"Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons (CW Seed)" Series Talkback (Spoilers)

[Yojimbo]

Ten years ago, Slade Wilson—aka the super-assassin called Deathstroke—made a tragic mistake and his wife and son paid a terrible price. Now, a decade later, Wilson’s family is threatened once again by the murderous Jackal and the terrorists of H.IV.E. Can Deathstroke atone for the sins of the past—or will his family pay the ultimate price?

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-Official Website
-Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons News and Discussion

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[Otaku-sempai]

Well, I'm not going to provide a rating after only one episode, but this Deathstroke miniseries is off to an interesting start. I see that big brother Grant doesn't seem to exist here, and I guess that is Rose actually older than Joseph. Speaking of which, Joe seems to have a completely different power set. It also looks like the show might completely ignore the Teen Titans. Is this emulating some Nu-52 continuity that I am unfamiliar with? Or is it going in a completely different and more original direction? At least this isn't playing off of the Arrowverse continuity.

 

[Frontier]

Having watched the first part, I'm so far really enjoying this new CWSeed animation. The animation from Titmouse is very colorfully stylized to be both memorable and dynamic, and the action sequences are also pretty great as well. Definitely fitting for a cartoon about Deathstroke .

Michael Chiklis is surprisingly effective at embodying The Terminator. Cold, efficient, sardonic, but warm in his own way when it comes to his family, although even then it could be easy to mistake it for a mask for Slade's violent tendencies. All around I really loved his performance as Deathstroke .

I'm actually surprised by how much they retained from Slade's comic origin. His relationship with Adeline, the experiment that turned him into Deathstroke, Adeline not knowing about Slade being a mercenary, and Joey's fate. About the only major things they removed were Grant and Adeline being the one to take Slade's eye after what happened to Joey. Which makes me wonder how Slade lost it in this continuity .

Adaptions usually leave her out, so it was nice to see a proper adaption of Adeline here, and Sasha Alexander captured her well as the tough-as-nails, maternal, and committed woman who Slade fell in love with...and then grew to hate him .

Was that black swordswoman Onyx? She and Jackal seemed to have a thing going on, judging by how they reacted to each other when Slade gutted her .

Adeline totally bugged Slade when she kissed him .

I love how Bronze Tiger loses his arm again and then goes to the trouble of thinking it's not worth it to fire on an escaping Slade, only for Slade to be petty enough to still launch a missile at him .

Colin Salmon really seems to enjoy popping up in DC productions. Walter Steele on Arrow, General Zod on Krypton, and now Slade's trusty best pal Wintergreen. Not that I mind .

I figured the Hive Queen was Rose the moment I noticed her hair was white (setting aside the fact that I recognized Faye Mata) and it became especially clear when it became more obvious how personal this vendetta against Slade was. Not to mention she seemed fairly empathetic to Slade abandoning Joey. I also figured it was probably the affair that birthed Rose that was the betrayal Adeline was talking about at the beginning .

Although they call her "Jade" in the credits, so are they changing her real name ?

Who wants to bet that this series ends with Rose losing her eye? To be honest, I was expecting it would happen when Slade set off the explosion .

I love how Slade doesn't even want to bother fighting Shiva, so he just surrenders and then gets out of there the moment he grabs Joey .

Jericho's powers are usually just mind-transference through eye contact, but here it's a more typical Omega-level telepathy. Maybe they thought it would be more conducive towards letting him speak post-injury instead of relying on sign language. Of course, Jericho is also usually a hero instead of a villain, but I guess Wilson kids got to stick together, and Griffin Puatu really sold Joey's angst and righteous fury at his father .

Jackal is apparently still around, and he put Rose in charge of HIVE, so I wonder when he'll make a re-appearance. Maybe he'll be the proper Final Boss of the series ?

Well, I'm not going to provide a rating after only one episode, but this Deathstroke miniseries is off to an interesting start. I see that big brother Grant doesn't seem to exist here, and I guess that is Rose actually older than Joseph. Speaking of which, Joe seems to have a completely different power set. It also looks like the show might completely ignore the Teen Titans. Is this emulating some Nu-52 continuity that I am unfamiliar with? Or is it going in a completely different and more original direction? At least this isn't playing off of the Arrowverse continuity.

I'd say they took elements from several different takes on Deathstroke from the comics, but for the most part I'd say they've pulled a lot from Marv Wolfman's work with Slade.

 

[Yojimbo]

Oh, so it was just six episodes combined into one part that's 38 minutes long? Sigh. Whatever then.

 

[Fone Bone]

Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons "Part One"

The story ain't so hot, but I really dug the animation style. That's about the long and short of my review this time. ***1/2.

 

[Yojimbo]

I'm came into this ambivalent because I wasn't chomping at the bit for a Deathstroke solo story... and unfortunately that didn't change much. I was a little surprised J.M. DeMatteis wrote this. But to be fair, the movie versions tend to be better because CW Seed chops a good 15 minutes out usually with these titles.

My grip was H.I.V.E. came off more like the League of Assassins here. Also pretty lame there was very, very little promotion of this show then a sudden announcement of it streaming today.

Glad they went with a new look for the character design, by a Chris George.

Interesting they went with a real island, Kerguelen instead of a fictional DC one. I suppose that's the one accurate hat tip to H.I.V.E. since Kerguelen is mostly used for scientific research and in the comics H.I.V.E. was founded by rogue scientists.

I think that was Onyx, too. I tweeted DeMatteis so we may get a definitive answer in a day or so.

 

[Frontier]

My grip was H.I.V.E. came off more like the League of Assassins here. Also pretty lame there was very, very little promotion of this show then a sudden announcement of it streaming today.

They didn't really depict HIVE much differently from how they're usually handled, although maybe you get that impression when they have people associated with the LoA like Shiva or Bronze Tiger working for them.

But I figure that's just to throw in named characters with pedigrees for Deathstroke to fight.

Glad they went with a new look for the character design, by a Chris George.

It's not associated with the Arrowverse or DC Animated Features, and is animated by Titmouse, so it makes sense to use a different character designer then we're used to.

Frankly I'm not sure if Bourassa's designs would've looked as fluid in animation as these did...

 

[Yojimbo]

DeMatteis says she is not Onyx but did not divulge who she is because "she ends up being...significant." So we'll get an answer in either part 2 or the movie, whichever comes out first.

 

[Frontier]

DeMatteis says she is not Onyx but did not divulge who she is because "she ends up being...significant." So we'll get an answer in either part 2 or the movie, whichever comes out first.

Oooh... all mysterious .

 

[Otaku-sempai]

Having watched the first part, I'm so far really enjoying this new CWSeed animation. The animation from Titmouse is very colorfully stylized to be both memorable and dynamic, and the action sequences are also pretty great as well. Definitely fitting for a cartoon about Deathstroke .

I meant to mention the unusual pop-art aesthetic of the show. I'm glad I'm not the only one to notice it.

 

[Yojimbo]

They didn't really depict HIVE much differently from how they're usually handled, although maybe you get that impression when they have people associated with the LoA like Shiva or Bronze Tiger working for them.

Well for most of their animated appearances, they were associated with Brother Blood, and the one solo appearance that comes to mind is JLA when it was just the bee outfits and a H.I.V.E. Master. The latter is kinda my mindset of what H.I.V.E. is and doesn't involve named characters with their own costumes.

 

[Otaku-sempai]

Watch: Joseph is an only child, but Rose has older sister Jade (I hope not).

 

[Frontier]

Well for most of their animated appearances, they were associated with Brother Blood, and the one solo appearance that comes to mind is JLA when it was just the bee outfits and a H.I.V.E. Master. The latter is kinda my mindset of what H.I.V.E. is and doesn't involve named characters with their own costumes.

HIVE's never really had named enforcers. The closest they got, that I remember, is hiring Deathstroke and Grant.

So that's probably why they picked some major fighters from the DC Universe.

 

[mido3issa]

When will the 2nd episode release ?

 

[Yojimbo]

When will the 2nd episode release ?

That information has not been released. Hopefully later this year.

 

[Frontier]

Also pretty lame there was very, very little promotion of this show then a sudden announcement of it streaming today.

For what it's worth, I've seen advertisments for it during the commercials for Crisis on Infinite Earths

That information has not been released. Hopefully later this year.

Hopefully not as long as it took them to release the second half of Constantine...

 

[bigdaddy313]

That was actually a very interesting episode

 

[Yojimbo]

Hopefully not as long as it took them to release the second half of Constantine...

As as it comes out BEFORE the Blu-ray/DVD release this time.

EDIT: Also did some minor digging around. The country Deathstroke is in at the start was San Miguel. It's a Central American country from the comics. Notably in New Titans #70, Deathstroke was hired by the government to protect a revolutionary. And it dates back to a 1940 Hit Comics, it was a neutral port during WWII.

And it's revealed Adeline and Slade were on Team 7. Wildstorm fans know that team but during New 52 when it was incorporated into DC canon, Slade was indeed a member of Team 7. I'm not sure if it was ever part of the Green Berets or if it was something DeMatteis added.