9 Great Things About New 52 Deathstroke We Could See In ‘The Batman’

Deathstroke is coming to the DCEU in a big way, first as a likely mid-credits teaser or something similar in Justice League (perhaps getting hired by Lex Luthor to kill Batman?) and second as the main antagonist of the standalone Batman film. And we’ve recently learned that Ben Affleck (director and writer of The Batman) is a big admirer of the New 52 version of the longtime DC villain.

And yet a large number of Deathstroke fans didn’t care much for New 52 Deathstroke at all, myself included. In fact, this seems to be why Slade Wilson’s story was changed somewhat drastically for this year’s Rebirth, which both alters and builds upon the Prime Earth continuity.

For the record, I wanted to like the New 52 Deathstroke series as much as anyone. When it debuted a few years ago, New 52 did a lot of work in remixing the villainous anti-hero in order to fit him in with the Prime Earth order of things, but that wasn’t always for the better.

The series had a few bright spots, of course. Legacy was a fascinating villain concept, in my opinion, and it wasn’t too difficult to get used to some of the major cosmetic changes the character took on (which we’ll get into later). That said, the storyline was a bit messy and inconsistent at times, often leaving Deathstroke’s motivations up to the reader’s imagination, instead of a logical interpretation of the character’s actions and dialogue. There was a lot of artful mayhem, but it never felt like this version of Deathstroke was a calculating genius. Just a tired merc.

Still, there were a lot of creative choices made in order to “level up” Deathstroke as a powerful threat worthy of the popularity he’s naturally garnered over the years. And I think that, in and of itself, is what Ben Affleck really meant when he singled out New 52 while talking about his affection for the character. There have been some growing pains, basically.

To be fair, Warner Bros. (and Affleck) will likely be drawing influence from all manner of Slade Wilson stories, perhaps even some cues from Judas Contract. But we can reasonably see where in Prime Earth the filmmakers could craft a new and exciting take on the character as he faces off against Batman on the big screen. In fact, we’re already seeing DC Comics moving on and learning from their mistakes with what they’ve produced in the first couple of issues of Deathstroke Rebirth, which so far alleviate a lot of the complaints some fans had with his failed solo run in New 52.

For that reason, this list will speak a lot to the handful of issues we’ve read from Rebirth, in addition to how Prime Earth both evolved Deathstroke and somewhat held him back. And hopefully, that will translate into a DCEU Deathstroke that gains the best from all worlds.