A New Dawn, A New Slade: Deathstroke #47
by Josh Davison
[*Mild Spoilers Ahead!]
A pair of kids are shot up by a biker gang in Arkansas, and the local police are in way over their heads with it. Meanwhile, across the country, Slade Wilson wakes up in the Manhattan apartment of Rose and Hosun. However, this Slade looks a bit different. There are more scars, and he doesn’t recognize Hosun. Plus, he seems surprised by a lot of the information about his family which he should already know. Elsewhere, Jericho is testing the limits of the power granted to him by Lex Luthor and the Legion of Doom. He now has the ability to change the world. In Chinatown, Rose finally confronts Red Arrow about her killing Deathstroke.
Deathstroke #47 finds Slade Wilson seemingly alive and well again, but it isn’t the Deathstroke we know. This one is different in some drastic ways that play themselves out over the course of the comic.
Jericho is still undergoing some drastic changes; he seems to be developing a god complex. His abilities have been drastically enhanced by Luthor, and his personality is shifting with these newfound powers.
The confrontation between Rose and Emiko is a highlight of the comic. This is the showdown that’s been led to by the past few issues, but it doesn’t end how you’d expect. Moreso, it’s tragic in a manner that I could never have predicted.
The last few pages are chaotic, violent, and shocking. We learn what kind of Slade Wilson has come back from the grave, and it’s not the one we’ve met over the course of Christopher Priest’s Deathstroke run so far. This Slade is something new and different.
Carlo Pagulayan and Fernando Pasarin split the art in this comic, and both artists live up to the high standards of their previous work. Once again, Deathstroke is a fantastic-looking comic, and the artists craft a highly visually-compelling story from beginning to end. Jason Paz, Cam Smith, and Wade von Grawbadger do good work on the inks, and Jeromy Cox delivers spectacular color art.
Deathstroke #47 is a highly-compelling, if slightly confusing, next step for this Priest series. We have a new (old?) Deathstroke with a very different personality from the one we’ve seen over the course of this series. I’m genuinely left curious as to where this one will go, and I very much look forward to it. This one gets a recommendation for sure. Feel free to give it a read.
Deathstroke #47 comes to us from writer Christopher Priest, artist Fernando Pasarin and Carlo Pagulaya, inkers Jason Paz, Cam Smith, and Wade von Grawbadger, color artist Jeromy Cox, letterer Willie Schubert, cover artist Carlo Pagulayan with Norm Rapmund and Ivan Plascencia, and variant cover artist Skan.
Final Score: 8.5/10
