Rebirth Designs by Aco

I admit to not being particularly familiar with the artist known simply as "Aco" but I became familiar with him yesterday when Comic Book Resources shone a spotlight on some of his recent work.

Aco started a Facebook folder of covers and designs for the upcoming Deathstroke book following Rebirth. Let's see...




Hmmm...I wasn't crazy about that at first. There's some good and some not-so-good.

Upside: They didn't mess with the mask much and he's back to using a sword similar to his original one as opposed to the Samurai style sword he'd been using of late.

On the other hand, the customary navy blue is gone from his colour scheme and that white sleeve makes no sense to me. Also, I would have hoped that a redesign would include his battle staff but no such luck, apparently.

I thought the negatives outweighed the positives slightly but Aco posted a cover as well (by Carlo Pagulayan, presumably a variant to issue #1) and the whole thing seems to work a little better "in action".

Damn, that's gorgeous...And if you've been a fan for a while, you have to be encouraged by all the good "traditional" stuff going on there. You have to assume that's (ex?) wife Adeline, sons Grant and Joey at right and (hopefully) Wintergreen at two o'clock. Rose's design has swung back towards dad's look too, as opposed to looking like she escaped from Captain Harlock's Arcadia.

Oh, and another thing...

He's got some years on him again! Making Slade Wilson young never sat right with me. I find that having him be in his late 40's or early 50's sets him apart from most of the characters of the DCU.

Back to Rose...




Love the mask, love the hair...in fact, love everything until I reach the pants. I don't really care to see Rose wearing Lululemon merchandise and Reeboks. But she's young, athletic...It probably makes sense.

I might be making stuff up here, but do you detect an Asian influence on the mug shot? I wonder if Sweet Lilly will be restored as her mother? In volume two, she referred to Adeline Wilson as her mom. I initially assumed that she meant her adoptive mother but that was never confirmed.

We're all tired of events and reboots but the more this one rolls along, the more encouraged I become that we're going to get the Deathstroke we haven't had since the second-to-last year of volume one in the mid 90's. With a sleeker outfit, mind you.