Deathstroke: Rebirth #1 Lettered Preview

Christopher Priest's much-awaited comic book comeback!

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...

>much-awaited
By who?

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DCfags

Variant

FIN

this some bendis style panels?

Looks good. Interviews sounded good too

I fucking love this new costume

Hopefully, it'll look like and not like

This could be good

This looks really good. Priest doesn't look like he's pulling any punches.

>this some bendis style panels?

That's not even close to Bendis-speak.

>The bottom panel is just the second panel rotated
And I bet this is Pagulayan's part now

Stephen Platt NICE!! DC is killing it with these variants.

>hopefully it'll look like this interior page and not this variant
user...

Rebirth design they showed us was like on that variant. I didn't like it.

People who want to read genuinely good capeshit.

>good
Wishful thinking Dick Cock fan? After Suicide Watch bombing all you have left is Rebirth and in a few months when they revert back to 18% you'll cry again while Marvel holds 50%

Me

Might be one of the only good Rebirth one-shot variants. I think Justice League Rebirth was the other (along with maybe Nightwing, for the gaybois and Dickriders).

Wow. That Nu52 design is pretty bad.

Yeah Tony Daniel gave him a slick one later

Ok but that doesn't change the fact that Priest is a good writer.

is this bobby1999 from bleedingcool

He wrote one good comic and that was for Marvel.

So what you're saying is he has an immaculate track record.

He's written lots of comics but only one was good you retard.

lol

Not going to give 2 (You)s.

That is so lazy

First page and Slade is already out of character. That woman is clearly over 18 and much too old.

Priest tries to reset Slade's characterization back to the NTT run and shed his pedo image.

Long suffering Deathstroke fans

He just old again? I hope that means the previous run is erased.

Priest does seem like a good writer. I wish he was on a character I cared about.

Seems like it's acknowledged here rather than ignored, though I can't tell if the "black hair voodoo" comment is a joke about him dying his hair or if he literally used magic to temporarily deage himself

kys pathetic characterfag.

Dont think so.

Isn't this one of costumes he wore in the previous volume?

>Baudelaire said only three beings are worthy of respect-- the priest
Sheesh, full of yourself much, Priest?

>Slade is a hot silver fox again
I missed you baby

Ever since I left the city

People who like good writing?

>He wrote one good comic
Holy shit, start reading comics, son

Lmao

>In the 1990s, writer Christopher Priest was a beloved and acclaimed figure in the comics industry. Priest, who started his writing career in the '80s under the name Jim Owsley, has the dubious distinction of being one of only a few veteran Black writers in American mainstream superhero comics. His work on "Steel" with artist Denys Cowan at DC Comics forged a strong identity for John Irons apart from Superman; "Quantum and Woody," his cult hit Valiant collaboration with M.D. Bright, smartly balanced sharp humor and superheroics; and his five-year run on "Black Panther" helped define the vastly influential Marvel Knights line and re-establish T'Challa as a lead character.

>Yet after his Marvel series "Captain America & The Falcon" wrapped in 2005, Priest has been conspicuously absent from the comics industry. He's resurfaced here and there -- he wrote the "Q2: The Return of Quantum and Woody" miniseries for the current incarnation of Valiant Entertainment, and a short story in 2014's "Deadpool" #27 -- but has focused mainly on writing outside of comics. Part of the reason, Priest explains, is an industry perception of him as a "Black writer" of Black characters, which he felt limited his opportunities.

>So longtime fans were pleasantly surprised when DC announced Priest as the writer of the new, twice-monthly "Deathstroke" series, launching as part of the publisher's Rebirth initiative, intended to bring DC Comics' heroes and villains back to their core concepts. The "Deathstroke: Rebirth" one-shot, out August 10 and illustrated by Carlo Pagulayan, will be immediately familiar to Priest fans thanks to its white-text-on-black-background title cards indicating scene changes. Yet before this assignment, Priest wasn't too familiar with Deathstroke -- as he told CBR, he knew the DC Universe's infamous assassin from his "Teen Titans" history, but had never given any thought to him as a solo character.

It's a shame he got pigeon-holed like that just because he had a good BP run.

>>With the release of "Deathstroke: Rebirth" just days away and a new "Deathstroke" #1 following two weeks later, Priest spoke with CBR about why he was excited about the opportunity the series presented -- namely, moving on from being pigeonholed as a "Black writer" -- and his interest in writing a story with a villain as protagonist, as he pits the title character against his own past, in a quest for possible redemption.

>CBR News: Priest, this is an obvious place to start, but as a longtime fan of your work, I'm personally curious -- we haven't seen much comics work from you in the past 11 years. What was it about this opportunity, writing "Deathstroke" in particular, that lured you back into the game?

>Christopher Priest: He wasn't Black. [Laughs] That's pretty much it.

>Every 18 months or so, I would get a call from Marvel or DC or some independent publisher, and they'd go, "Hey, we've got this great book coming up and we want you to write it." Invariably, it would be a character of color -- usually an African-American character. There were a lot of reasons why I just kind of dropped out of comics eight or nine years ago, but part of the reason was, I started in this business as a writer. Writing Spider-Man, "Power Man and Iron Fist" [at Marvel]. At DC, I was doing "The Ray," "Action Comics," "Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn," things like that. Somehow, over time, I stopped being a writer and became a "Black writer." I'm not really sure exactly how that happened. It's not that I was unwilling to work in the industry or that I quit or retired or anything like that. It's just, this is what I was being offered -- I was being offered exclusively Black characters.

SJWs BTFO

>I kind of let it be known, politely, I'd love to be working in the business again, that would be great, but I want to be taken seriously as a writer, not just as a "Black writer." We'd have these discussions about every 18 months. A company would pitch me an idea, and I'd go, "Well, I'm not really interested in that. How about Martian Manhunter? I've got this great Martian Manhunter idea." Then they'd go, "Well, we've already got somebody working on Martian Manhunter." We'd go back and forth, and then we'd go, "Well, thanks for the call, I'll see you in 18 months." That's kind of what's been going on.

>Marie Javins, the group editor, called and said "Deathstroke" to me, and it stopped me in the tracks for a minute. It took me a minute to remember who he was. [Laughs] And then I asked: "He's that guy from 'Teen Titans,' the guy with the sword, right?" "Yeah, that's him." "OK, alright. Is he Black?" She said no. I said, "OK, keep talking." Frankly, the idea intrigued me to write a villain. I really hadn't written a villain as the major protagonist of a series before. I thought this could be an interesting challenge for me. I gave it some thought, and I called her back: "If I can write it this way -- in a character-driven, introspective way, and get inside the character and examine him kind of the way we did 'Black Panther' -- that would be a really interesting challenge. If it's just going to be him running around killing people, that's a little less appealing."

>We talked about concept, and then she brought in the editor, Alex Antone, and we all worked out a direction. Then [DC Entertainment President & Chief Creative Officer] Geoff Johns came in, and he's kind of the grand papa of it all. We came up with a concept that worked for everybody.

>>Deathstoke is a character that's been around for decades, but it sounds like he's not one you had given much thought to as a writer.

>No. Never! I knew who he was. Albert, I didn't even know the guy had his own book! Apparently he's had his own book for a long time. Since I wasn't actively working in the comics field, I wasn't reading comics. When Marie said, "We're doing this Rebirth event that's going to transition us out of The New 52," I said, "Well, what's The New 52?" She had to go back and explain all that to me. I really haven't read comics in a long time.

>I really liked "Teen Titans" when Marv Wolfman and George Pérez were doing it. That whole "Judas Contract" thing that launched Deathstroke was fabulous and, I thought, very gutsy -- I don't know how they got some of that stuff in print. Marv Wolfman was one of my first mentors, and I really loved his writing, and George Pérez was just a great guy back at Marvel -- and then we lost him to DC, obviously. So, no. Hadn't really thought about writing the character myself at all. I never considered it.

>>Well, now you're diving into the deep end by not only writing the character, but twice a month. That's a different type of pace -- what's it been like getting into the world of Deathstroke in this rapid-fire way?

>though I can't tell if the "black hair voodoo" comment is a joke about him dying his hair or if he literally used magic to temporarily deage himself
he got deaged in the previous run, because reasons. Deaged Slade had black hair

>Actually, it's been a little easier than you might suspect. Alex and I worked up a plotline, and I started writing one-paragraph pitches for issue #1, issue #2, issue #3. I think we did eight or nine issues of, "This is what the story is going to be about." Then we submitted all of that stuff to Geoff, and Geoff came in and said, "This is great, but this is not what we should lead with. We should lead with X, Y, Z." He wasn't feeding us specific plots, but goals, in terms of story. The stuff that we had come up with, we kind of shelved, started again, developed this other [story] in consultation with Geoff. Once we had the new front end up and running, we still had seven or eight issues of story that we had developed previously. So we adapted that stuff into the new front end, and frankly, it's been pretty simple. We basically had eight or nine issues of "Deathstroke" already plotted, and now it's just a matter of executing it.

>Turning the scripts in is a little bit of a challenge, but for me, the hard part is thinking up the story. Writing the script is all mechanical; it's just me doing the typing and coming up with witticisms for [frequent Deathstroke associate] Wintergreen to say to Deathstroke. Alex and I had already plotted out several issues, and then Geoff plotted out several issues with us. We had a real good head start.

>>You've been out of comics for a while, and it's been not an insignificant time since you were doing an ongoing series. What's it like getting back into that rhythm?

Thanks, I didn't actually read it so I figured it was just a new 52 deaging that made him young like everyone else had their ages rolled back some.

>A little strange, but it's kind of like riding a bike. It does come back to you. The first script that Alex and I worked on took an enormous amount of time, in my opinion, mainly because of getting used to that formatting, and books are 20 pages instead of 22 pages. And the fact that, in the interim time, I've been writing a lot of novels. I've been self-publishing novels on Amazon, so I've been doing this longform prose writing, which is much more detailed and takes longer to do, but has been incredibly freeing, and I've enjoyed it a great deal. Now I'm in this format that only has 20 pages -- page 20 comes at you like a freight train. You're having a good time, and all of a sudden -- we have to stop now. "I'm sorry, our time is over." It's taken me a while to get into that rhythm, but it does come back to you pretty quickly.

>>Another big difference of doing a series twice-monthly is you're not working with just one artist. I have fond memories of your partnerships with artists like Denys Cowan and Mark Bright, and on "Deathstroke" you're working with Joe Bennett and Carlo Pagulayan -- what's it been like going back and forth with two artists on one series?

>Part of it is just the genius of Alex Antone. I had not known Carlo's work before, but I could not have possibly asked for a better art team to jump-start this series -- just to really nail all the characterization. My God, this guy does a tremendous job with both Slade and Deathstoke. He's drawing the adventures in two different time periods, so he's jumping back and forth between the present day and 10 years ago. He's handling this brilliantly. Present-day Slade more or less looks like Tom Cruise in "The Last Samurai," only with white hair; then you go back to the flashbacks 10 years ago, and he looks like Steve Rogers -- which is perfect, thematically, in terms of the character's journey. I've just really been happy with him.

>Vitorino and Watanabe got shafted or relocated to other projects

>Alex has divvied up the art duties along thematic lines. Carlo is handling mostly parts of Deathstroke's life where he's dealing with Wintergreen; he's dealing with, eventually, his son; he's dealing with flashbacks. Joe Bennett -- my old pal from "Captain America and The Falcon" and "The Crew" -- we just enjoy the heck out of working with each other. I'm so grateful to have him on the book. His style is completely different from Carlo's, but he's also telling a different part of Deathstroke's story, where Deathstroke is dealing with his teenage daughter, Rose. It works really well. Even though it's a rapid departure in art styles, thematically, soon as you see Joe, you know this block of stories here is dealing with this area of Deathstoke's life, and Carlo is dealing with this other area of Deathstroke's life. It's kind of like changing color palettes in the narrative of the story. It just works out really well.

>>For someone who is both a veteran of the business yet one that's been out of it for a while, what's it been like stepping back into it? You were at Comic-Con a couple weeks ago for the first time in a while, and you're back at DC during the high-profile Rebirth initiative. What observations have you made, as someone with a distinctly unique perspective?

>It's a lot like being Rip Van Winkle. I had assumed printed comic books were on the ropes, and you guys were going all digital. I really hadn't realized that both Marvel and DC are still selling quite a bit of printed, traditional comic books. As far as the continuity and so forth, I have some friends who are acting as researchers for me, who send me summaries and answer my questions, because I have absolutely no idea what's going on. [Laughs] None. There's a lot of catch-up -- I have to go back to school and learn who The Flash is now, because God knows I've lost track of who The Flash is.

>Comic-Con was completely overwhelming. I hadn't been there since 1992.

>>Some pretty big changes in that time!

>Yeah. I really wasn't prepared for that. I also really was not prepared for the fact that, much like "Star Trek," which was canceled in 1969, somehow my work has become more popular in reruns. The last time I worked in the business steadily, no one knew or cared much about me. With "Black Panther," "Steel," "The Ray," "Justice League Task Force," we were fighting for our lives with every issue. To go to San Diego and see the line wrapped around the corner at the booth, waiting to get an autograph, I was like, "Don't you people have something better to do? What are you doing here!" I had very young people come up to me and they're going, "Wow, you're my favorite writer!" "You weren't born yet when I was doing stuff!" [Laughs] It's been a little overwhelming, and I'm still trying to figure out what to make of it.

As for the other two originally announced Deathstroke artists, Igor Vitorino and Felipe Watanabe:
>Vitorino does not have a social media presence is it's unknown that what happened to him
>Watanabe is currently working on a local graphic novel project called JIIN - Fist of Fury (pic related) with colorist Matheus Lopes, out later this year.

pffffff
HAHAHA

I like hearing what Geoff's actual involvement is on Rebirth. Sounds like he really is doing a lot, they almost should add editor to his title.

Gamespot interview:

>>GameSpot: How are you approaching Deathstroke?

>Christopher Priest: Very cautiously. That's the only way to approach a guy like that. I see Deathstroke as being a multilayered and multifaceted character. A lot of time supervillains, in general, are portrayed as one-dimensional. There's almost a rule in literary fiction where your main protagonist has three dimensions, your secondary characters have two, and then other characters, who are often the villains, are just kind of flat so your main characters pop out. Back when Stan Lee and Gerry Conway were writing Spider-Man, we never really got into the nuances of Doctor Octopus or what his particular challenges were. You can't do that when the villain is the protagonist of the series. I can't write Deathstroke in one-dimension in his own comic book.

>Marv Wolfman brilliantly breathed so much life into this character. I've been trying to peel the onion and just explore who he is. There's a tagline I'm trying to sell, "Journey through the mind of a killer." I want to explain, not only his rational for being a supervillain but to really explore, thematically, the whole concept of villainy versus justice. In a way, justice enables villainy because justice requires due process and fairness. The only way to deal with a guy like Deathstroke is for Superman to lock him up, Guantanamo Bay-style and hold him without charge forever. That's not justice though. That's vigilantism.

>>What will be Deathstroke's focus? Will he go on mercenary missions or fight other heroes?

>Yes. [laughs] He'll be doing all that. In the Rebirth issue 1, he has a contract to kill a supervillain who is under the protection of an African despot. He makes a deal to go get the villain. Then the villain wants to make a second deal with him. It's kind of this round robin of who's double crossing who? This is what he does for a living. Over the course of the series, sometimes the missions are foreground, and sometimes they're background. We're also obviously focusing on his struggle to form a reasonable relationship with his children and his ex-wife. Well, I don't think he really thinks too much about forming a relationship with her, but she's definitely in the mix there.

>>The solicit info for the Rebirth issue mentions redemption. How might someone like Deathstroke go about seeking redemption?

>As I see him, Deathstroke is an emotionally tortured individual. He's a guy who desperately wants to love and be loved, but he's incapable of either. In other words, he's incapable of expressing his emotions and incapable of receiving familial love. For example, there's a line in, I think, issue 3 or 4 with Wintergreen where he says, "That's the rule, you can hug him. He can never hug you." It would not occur to Deathstroke to hug [his daughter] Rose. It may occur to him, but he's just not able to do it. The way we're looking at Deathstroke is he's like emotionally arrested. He's like House M.D. but with a machine gun. He's this tortured person who really wants to go to the party and be social, but he just doesn't know how.

>>How big of a role will his kids have in the series?

>Rose is the virtual co-star. She's Robin to his Batman. We will not see her until about issue 3. The reason for that is I am writing the book as though the book has never existed before. People who have never read Deathstroke or don't know anything about him, they should arrive with no fear. We're rolling this out in a way that's like, "Once upon a time there was a man named Slade…" and moving forward from there. In the Rebirth issue and issue 1, we're really establishing who Slade is and getting that foundation in. In issue 2, we introduce Wintergreen. Issue 3 introduces Rose. Jericho will not appear until issue 6, I think. His ex-wife Adeline [Kane Wilson] will also be in issue 6. The series will kind of be like The Sopranos with supervillains. We have this family patriarch who makes his living running around killing people. We'll see the effect that has on the people he loves.

>>Will he be working with someone like Wintergreen on his mercenary missions? Will he have someone to take care of the paperwork?

>Wintergreen doesn't do the paperwork. He's actually a field agent. Wintergreen is still his Barney Rubble to his Fred Flintstone. I'm mixing metaphors now. Marv Wolfman kind of created him to be his Alfred to Deathstroke's rough Batman. Wintergreen's more of a partner. He's not his butler. They have a sort of contentious relationship because when they were both in the military working as independent contractors, Wintergreen was alright with Slade running around wacking dictators or doing something in the name of national security.

>Over the years, Slade has evolved from Slade Wilson into Deathstroke. Deathstroke, as we currently know him, he is eeevil. He is a super-villain. He has some sets of morals. There are things that are extreme that Deathstroke will not go to, but they are few and far between. Wintergreen becomes his moral compass and has less comfort with some of the things Deathstroke does. He does not always agree with the choices Deathstroke makes. There's some interesting tension between these two friends.

>>How much violence and action can we expect?

>Less than before, if only in that the action, violence and bloodletting are no longer the focus of the book. The focus is the consequences of the action and violence and bloodletting. We'll also look at the impact it has on his family. It's not going to be wall-to-wall swordplay and machine guns. Although, that is in here. We'll eventually ratchet that up more than we see in the initial stage of the series. The first handful of issues are really dealing with character. We're trying to flesh them out so when we do put their lives in danger, someone actually cares. If we just focus on the action, then everyone's a cardboard character. Nobody really matters. If Rose gets stabbed or Jericho gets run over by a bread truck, who cares?

>We're focusing on character-driven stories. Then we'll eventually bring back more of the over-the-top stuff that the fans have come to love. My position on Deathstroke is he's a supervillain. He's an assassin. With all due respect to previous writers, they've evolved Deathstroke from being a pure assassin to being this uber-threat. We're bringing him back to being a corrupt dark mirror image of Batman. He's stealthier and doesn't carry all that gear he used to, unless he needs it. If we're dropping him into a war zone, you will see him suit up the way he has been currently. Our version of Deathstroke is silent and stealthy. He creeps out of the shadows, slits your throat, and vanishes back into the black.

Comicosity (sauce) interview:

>Matt Santori-Griffith: Let me start this way, because I’m dying to know: After taking ten years away from the comic book industry, what brought you back?

>Christopher Priest: Matt, it was a couple of things. You say, “Well, you’re back.” But I always felt like I never left. I’m not really sure what it means to say, “You’re back.” Every 18 months or so, I have a conversation with DC or Marvel or one of the independents. Someone would call or email and say, “We’re doing this new book and we’d like you to consider writing it.”

>Invariably, the character would be an African-American character or another character of color.

>And I think right around the time I moved away from comics, somehow I had stopped being a writer and became a “Black writer.” So, I really wanted to move away from just writing characters of color. I would have a discussion with a publisher and they would say, “Do you want to do X?” And I would say, “Well, no. But what about Y? Like, Bubblegum-Man or whatever. How about him?”

>They’d say, “No, we already have someone on Bubblegum-Man.” And that invariably would be the conversation. It was a very polite conversation, but that would be it for another 18 months. That’s pretty much what was going on.

>But to be honest, if DC had offered me their worst, most dog-faced character — like who’s the worst character at DC? — I’ll do that. I just don’t want to just be a “Black writer.” Had DC or Marvel offered me anything that wasn’t an African-American character, I would have been working in the business all this time. I just had arrived in this cul-de-sac, and I’m not sure how I got there.

>Hopefully with Deathstroke, I can be seen again as a candidate for a wide spectrum of things, as I used to be back in the day.

>MSG: One of the other things you’re really well known for — particularly in your Black Panther run — is inserting real world politics into your narratives. That’s already showing up in a huge way in the Deathstroke: Rebirth special.

>CP: I think in Deathstroke, particularly the Rebirth issue, what I was trying to do is assert a bunch of stylistic cues that will be familiar to people who have followed my work.

>You have the title cards — those blackout panels — from Quantum and Woody and Black Panther. Then you have the politics. But basically what I was thinking was, how would Deathstroke solve a particular problem? How would he get from point A to point B in his own unique way?

>Traditionally, he’s pulled out a sword and hacked people to death. But here I’m trying to show you a Deathstroke that has a keen mind, and solves as many problems with his cell phone as he does with his sword. The solution being a political one wasn’t deliberate, but it was about thinking more broadly with the character. Like, here’s all the tools in the toolbox. Why not start a SuperPAC in order to keep this conservative Senator in his seat?

>There’s some blowback to that in issue #2 that I don’t want to give away yet, but what you should find in my handling of Deathstroke is that for every action, there is a consequence and a reaction. In the entire opening arc — with the end showing up somewhere around issue #8 — you will see the ramifications. Because the theme of the arc is consequences of violence. The ramifications of the lifestyle Deathstroke chooses to lead. It will all come full circle, some for the good and some for the detriment of Deathstroke himself.

>MSG: How are you working out that style with artist Carlo Pagulayan in the first set of issues?

>CP: I think Carlo is just brilliant. I could not be happier. And particularly with these first few issues. We’re retelling chunks of Deathstroke’s history, so there are these time jumps between present day and ten years ago. Obviously, in the scenes ten years ago, Deathstroke isn’t in costume, but it’s more character-driven and dealing with his family.

>That relies almost 100% not on my writing, but on Carlo’s ability to convey emotion through the faces and body language of the characters. And he does that remarkably well. I just couldn’t be happier with how that’s all turned out.

>MSG: In scenes set up for ten years ago, we are seeing Slade with his two boys, Grant and Joe. Central to the book, in fact, is Deathstroke’s role as a father, to them and to Rose. Can you talk a little bit about how you plan to work that relationship on both sides for the book?

>CP: Rose is the virtual co-star of the book. She is the Robin to Slade’s Batman. We will not meet her until issue #3, though, because the way I’m approaching this series is that I’m writing it as if there’s never been a Deathstroke book before. Of course there has been and there are some continuity ties that are mentioned, but what I want to do — and what DC is allowing me to do — is pull this series out for people who have never read Deathstroke before. Or for people who have only read the Marv Wolfman/George Perez stuff.

>So, we are introducing Deathstroke in the Rebirth issue and issue #1. Meet Slade Wilson. In issue #2, we are introducing Wintergreen. In issue #3, we are introducing Rose. In issue #4, we will meet Jericho and Adeline, Slade’s wife. So, we’re rolling it out like that.

>These characters are the core of the book. The time jumps in the first few issues — the cutaways to years before — are essentially laying groundwork. Together, you’ll see that the flashbacks all combine to tell the story of Jericho. When you add them all up. They seem to be about Grant, but at some point you’ll realize that actually, if you took them all out and read them together as one story (without going back and forth to the present day), that it’s telling the story of Jericho.

>We’re just laying this foundation, so that by the time they appear in the present day, readers will already know something about them from my laying that groundwork. They’ll be fully realized characters.

>MSG: Any teases or spoilers about Deathstroke’s relationship with Wintergreen? That seems to be the most unexpected return in Rebirth.

>CP: The biggest spoiler was already revealed on the cover, I think: that we’re bringing Wintergreen back.

>Over the years, other writers have whacked out every member of Deathstroke’s supporting cast. Sometimes killed them two or three times! I hate to undo someone else’s work, but I was kind of left with no choice. I had no supporting cast.

>So, we’re rebuilding that relationship. It’s kind of similar to Quantum and Woody in that these are two really different guys. Wintergreen does not always agree with Deathstroke’s agenda, but there’s warmth and the closest thing that passes for love for a guy like Slade. He’s so emotionally crippled that he really can’t express traditional emotion.

>But obviously, these two are like brothers from working together.

>Wintergreen also becomes like the universal ball-joint between Slade and Rose, where Wintergreen can translate Rose to Slade and vice versa. Because for as much as Slade and Rose love each other, they ain’t making it either. It’s like two porcupines trying to hug each other. [laughs]


Watch out for a potential second lettered preview this Monday.

thanks for the interview posts m8

One more, this time from Newsarama:

>When Deathstroke is relaunched as part of DC's "Rebirth" initiative, writer Christopher Priest wants to make the book about more than just how violent the character is, instead exploring thematically how his mercenary life has affected his family. As Priest describes it, "like the Sopranos with super villains."

>Priest, a fan-favorite writer from his run on Black Panther and other DC, Marvel and Valiant titles, is returning to DC for a twice-monthly Deathstroke title, working with artists Carlo Pagulayan, Igor Vitorino and Felipe Watanabe as the series relaunches this month. According to Priest, readers can pick up Deathstroke #1 without having ever read anything about the character before, and he encourages people to give it a try even if they didn't like the character in the past.

>Priest said he's also trying to honor what's come before in Deathstroke stories, but has changed the timeline to fit into current continuity while also bringing back the character's children - in fact, Priest says Rose Wilson will be a co-star in the new Deathstroke title.

>And in the first story arc, readers will get to see Priest writing Batman and his son, Damian Wayne, as Deathstroke's latest job takes him to Gotham City.

>Newsarama talked with Priest to find out more about his plans for Deathstroke.

>Newsarama: Priest, your name being associated with "Rebirth" was one of the surprises DC announced. How did you get involved?

>Christopher Priest: Well first, I didn't know what Rebirth was. Marie Javins, one of the editors from DC Comics, contacted me about Deathstroke, and she mentioned, "well, we're doing this 'Rebirth' event that's going to transition us from the 'New 52.'"

>And I said, "Great! What's the 'New 52?'"

>So she got to really go back and explain this whole relaunch - all the stuff going on at DC Comics - because I really wasn't focused on comics. I was working in other fields and doing some ministry and writing novels. I just really wasn't reading comics and had no idea about what was going on.

>The Deathstroke thing appealed to me really because, in the intervening years, I had approached Marvel, I had approached DC, some independents, and I pitched ideas to various publishers, and invariably, they'd try to go, well, you know, we're not really that interested in that, or, that's a great idea, but we already… like, I pitched a Western to Marvel, and they liked it a lot, but they were already doing a Western. And they said, "Well, we can't do two at the same time."

>So it would be these mismatches where, things that I wanted to do, the publishers were either already doing them or were not that interested in doing those projects.

>And then invariably, they would pitch projects to me that I didn't want to do. Most of them involved African-American characters or characters of color. And I felt like I was becoming typecast and moving from being a writer, as I was with Green Lantern and Batman and so forth - somehow I stopped being a writer and had become a quote-unquote "black" writer, and was almost exclusively offered characters of color - African-American characters in particular.

>So I'd explain to virtually anyone who would sit still and listen that, you know, I appreciate the offer and that you thought of me, but I hope you'll think of me for something other than just ethnically-based series.

>Frankly, if any of the publishers had offered me, you know, "Potato Man" - you know, the worst, least interesting character you've got, I probably would have taken it, just to get away from only doing characters of color.

>Nrama: You ended up with a character that people love - he's often cited as a favorite - but he's also challenging because it seems like most people can't really quantify what makes him great, besides the advantages he has when fighting. How would you describe him as a character?

>Priest: Yeah, I see him certainly as kind of a corrupt version of Batman, but in many ways a corrupt version of Captain America. In our series, we are frequently telling stories in two different timelines - the current day and "10 years ago."

>In the flashback sequences, we see Slade, who is drawn by Carl Pagulayan, looking a lot like Steve Rogers in Captain America.

>I see his character arc as beginning as a nearly heroic figure, when he was in the military. He went quickly from the enlisted ranks to the officer ranks. And he was kind of a rascal - kind of like George Clooney in Three Kings - but he was more of less and altruistic character who was fighting for America.

>And then we see the turn. We see Anakin Skywalker turn toward Darth Vader. And it follows this gravitational pull of villainy.

>And I think that turn really cemented itself when his son was kidnapped and ended up getting his throat slashed. I think from that point, he stops being like a rascal or anti-hero or mercenary. After Joseph, after he loses his second son, I think he just spirals into this person who's completely morally ambiguous and becomes fully-fledged as Deathstroke.

>By the way, it's interesting that you say he's people's favorite character. I didn't even know that when we started talking about the book. I didn't know he had a book. And I certainly had no idea - I don't even know how Deathstroke became this popular, because I didn't realize he was popular.

>It's a blessing and a curse, because I was able to develop the character in a pseudo-ignorance, without really worrying all that much about the fan base or the support that the character currently enjoys. I was able to kind of create it without a fear of all of that.

>And now I'm just kind of terrified! Because what we're doing is a distinct step away from what the book was before. So I have a great deal of nervousness and trepidation about how what we're doing will be received.

>Nrama: Well, people called him a favorite villain, but I don't think people were running out and buying his books all the time, so it probably makes sense to try something new with him, as long as it's sticking to what the original essence of the character has been. I assume you did research on Deathstroke?

>Priest: Oh yeah. Well, obviously.

>First of all, my frame of reference with Deathstroke was rather narrow. It was Marv Wolfman and George Pérez. So when Marie pitched the character to me, that's the picture that flashed in my head, was George Pérez art and that whole business with the "Judas Contract."

>So I was familiar with a lot of his history. I was not as familiar with the "New 52" version or interpretations just prior to that.

>What I'm trying to do in my series is create what I am calling a composite history. In my opinion, I feel like all versions of Deathstroke are valid. Just like with Black Panther, I felt like it wasn't good for a writer to say another writer's work was invalid or never happened. That's happened to me and it's really unpleasant. In Black Panther, I tried to preserve virtually all versions and interpretations of Black Panther, including the Jack Kirby one, which was really tough to do, and make it work within current continuity.

>So what I'm doing in Deathstroke is I'm trying not to say, you know, one guy's Deathstroke didn't happen or didn't exist. But what we're doing is taking a lot of Deathstroke's history - and some of it was thought up, these events were thought up over a span of several years - and what we're doing is just adjusting the timeline so some of these events, they all happened, but some of them happened concurrently or happened closer in time than they actually did in the published books. Because, you know, if we did it as written, then Rose would be 40 or something, and Jericho would a be a senior citizen.

>So we had to make some of those kinds of changes, but I'm trying to respect the hard work that writers in the past have done.

>Nrama: You keep mentioning Deathstroke's family. I noticed that Rose is in the first story arc, and you've also got Deathstroke interacting with Batman - including a great cover with Deathstroke and Damian Wayne coming up. Can you talk about the supporting cast, or who the people are around Deathstroke, as well as how he'll interact with the greater DCU?

>Priest: Well, we're basically bringing his family back. The book, you know, in as much as let's say the West Wing was about politics, it really was a workplace drama. It was about this family that occupies this space and accomplishes these tasks and has these conflicts. Deathstroke, in my view, is a family drama. It's like the Sopranos with super villains.

>Slade is the family patriarch who makes his living by running around and whacking people. So he has this morally ambiguous occupation, and he's not above using people, including his own kids, to achieve some goal.

>So it's really about this dysfunctional family, including Wintergreen who is kind of, you know, the wacky uncle in a lot of ways.

>Rose ends up being more or less the co-star of the book. She is Robin to his Batman.

>And then Jericho will enter the series with issue #6 and play his own role. Jericho will be struggling against a gravitational pull of Deathstroke's villainy. So Deathstroke will be desperately trying to be a heroic figure while Rose is more morally ambiguous, like her father.

>So you end up with, well, Grant was the bad kid, Joseph is the good son, and Rose kind of weaves both good guy/bad guy - it all depends on which side of the bench she gets up on, how she's going to react. But that's basically how that works.

>We are bringing back his entire family and his traditional cast, which was a difficult choice, because, as I said, I really hate invalidating someone else's work or saying it didn't count. But we really just didn't have a whole lot of choice as we relaunched the series. Other writers have killed off his entire supporting cast - some more than once - and we really had no choice but to hit the reset button and bring these people back.

>Nrama: I'm sure there will be fans happy about that. Then to finish up, is there anything else you want to let people know about what you're hoping to do with Deathstroke?

>Priest: Thematically, the book runs along a kind of introspective investigation of the concepts of villainy and justice.

>For example, one way of dealing with Deathstroke would be for Superman to lock him up Guantanamo Bay-style in some kind of ultra-secure prison, without charge, and just leave him there. And that would solve the problem of Deathstroke. But that would not be justice. That would be vigilantism.

>And so what my Deathstroke book says is, the price that the DC Universe pays for justice is that people like Deathstroke are out there running around.

>Because as opposed to vigilantism, justice requires a due process and a court of law. And guys like Deathstroke are experts at not getting caught, not leaving evidence. And Deathstroke has the same sort of financial resources that Batman does, which means he has a cadre of lawyers that can get him out of just about any situation.

>So that's thematically what it's about.

>And then on a lower level, it's about family. And it's something that everyone can identify with. Some people might shy away from a character like Deathstroke because, you know, all of the blood-letting and the swordplay and violence and all that other stuff.

>But even if you don't like that type of violent stuff, this book is not about the swordplay and the violence - it's about the consequences of the swordplay and the violence, and the effect that has on this American family, and why this family's so deeply dysfunctional.

>So I think that's the main things I'd like people to know about the book. If you don't know anything at all about Deathstroke, you can easily get into it right from the jump, and even if the type of character Deathstroke is is less appealing to you, you will find something in this book that does appeal to you, because it's written on a myriad of levels.

One page In and its already better than Tony Daniel's entire run

I guess it's good to keep in mind how he gets away with it so you don't escalate too much into "why isn't he caught yet" kind of stuff.

Nice

I think he just means the panel art being cut and pasted 5 times. I'm more apt to call it Kirkman paneling, but it has been in comics for a while.

Bendis does seem to script into his books to copy the same panel over, but I think it's more on the artist here.

Though with double-shipping some shortcuts are understandable. Just hope the book isn't all like that.

I prefer to think that the artists take the stance that if Bendis isn't putting work into his scripts and dialogue, why should they put effort into their art.

>"Wow, you're my favorite writer!" "You weren't born yet when I was doing stuff!" [Laughs]
Aw, that's cute

He got the crappie beaten out of him so bad his healing factor went into overdrive & not only made him younger but it restored his missing eye.

Honestly, I'm hyped for this.

As you should
Priest is good

>He Wasn't Black
what?

Fucking priest
I wonder if he'd do any more if DC doesn't give him a black guy
I think he wanted to write batman a long time ago and I'd kill for something from him

Priest doesn't want to be "the black writer"
I.e. Getting pigeonholed into writing just black people
Like wanting to write Hal GL (the main one) but getting John (a secondary on) instead

They don't call him Christopher "Empty my nine at the welfare line" Priest for nothing

He did write some Batman

The main book?

Is he black himself? Why did they keep doing that to him?

Yes he's black

Yeah

Great, a black man ashamed of being black...

Well that's one less writer that won't be working at Marvel anytime soon.

He did write some Hal GL

his GL comics weren't that good but the novels were pretty sweet

>I actively avoid reading context when drawing conclusions