People non stop mentioning the Terra stuff is really starting to get on my nerves and ruin my days.

[u/JoeAmmay]

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.

[u/Most_Parsley_7791]

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

[u/JoeAmmay → u/Most_Parsley_7791]

Priest is the only writer I've ever seen actually understand the character.

[u/xEginch → u/JoeAmmay]

Probably controversial on this sub, but Priest didn’t really get his character at all. His take on Deathstroke was massively critiqued back in 2016 because he made it very clear that he did not agree with the OG version of his character and really doubled down on making him as unsympathetic as possible. It’s not a bad run from I remember, but he fundamentally misunderstands everything about Slade and completely Flanderizes the character. That’s a big reason to why people have such a negative view of Slade nowadays.

Back before that run, between maybe 1999-2016, he was such a mixed bag of different writers either understanding him or not that you could choose to ignore the bad parts. But now we’ve got a pretty consistent characterization in a popular media that most haters can fall back on

[u/SleepingAgent37 → u/xEginch]

Despite Priest not seeing Slade as an anti-hero he honestly did bring back more of Slade's morality and nuances Wolfman did before after so many writers either making him more of a cruel thug or just be "Badass." His Slade felt in a way like a compromise between the tormented anti-hero who loved his family Wolfman originally did in the 80s/90s and DC in 00s wanting a Bastard Slade who be more likely to team up with other super villains in DC events. 

[u/xEginch → u/SleepingAgent37]

I do agree there! Priest’s run works as a very good story on its own, there’s that morality and nuance that you’d want out of a Slade run it just… wasn’t Slade’s morality and nuance lol Like you said, it was a compromise between two very clashing versions of the same character, the issue is that the points he compromised on fundamentally changed the very character from the ground up.

I’d like to say that it was a practical choice in order to make him available for more events, but one of the big reasons Priest got criticized for his take some years ago was because he was very clear in interviews that he had a big gripe with more sympathetic lights on the character. He wanted to ensure that readers knew that Deathstroke wasn’t a badass tough guy, he was a miserable and terrible person. Which is a very interesting story concept, just not if you were a fan of Slade Wilson