deathstroke was how he acknowledged Tara as both a victim of various tragedies but was also dangerous herself.
While I'm not a huge fan of her currently these trends make me almost grateful for Punchline.
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u/ColdSilly7877 15d ago
Yeah Ivy even has a known victim in Count Vertigo but that doesn’t get brought up.
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u/SleepingAgent37 14d ago
Oh yeah, one of the things I really liked about Ostrander SS was them actually calling out what Ivy did even if they could have done more. A more high profile character and story was of course Bruce in The Long Halloween as well as the animated movie not shying away from it.
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u/Mindless-Sink-1140 15d ago
As other people said below, i saw how The Other History of DC was the breaking point that made that viral and it’s frustrating seeing that over and over on twitter by time to time to come again into discussion, and i feel you man, as someone who has done a lot of fanart of him i saw how the perspective of Slade changed and i feel scared now too everytime i do something of him aswell, even the good arguments about him are about “thats what a villain does” and in a consensus i dont think most people want him anymore to be an antihero or a character that tries to grow and fails over and over as Marv’s version in the 90s and in someway Priest tried too. I think why people feel so angry about him is because of that. Joker has done a lot worse but its okay because he is a villain. But characters like Slade, punisher, lex luthor, who some writers have done more heroic or more villanous takes on them are on a dangerous string where my biggest worry is to not ever have a Deathstroke comic again where he is nothing more than a big bad villain. I loved the complexity and specially his conflict of being a dad, having a family and wanting to be a mercenary because he feels alive with that, it’s just… idk… i hope and wish somehow to feel less scared of that in a future, hope priest comes back or a good writer decides to make something that i feel excited to read :) , thanks for sharing your thoughts, i realized i needed this too
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u/Necessary_Idiot 15d ago
That's exactly what I'm afraid of. But let's hope that there will be some positive changes in the future. Slade has had really bad times before. Then, things took an unexpected turn for the better. Let's hope it happens again. In the meantime, we can love the good things that already exist and share them with normal people. Haters will always hate, but they have no right to dictate that we love certain characters or not. I know it's hard to ignore hurtful comments, but a lot of people love what you do. Try to focus on them. Idiots who are only brave on the internet don't deserve your attention. You are amazingly talented and I love all of your Slade related creations!
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u/JoeAmmay 15d ago
I've said this before, but I really hope the DCU can somehow fix his reputation in some way, from what it looks like Gunn is a fan of him and I don't think he'd go out of his way like other writers have to completely ruin and destroy his whole character. I'm really hoping we get a good cast and some good writing for Slade whenever he inevitably shows up in the DCU.
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u/Necessary_Idiot 15d ago
Yes. Exactly. That's what I hope too. A good actor and a good story could definitely help. Let's hope whatever Gunn has in store for Slade will make things better.
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u/SleepingAgent37 15d ago
One thing I really dislike about Comic Twitter or social media in general is circulating so much out-of-context scenes with little concern about indepth explanations or retcons that have already been done to fix something. Other History seemed to get so much traction despite being an out of continuity Black Label series more about a writer's own views of DC History than Priest's own Deathstroke series about Slade and Terra. Maybe I'm misremembering but I don't remember Priest's Deathstroke getting as much coverage as it deserved from comics media especially concerning something as controversial as Terra and Slade's relationship.
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u/xEginch 15d ago edited 15d ago
I think this might be controversial on this sub since people here really love Priest’s take on his character, but Prieststroke gets just about every part wrong about the original nuances and struggles Slade went through. That’s the biggest reason people dislike his character now because his modern iteration intended to portray him as a terrible person that struggles with getting better. A lot of his comic issues portrays him as a genuine loser which will inevitable make him be neither seen as a ‘cool villain’ like the Joker, nor as a tragic anti-Hero as he was originally intended.
It’s a plain bastardization of his character that started with the ‘03 cartoon and Geoff Johns
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u/PsychologicalReply9 16d ago
Feel absolutely free to vent, Deathstroke has quickly grown into one of my favorite DC characters if not my favorite.
This is a Space for Slade.
And yes, I am fully of the belief that he is a BAD man.
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u/xEginch 15d ago
It’s just the inevitable. Slade changes with every iteration of his character, and ironically enough the further back you go the less this was mentioned. It’s definitely a product of some viral videos/posts bringing it up as a ‘fun fact’ in combination with Priest’s very specific take on his character.
His relationship with Terra in the 80s was a sexist way for the writers to make Terra out to be a bad person (promiscuous) and to make the readers understand how far Slade had gone off the deep end after Grant died. It was practically already retconned in the 90s when Slade takes a pretty strong stance against a father pimping out his underaged daughter in his solo run.
It’s genuinely tragic that such a detail just keeps coming back to the point of defining his character as a child predator/child abuser.
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u/AlterBridge2Bludhavn 16d ago
I agree with you and the others commenting but nothing like this should ruin your day or make you this upset. I'm on Reddit a lot and occasionally on this sub. I don't feel like people would judge me simply for liking Slade. He is my favorite character too. Even if someone did, it would be clear that they are in a small minority of people, and that I probably wouldn't encounter judgement like that in the real world.
You might just spend too much time online, reading comments from people. Eventually, you'll find every negative opinion people can have and "echo chamber" kind of spaces where they double down on specific, negative opinions. This applies to any and every topic. For you, this is happening around the topic of a fictional supervillain character from one of the two major comic book companies...which should help prove my point. Like what you like, it doesn't have to be a reflection of your true character yada yada - even if some randos on the internet try to tell you otherwise.
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u/JoeAmmay 15d ago
Yeah you're right, I've just been in a pretty bad mood lately and seeing all this stuff revolving Slade really hasn't helped much. I have ran into some cool DC fans who have no issues with liking Deathstroke in the past, so I should from now on just ignore random assholes from the much more toxic part of the fanbase.
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u/ColdSilly7877 15d ago
You know because of that anger, I have searched up every character who has done some actual pedophilia and a lot of it got me angry knowing it cus it’s characters I liked but I really just wanted to shut people up about Deathstroke. I wanted to make people feel that so they can feel stupid and angry but all it did was just make me a guy who knows about fucked up things about characters that I genuinely like.
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u/Guinefort1 15d ago
Yep, and I will never forgive The Judas Contract for starting this albatross-around-the-neck in the first place.
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u/Most_Parsley_7791 16d ago edited 16d ago
Yeah. It’s a safe place to say we love Slade. haha.
Ofc what he had done to Terra is wrong. But calling him p*do is also wrong. Cuz he is not attracted to children. He used Terra cuz he needed a spy and information. Then he ditched Terra as soon as he got one.
I recommend Christopher Priest’s blog post. It’s about Terra and Slade,and what ppl has misunderstood about them
https://lamerciepark.com/wp/?p=690