The Judas Contract

[ratcreature]

I read the The New Teen Titans: The Judas Contract TPB (written by Marv Wolfman, pencils by George Pérez, inks by various) today, and though I had fun reading it, it was still weird in a way. The cause for this feeling was mainly that of course Dick's transition from Robin to Nightwing has been retconned to much more confrontational versions, and I

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Re: Various

[greenygal]

It's tough, because despite everything, I find myself liking Slade's character more often than not, and his having an affair with a 15-year-old girl is reeeeally tough to get past.

I've never really had a problem with this. This is in large part because of the fifteen-year-old girl in question (it's not as though he took advantage of her blushing innocence, and like 'Rith I'm pretty sure it was her idea to start with), but also, well, I don't consider having sex with a consenting fifteen-year-old nearly as bad as trying to kill a bunch of teenagers for no better reason than because your psycho son tried to kill them and failed. If I can forgive him for the main plot of the Judas Contract (and for better or worse, I pretty much have, although I still think the Titans, and Gar specifically, let him off too lightly on that count), then sleeping with Tara is no big problem.

This is, however, a good moment to mention an issue late in the run of Slade's own book, wherein he gets drunk, picks a girl up in a bar, and is appalled to then find out (before anything happens) that she's sixteen. And then he gets upset with her father (who turns out to be selling her), and he has all these issues, and there's a big fight and he gets mauled and--anyway, this is the point where Wintergreen steps in and basically tells him to get his head out of his ass and stop screwing up (he specifically cites hitting on a teenager, there), or Wintergreen is going to split before Slade ends up getting them both killed. It's a great issue just on its own merits, but I think the subtextual point it's meant to be making about Terra (which episode Wintergreen calls "moronic") is that that wasn't normal behavior for Slade, but a warning signal that he'd gotten into a Very Bad Mental Place and needed to be shaken out of it. Or possibly beaten out of it, given who we're talking about. (And even if that's not what Wolfman meant, it's what I say it meant. So there. ;)

As for Slade and Wintergreen, well, obviously they love each other, even if Addie hadn't kindly underlined the point for us. And it's true that in DEATHSTROKE, Wintergreen is presented as the opposite number of Addie's second-in-command, who's hopelessly and unrequitedly in love with her. But somehow I've just never got the sense that they have, or want to have, a sexual relationship. Well, okay, maybe occasionally, when they're stuck in the jungle after a mission gone sour trekking back to civilization. That sort of thing. Once they get back to civilization, though, I'm pretty sure they go find women to celebrate with. (Mind you, Wintergreen would be better for Slade, or at least less likely to try to kill him, than most of the women he does sleep with...)