Toon Titans v. Comics Titans, and Why I Miss the Nineties
So, like, *everybody* knows about me and Slade, e.g. Te commenting that I was married to the man. Most people also know that the Slade of my heart is the Slade Wolfman and Devin wrote, most specifically the Slade of New Teen Titans, Deathstroke, and Nightwing.
And I like current!Slade. I do. He's creepy and menacing and smart and scary and very, very good at what he does. He is *a* form of Slade.
But I don't *love* him, because he's Not My Slade, certainly not one I know from any comic.
It used to be that Slade had friends.
Seriously! Not allies, not people he could use, not enemies grudgingly working with him, the man had *friends*.
Excerpt from chat with Marcelo:
me: (on a side note, wanna know something else about nineties deathstroke that is awesome?)
marcelo: always!
me: he has FRIENDS.
marcelo: whee
who?
me: he has this support system of people he likes and trusts all over the world!
marcelo: damn, he would. should. every soldier knows that he's just the cutting edge of a whole system
me: frannie, who scolds him for letting his weapons get dirty and cleans his gun for him. this black lady in the usa who handles his money and scolds him for not making good investing choices. his weapons maker, guy named squirrel.
marcelo: OMG. glee
me: he has an entire houseful of prostitute friends who he LIKES AND TRUSTS and treats as people
(and, okay, yes, now i want even more smut.)
marcelo: blinks adores
me: frannie is all 'and if i were twenty years younger i could make you forget all about adeline,' and he's all 'i bet you could now' and she's all 'flatterer' and i squee. FRIENDS. MY BOY HAS FRIENDS. okay, so this one happens to be his stepmother, shut up.
marcelo: blows rawsperries at DC
me: i want nineties deathstroke back, gorram it.
marcelo: word
me: and this is in the first five issues. setting up this entire network, friends and possible lovers and a support system and people he trusts and... and he has *friends*. i. honest-to-god friends.
marcelo: how come we have to be surprised at sane, interesting people having friends?
me: one, he's not sane. two, current slade wouldn't.
which is another reason i hate current canon.
(well, i don't think he would. feel free to change my mind, comics!)
I still don't think current!Slade would have honest-to-God *friends*. One, he sure as hell doesn't seem to have *family*, yes Johns and Beechen I am looking at you. This is the only time I will mention Titans East.
Two, there's no reason to like this Slade as, like, a person, only as a soldier. Used to be that Slade had a sense of humor, had honor, was an utterly magnificent scary crazy man, did things like stop muggers from robbing a Salvation Army Santa by... um. Shooting them in the kneecaps.
Now he's just scary.
And this matters.
Sisterjoanjulian: *eyes various bunnies* stop ganging up on me, go attack someone else.
cofoegbu: Ohhh, now we're getting somewhere. Any with Slade in 'em?
Sisterjoanjulian: only *tons*, dude, this is me.
Sisterjoanjulian: i have about a hundred fics, in various stages of completion, in my saved draft gmail folder. most of them involve slade in some way.
cofoegbu: *chuckles* Well, I shouldn't be surprised - you all seem to have characters that do that for you.
cofoegbu: 'You' being the writers, I mean.
Sisterjoanjulian: yes.
Sisterjoanjulian: slade has taken over my brain.
cofoegbu: Ever tried to analyze just what it is about him?
Sisterjoanjulian: *laughs* yes.
Sisterjoanjulian: I love original-comics!Slade for his ethics, for the fact that he knows he's damaged, for his humor and his honor and the mistakes he makes and the fact that he knows he made them. I love him because he falls in love with the people who make him work, the ones who don't make it easy. I love him because he loses his temper and then he doesn't think clearly. When he does think clearly, he thinks faster and better than anyone else.
Sisterjoanjulian: I love toon!Slade because he went after a city to get one kid and is totally fine with that. I love him because he is brilliant, in a cold, icy, unemotional style. I love him because he knew exactly how to mess with Robin and bring out the terrifying Bat in him, because he kept his word even as an amoral supervillain, because he told Trigon "I am no one's servant," because he couldn't be a fluffy bunny if his life depended on it.
Sisterjoanjulian: Those two people are not the same. They have similarities, but they're not the same, and I love them for different reasons. I don't want comics!Slade to become toon!Slade.
cofoegbu: I was going to say "ever succeeded" but now i'm just reading intently.
cofoegbu: There's something pure about Toon!Slade that I believe Comic!Slade either lacks or has diluted, due to the greater volume of complexity (and silliness) in his life. He has/had Wintergreen and Adeline and Joey and alladem; Toon!Slade on the other hand is kinda like the Afro Samurai: he walks the world knowing no love and shedding no tears, if you catch my drift B-)
Sisterjoanjulian: i do entirely. toon!slade is... he's a lot like an unsheathed knife, in some ways. always a weapon. comics!slade, on the other hand, once made very sure that there were times and places where he wasn't dangerous. i'm not sure he still has that. he's becoming a lot like toon!slade, but in ways that i don't entirely approve of.
cofoegbu: but in ways that i don't entirely approve of
cofoegbu: Yes! Exactly!
Sisterjoanjulian: he's becoming *unrecognizable*. slade's never been the taking-something-over TYPE. he's a mercenary, a hunter. he fights for the sheer *fun* of it, not so he can join some elite society of supervillains. deathstroke doesn't care about supervillains unless they get in his way.
cofoegbu: Mmm-hmm, big-game hunter, not assassin and defnitely not supervillain.
Sisterjoanjulian: he's a merc because he enjoys the FIGHTING, dc, not because he wants to take over cities. or blow them up, thanks very much.
Sisterjoanjulian: there's no *fun* to blowing up a city. no style, no challenge.
Sisterjoanjulian: it's not his style at all.
cofoegbu: He has become utterly without ... goals, I guess.
Sisterjoanjulian: (yes, yes, i'm still whining about that one, even after i fanwanked to make it make sense.)
Sisterjoanjulian: he's never really had long-term goals like lex does, but this -- this is just ridiculous.
Sisterjoanjulian: one of the other things i love about slade? during the deathstroke book, the man had FRIENDS.
cofoegbu: Yep. It was one of the things that kept him on a certain keel. Soldiers don't necessarily work alone, or sell themselves to the nearest baldheaded man with something resembling a plan.
Sisterjoanjulian: and that's another difference with toon!slade. toon!slade has soldiers, apprentices, etc. he doesn't have friends. the slade in current canon... i don't think he does, either.
One of the interesting things I discovered about Beechen recently is that he wrote rather a lot of Toon Titans, including one of my very favorite episodes of all TIME: Beechen wrote Haunted.
That episode, for those who never followed Toon Titans, is the one where we find out that Robin's been keeping Slade memorabilia -- like various weapons and also oh, yes, Slade's *mask* -- in the Tower for unknown amounts of time, and Robin also begins hallucinating that Slade is there talking to him. Robin flat refuses to believe Slade could really die, Robin is intimately familiar with Slade's ruined lair, Robin *hurts Starfire* because she 'let' Slade escape. Robin is *creepy and obsessive*, and Slade is very very violent. Like, more so than usual. Haunted made every slasher fan of Toon Titans SCREAM IN JOY, and also made a couple of us refuse to permit small children to watch that ep.
This, however, is actually kind of the problem! Toon!Slade isn't comics!Slade, I don't *want* him to be toon!Slade, and Beechen doesn't know nearly enough of comics!Slade to be able to write anything *but* toon!Slade. A dumber version, at that.
I don't actually want to go back to the nineties, because the cover art hurts my eyes as well as my very SOUL, but darn it I want wee baby Tim back and also I want Steph and also I want Slade!
And I like current!Slade. I do. He's creepy and menacing and smart and scary and very, very good at what he does. He is *a* form of Slade.
But I don't *love* him, because he's Not My Slade, certainly not one I know from any comic.
It used to be that Slade had friends.
Seriously! Not allies, not people he could use, not enemies grudgingly working with him, the man had *friends*.
Excerpt from chat with Marcelo:
me: (on a side note, wanna know something else about nineties deathstroke that is awesome?)
marcelo: always!
me: he has FRIENDS.
marcelo: whee
who?
me: he has this support system of people he likes and trusts all over the world!
marcelo: damn, he would. should. every soldier knows that he's just the cutting edge of a whole system
me: frannie, who scolds him for letting his weapons get dirty and cleans his gun for him. this black lady in the usa who handles his money and scolds him for not making good investing choices. his weapons maker, guy named squirrel.
marcelo: OMG. glee
me: he has an entire houseful of prostitute friends who he LIKES AND TRUSTS and treats as people
(and, okay, yes, now i want even more smut.)
marcelo: blinks adores
me: frannie is all 'and if i were twenty years younger i could make you forget all about adeline,' and he's all 'i bet you could now' and she's all 'flatterer' and i squee. FRIENDS. MY BOY HAS FRIENDS. okay, so this one happens to be his stepmother, shut up.
marcelo: blows rawsperries at DC
me: i want nineties deathstroke back, gorram it.
marcelo: word
me: and this is in the first five issues. setting up this entire network, friends and possible lovers and a support system and people he trusts and... and he has *friends*. i. honest-to-god friends.
marcelo: how come we have to be surprised at sane, interesting people having friends?
me: one, he's not sane. two, current slade wouldn't.
which is another reason i hate current canon.
(well, i don't think he would. feel free to change my mind, comics!)
I still don't think current!Slade would have honest-to-God *friends*. One, he sure as hell doesn't seem to have *family*, yes Johns and Beechen I am looking at you. This is the only time I will mention Titans East.
Two, there's no reason to like this Slade as, like, a person, only as a soldier. Used to be that Slade had a sense of humor, had honor, was an utterly magnificent scary crazy man, did things like stop muggers from robbing a Salvation Army Santa by... um. Shooting them in the kneecaps.
Now he's just scary.
And this matters.
Sisterjoanjulian: *eyes various bunnies* stop ganging up on me, go attack someone else.
cofoegbu: Ohhh, now we're getting somewhere. Any with Slade in 'em?
Sisterjoanjulian: only *tons*, dude, this is me.
Sisterjoanjulian: i have about a hundred fics, in various stages of completion, in my saved draft gmail folder. most of them involve slade in some way.
cofoegbu: *chuckles* Well, I shouldn't be surprised - you all seem to have characters that do that for you.
cofoegbu: 'You' being the writers, I mean.
Sisterjoanjulian: yes.
Sisterjoanjulian: slade has taken over my brain.
cofoegbu: Ever tried to analyze just what it is about him?
Sisterjoanjulian: *laughs* yes.
Sisterjoanjulian: I love original-comics!Slade for his ethics, for the fact that he knows he's damaged, for his humor and his honor and the mistakes he makes and the fact that he knows he made them. I love him because he falls in love with the people who make him work, the ones who don't make it easy. I love him because he loses his temper and then he doesn't think clearly. When he does think clearly, he thinks faster and better than anyone else.
Sisterjoanjulian: I love toon!Slade because he went after a city to get one kid and is totally fine with that. I love him because he is brilliant, in a cold, icy, unemotional style. I love him because he knew exactly how to mess with Robin and bring out the terrifying Bat in him, because he kept his word even as an amoral supervillain, because he told Trigon "I am no one's servant," because he couldn't be a fluffy bunny if his life depended on it.
Sisterjoanjulian: Those two people are not the same. They have similarities, but they're not the same, and I love them for different reasons. I don't want comics!Slade to become toon!Slade.
cofoegbu: I was going to say "ever succeeded" but now i'm just reading intently.
cofoegbu: There's something pure about Toon!Slade that I believe Comic!Slade either lacks or has diluted, due to the greater volume of complexity (and silliness) in his life. He has/had Wintergreen and Adeline and Joey and alladem; Toon!Slade on the other hand is kinda like the Afro Samurai: he walks the world knowing no love and shedding no tears, if you catch my drift B-)
Sisterjoanjulian: i do entirely. toon!slade is... he's a lot like an unsheathed knife, in some ways. always a weapon. comics!slade, on the other hand, once made very sure that there were times and places where he wasn't dangerous. i'm not sure he still has that. he's becoming a lot like toon!slade, but in ways that i don't entirely approve of.
cofoegbu: but in ways that i don't entirely approve of
cofoegbu: Yes! Exactly!
Sisterjoanjulian: he's becoming *unrecognizable*. slade's never been the taking-something-over TYPE. he's a mercenary, a hunter. he fights for the sheer *fun* of it, not so he can join some elite society of supervillains. deathstroke doesn't care about supervillains unless they get in his way.
cofoegbu: Mmm-hmm, big-game hunter, not assassin and defnitely not supervillain.
Sisterjoanjulian: he's a merc because he enjoys the FIGHTING, dc, not because he wants to take over cities. or blow them up, thanks very much.
Sisterjoanjulian: there's no *fun* to blowing up a city. no style, no challenge.
Sisterjoanjulian: it's not his style at all.
cofoegbu: He has become utterly without ... goals, I guess.
Sisterjoanjulian: (yes, yes, i'm still whining about that one, even after i fanwanked to make it make sense.)
Sisterjoanjulian: he's never really had long-term goals like lex does, but this -- this is just ridiculous.
Sisterjoanjulian: one of the other things i love about slade? during the deathstroke book, the man had FRIENDS.
cofoegbu: Yep. It was one of the things that kept him on a certain keel. Soldiers don't necessarily work alone, or sell themselves to the nearest baldheaded man with something resembling a plan.
Sisterjoanjulian: and that's another difference with toon!slade. toon!slade has soldiers, apprentices, etc. he doesn't have friends. the slade in current canon... i don't think he does, either.
One of the interesting things I discovered about Beechen recently is that he wrote rather a lot of Toon Titans, including one of my very favorite episodes of all TIME: Beechen wrote Haunted.
That episode, for those who never followed Toon Titans, is the one where we find out that Robin's been keeping Slade memorabilia -- like various weapons and also oh, yes, Slade's *mask* -- in the Tower for unknown amounts of time, and Robin also begins hallucinating that Slade is there talking to him. Robin flat refuses to believe Slade could really die, Robin is intimately familiar with Slade's ruined lair, Robin *hurts Starfire* because she 'let' Slade escape. Robin is *creepy and obsessive*, and Slade is very very violent. Like, more so than usual. Haunted made every slasher fan of Toon Titans SCREAM IN JOY, and also made a couple of us refuse to permit small children to watch that ep.
This, however, is actually kind of the problem! Toon!Slade isn't comics!Slade, I don't *want* him to be toon!Slade, and Beechen doesn't know nearly enough of comics!Slade to be able to write anything *but* toon!Slade. A dumber version, at that.
I don't actually want to go back to the nineties, because the cover art hurts my eyes as well as my very SOUL, but darn it I want wee baby Tim back and also I want Steph and also I want Slade!