This "Getting Young" Thing Is Getting Old.

I finally received the first volume of the current Deathstroke series in the mail last week. Entitled "Gods of War", it collects the first six issues, including some sketches and the variant covers.

Now it's difficult to maintain a blog about a character yet avoid spoilers because you're "waiting for the trade". If you're still waiting to pick up this book yourself, stop now and come back (please) when you haven't because there will be some spoilering going on.

Those who are still here are likely aware that Slade Wilson's youth was restored in this book. I had heard something to that effect, but misunderstood it.  I believed that he was going through a "Batman Begins" type of flashback in which his past was being back-filled. I didn't think he was literally going to be young again. But he is.

I don't care for this decision. It takes away a number of things that made Slade stand out among the pack.

In the character's first volume, Wintergreen refers to Slade as being in his 40's. If so, based on hair colour, it's late 40's. And characters that age are in a small minority.

His missing right eye has been "restored", too. Relatively unique features are being done away with. Furthermore, you'd be hard-pressed to read a random page and to differentiate him from Bruce Wayne.

It's not even particularly original. The reason Wintergreen referred to Slade's age in volume one was that Slade had become young again in the last few issues of that series.

Issues 53 and 54 of the first volume featured a two-part story called "The Borgia Plague" and, as you might have guessed from the title, it revolved around a biological weapon.

The story concluded with Deathstroke being caught in an explosion. And when he was later found in the rubble (in #55), he was about half his age.

There are a number of differences between the current "de-aging" and the one from volume one. From issue 55 until the conclusion of the series in #60 (June 1996), Slade was still missing his right eye and his hair was blond. His hair colour was consistent with prior flashback material from the Teen Titans series. I don't know why Tony Daniels saw a need to change it for volume three.

As you can see from the cover of #55, the newfound youth also led to a uniform change.

Deathstroke also lost his memory as a result of the de-aging in volume one, but it was restored by the time the series concluded. None of the other changes that were made to the character lasted very long, either.

His next appearance was in Detective Comics 708 (April 1997), written by Chuck Dixon.

This is the first chapter of a three-part story called "The Death Lottery". In this book, Slade's hair is still blond, but he seems to be back to his normal age, as evidenced by a supporting character at his African retreat asking him if he feels old after hunting a lion (to which Slade replies that he's not old, he's bored). No explanation is given so one assumes that the effect just wore off with inactivity. Sure, why not?

Slade would then show up in a few issues of Nightwing, as well as Green Arrow, Azrael and Robin. But the next story to be centered around him would be a three-part tale in The Titans called "The Immortal Coil". Running from issue 10-12 (December 1999 to February 2000), it was written by Devin Grayson and involved several characters that had a history with Slade, including Cheshire but most prominently his ex-wife, Adeline. It also marked the return of the traditional Deathstroke outfit.

So within a couple of years, all the changes that had taken place at the end of volume one were essentially erased gradually and seldom referred to, that I know of. Since I'm a bit behind, perhaps this "younging" is also already on the way out. Hope so because it takes away from the character instead of making him more interesting.