REVIEW: Deathstroke #1

Slade and Wintergreen attempt to take down Clock King and avert the villain’s plan to kill the African king. Readers definitely should pick up the Rebirth #1 issue to fully appreciate this issue.
Priest appears to be walking a fine line with his portrayal of Slade as a rigid mercenary with a code versus an outright villain. I found the interaction between Deathstroke and Wintergreen to the highlight of the issue. Conversely the flashback to Slade and his wife wrestling in their underwear seemed way out-of-place to me and did little for the story. The flashbacks in general made the issue feel busy and made reading a chore. I do find the relationship building and character development to be very good in a title which could certainly degrade into nothing more than page after page of killing. I feel Priest is building slowly on this title and giving new readers a better look at who Deathstroke truly is.

Pagulayan“s art was more than fitting. The highlights were more visible in panels showing subtle changes in the characters over the action panels. This is not to say the action panels were not good, but rather those panels with characters engaged in dialogue were made most memorable by the accompanying art.

I don“t know if Deathstroke will be a long-term title I read but I actually enjoyed this issue over the Rebirth #1 and will be picking up issue #2.

[yasr_overall_rating]

Written by Christopher Priest
Art by Carlo Pagulayan, Jason Paz and Jeromy Cox
Lettering by Willie Schubert