The Other Side of the DC Universe #3

[lordultimus]

Comments

[nyadnar17]

Real talk or realist talk?

Honestly part of what makes Slade a great character is how easy it is to buy into his code of honor bullshit.

[starwolf_oakley]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Slade Wilson is a petty, petty man.

[deh_tommy]

Yeah, no, I’m gonna call bullcrap on this. This kind of reading might work for animated Terra, but comics Terra was a sociopathic narcissistic monster. Deathstroke’s evil and slept with a minor but he didn’t need to use any kind of “dominance” (sexual or otherwise) to get her to fall in line. Terra did everything of her own accord and probably would have done everything she did anyway to any superteam with or without Slade in the mix. She is not a victim in all this.

[beyondthefringe]

I say that as long as she was portrayed as being under the age of consent/a minor, she's a victim to some degree where her relationship with Slade is concerned. Yes, she was a sociopath, but he still used her in an unacceptable manner.

[tinygaylaura]

The story isn't trying to claim Terra did Nothing Wrong in Her Life Ever though

It's instead pointing out how people are happy to remember Terra as a complete monster but Slade Wilson, a forty plus year old man who raped a fifteen year old girl basically got a pass for it. And it's true. Even SUPERMAN was shown as being willing to work alongside Slade Wilson in the comics. Fricking Superman, the guy whose meant to be the paragon of nobility, goodness and humankinds best qualities teamed up with Deathstroke

The comic isn't saying Terra is blameless for the bad things she did. It's pointing out that Slade did and continues to do worse than Terra ever did but no one seems to see him as an irredeemable monster...but they're happy to see the teenage girl he raped as one.

[strejdaking]

Okay, there is gonna be definitely a discourse in the comments on this, so here's my take.

Yes, Terra in the original story was a murderous sociopath. We've seen her in private, the possibility of her being manipulated or in any way redeemable is explicitly raised and rejected. But here's the thing: Terra isn't real. Judas Contract is a fictional story. And the reason Terra was the way she was, is because she was a strawman character, that the story bends bends itself backwards to show how 100% totally evil she is, oxymoronicaly both totally insane and totally responsible for her actions, and used the fact she, gaps, SMOKES and wears a lot of MAKE UP and has SEX to show what a gross slut she was (and yes, they apparently straight up said that was the reason), while the grown ass murderer for hire teen-fucker who came up with the whole plan is not just less bad, but a honorable anti-villain. And the story climaxes in the teenager committing suicide, which is of course entirely her fault as everything else.

I don't think Terra needed to be just a poor, innocent victim, her being willingly evil is what made the story special. But there is a reason writer's have been trying to retcon or rewrite it, and it's that so much about Terra is just gross, misogynistic and so not something you should put in a story aimed at teens. I'm not saying this out of nostalgia or fondness for her in the cartoon, I've never watched it. In fact, I've very much enjoyed her depiction in Priest's Deathstroke, which potrays her as close to her original depiction a anything since (a total asshole).

Also, I haven't been reading the series, but isn't every issue supposed to have a narrator giving their own perspective? Cause Superman didn't come off well in the first issue either.

[cyberghostface]

Yes Katana is narrating this.

[thezmage]

Yeah, this pretty much hits the nail on the head. Her just flat out being evil is an important part of the story, but the way the story portrays it is the big problem

[lego_joker]

I've probably said this before, but the original Wolfman/Perez Terra's big problem is that she was a Big Twist that just happened to walk and talk like a girl. They put alllll this effort into completely subverting the Kitty Pryde archetype without thinking about why or who would care if she turned out to be rotten all along.

(Apparently this whole thing was supposed to be Traumatic for Gar or something? All it did was convince me he has no character-judging talent whatsoever. And also that Raven's telepathy ain't worth crap.)

The cartoon had the opposite issue - it made her so squeaky clean that it never got around to a decent explanation of why she'd join up with Slade to begin with. (I'm not sure if this was exacerbated or mitigated by the fact that the cartoon was usually reluctant to show any civilians at all; on the one hand it removed the standard "Polite Society ostracized me for my entire childhood" backstory you get for these kinds of characters, but on the other it does somewhat tamp down her degree of evil if all she does is smash up an empty city.)

[tinygaylaura]

Yeah the original story has aged about as well as milk honestly

[leahandillyana]

From a fully Doylist perspective, in general the New Teen Titans run is extremely sexist, and it cannot be explained as time-apropriate given that it run alongside Claremont's X-Men. In every story, male characters are given much more spotlight even when the story is *about* a female character - like large part of Raven's plotline being the narrator drooling over Trigon's evil. In the final issue of Judas Contract itself, half of the story is dedicated to provide backstory of Deathstroke's butler of all people. You cannot tell me that was neccessary. At the same time, the narrative explicitly discourages the readers from wondering why Terra turned out they way she did. My additional beef is the run portraying Cyborg as dumb muscle and similarly sidelining him.

[cyberghostface]

A lot of this just feels like the author’s rant surrounded by pictures with commentary that would apply more to how Deathstroke is perceived by comic fans in the real world as opposed to how he’s viewed as an assassin in the DC Universe.

[tinygaylaura]

There's definitely an element of real world commentary because that's part of the point of this series but I think it applies to the fictional DCU as well

The Titans all basically just forgave Deathstroke and even teamed up with him on multiple occasions up until he was portrayed as 100% a villain again in the Geoff Johns run onward. Multiple other superheroes teamed up with Slade and worked alongside him even knowing who he was and what he'd done. Hell even Batman worked with Deathstroke. Fricking BATMAN...the guy who wouldn't even let someone kill the Joker or the Penguin or Scarecrow because that's how strict his No Killing Ever view is was like "Okay I guess this time I can give him a pass"

So yeah there is definitely an element of real world commentary here but it is informed by what happened in the actual comics and the writers obvious frustration that in the stories that happened after Judas Contract Deathstroke was retooled as this Gritty Anti Hero

[leahandillyana]

This story is a fascinating case where Watsonian and Doylist perspectives clash so, so badly.

[tcampbell1000]

TIL...

[deh_tommy]

Okay, no, sorry for beating a dead horse but this really ticks me off. Terra was not some poor widdle misunderstood baby UwU, she was a monster through and through. She was “trafficked” in the same way Captain Marvel “profiled” people in 2 Civil 2 War. This just feels like a really gross, half-baked reading being passed off as some deep profound reclamation and seriously doesn’t jibe with what we’ve seen of her (from The Judas Contract or otherwise) and I worry if this kind of unintentionally damages the image of the kind of folk this would actually apply to.

[sadoeuphemist]

"and I worry if this kind of unintentionally damages the image of the kind of folk this would actually apply to."

I'm sorry, what does this even mean? You're worried it might damage the image of real-life murderous underage sociopaths / grown men who sleep with murderous underage sociopaths?

[strejdaking]

You've already made a comment. Look, the way I see it, problem is you keep looking at it from Watsonian perspective. Judas Contract wasn't a window to another universe (sorry Morrison), it was a story. A story where the teenager was written as entirely responsible for everything, including sexual relationship with a middle-aged man, whom the narrative absolutely let's off the hook.

[gnarll]

The way I remember the story, this could be a descrition of what Slade had planned. But a fairly short while into it he found that Terra had her own plans and laughed of his code of honor and power levels.

He was basically riding a tiger and one wrong comment from death from that point.

[tcampbell1000]

Okay so...

In The Other History of the DC Universe's defense, it is meant to be the "other history," not always "the absolutely correct history." It's a chance for the nonwhite DC characters to tell their own stories, not an omniscient narrator or a near-omniscient one. She's Tatsu, not Uatu. I can very easily believe that the fiercely loyal Tatsu, who's seen her share of men abusing their power over girls, would have her own perspective on events that's somewhat kinder to Brion.

The main issue with this reading is similar to the problem the X-Men run into when writers try to present them as straight-up allegories of minority experience: the underprivileged, by definition, do not have more power than the privileged. Tara was capable of killing Slade pretty much whenever she wanted and was not shy about reminding him of this fact. Slade did use his older-man authority to control her as best he was able and yeah, that's a little creepy, but the dynamic between them just doesn't map to real-world analogues as neatly as Tatsu thinks.

Assuming "Judas Contract" is still canon. It was a few reboots ago, after all.

It's interesting and maybe relevant that the "trafficking" idea applies much better to the Teen Titans cartoon series, in which Slade is far more in control for most of his time with Tara. There's no sex in that series, but he does seduce her into giving up control of her body by saying, essentially, "you can't control your powers without my help."

[tinygaylaura]

Regarding the issue of continuity, this series is set in the original pre-Rebirth DCU. So yeah Judas Contract is still canon here.

It isn't entirely in canon in the Rebirth DCU any more...events somewhat like it played out but they ended differently as in the Rebirth DCU Dick convinced Slade to abandon his contract for the HIVE, Terra never died and Jericho didn't join the team. So basically the build up to the Judas Contract story happened but the Judas Contract itself did not

[silverhammerman]

Without wading into the discourse myself (I'm not a Teen Titans guy, and I've only read Priest's Deathstroke series) I'm just astonished that editorial let this go out. I mean, Black Label is out of continuity, but given how invested DC has been over the past couple of decades in using Deathstroke as an antiheroic protagonist, it's quite surprising that they'd let him described in these terms.

[deh_tommy]

Eh, emphasis on the “anti”. He’s never been particularly heroic even in his most noble of depictions.

[tcampbell1000]

Yeah, you're right, that is remarkable, though I sure wouldn't have wanted to argue slavery issues with the director of 12 Years a Slave. This "Other History" has challenged the spotless reputation of some other DC characters, but that is a pretty big stain to put on such a widely exposed intellectual property, even a bad guy. On the other hand, here we all are talking about it...

[tinygaylaura]

This was a great issue of a great series in general

My favourite part which isn't included in these scans is when Katana discusses fighting the Force of July and she talks about how they were absolute trash and how deeply satisfying it was to see every single one of those fascist pieces of garbage meet their end.

Definitely made me love Katana even more than I already did

Anyone who hates everything Reagan and his entire repulsive era of fascism stood for that much is someone who I am going to be a fan of

[lego_joker]

One of these days I'd love to see you liveblog Ten Nights of the Beast.