The 1990s take a lot of crap from comics fans and in all honesty a lot of that crap isn’t fair.  But there are times when the effects of the era’s attitude are clearly seen and seen for the worst, which is when an established character undergoes some sort of transformation to make him or her “edgier” or “extreme” or “more exciting.”  Post-Zero Hour, this happened to The New Titans, which had a new lineup and a whole slew of storyline and character changes that were mainly the result of interference from a new editor (though the title’s writer, Marv Wolfman, obviously shares some of the responsibility for how the book eventually crashed and burned) and this bled over into the other Titans-related comic of the time, Deathstroke: The Terminator.

Prior to the 1994 crossover event, Deathstroke had been chugging along and probably faced a fair amount of declining sales (I haven’t been able to find the actual sales figures) since its debut, or at least through most of the latter part of 1993 and into 1994, even though the title had been a pretty consistent read throughout its run.  But with Zero Hour came a new editor, Pat Garrahy, and therefore came a new direction because Garrahy, much to the chagrin of Wolfman and quite a number of fans (especially in hindsight) was obsessed with the idea of “shaking things up” to the point where he didn’t seem to care about getting anyone upset or completely contradicting that which had come before (read: the Terra origin).  In fact, I remember hearing a story about how he was once at a signing or convention and pointed out to a fan all of the characters he had killed … and seemed pretty proud of it.  Granted, this story was something I heard on a message board back in the early 2000s and is more than likely not true, but it is indicative of the attitude of many an editor and many a company in the early 1990s:  do something shocking or crazy so that your readers are sure to pick up the book.

Like I said, for The New Titans it was a lineup change; for Deathstroke: The Terminator, it was a new art team, a new direction, and a title change to Deathstroke: The Hunted.

Starting with issue 0, Sergio Cariello took over on pencils and stayed with the book for the better part of a year and a half as he and his brother Octavio took Slade to Hell and back and dismantled much of the book’s supporting cast in a drawn-out storyline that involved two mystery villains and several major deaths.  Garrahy had Wolfman writing in higher octane mode than he already had (read: now EVERYONE WAS YELLING ALL THE TIME BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT COMICS DIALOGUE WAS IN THE 1990s!  EVERYONE!  HAS! TO!  YELL!) and the Cariellos drew with a very fast-paced style that sometimes lent itself well to the storyline but other times seemed rushed, much like the issues that came out.

“The Hunted” is a Slade-on-the-run storyline that starts in the Zero Month issue with Deathstroke being chased by the United States government because he is wanted for the murder of a Senator, even though he knows that the person he killed was actually a terrorist disguised as the Senator who was going to blow himself up at a public appearance and the real Senator had been murdered by agents of the Crimelord, who is now in charge of the nation of Zandia, the former home of Brother Blood.  The Crimelord is a villain shrouded in mystery.  He talks to his operatives via video chat using avatars and sits in shadows smoking a cigar and petting an owl (because when you’re an international criminal supervillain you need to be petting some sort of animal), so we don’t know his identity and that is something that will be some sort of huge reveal at one point or another.

It takes a while to get to that point because the six issues that make up “The Hunted” are the “Deathstroke on the run” and “We’re going to destroy everything” part of all of this that is quite formulaic.  The Zero Month issue establishes the story and it’s kind of jarring because there’s very little connection between issue #0 and issue #40, which was a run-of-the-mill action yarn.

So, Slade is on the run from the government.  He gets captured.  He gets rescued.  The Crimelord acts behind the scenes and manipulates a lot of things.  There’s also a mystery villain who will come to be known as The Ravager (the third Deathstroke-related character with that name) and Slade’s ex-wife Adeline is completely insane and obsessed with killing her husband.

Wash, rinse, repeat. (more…)