Deathstroke Volume 1: The Professional Review

Deathstroke Volume 1: The Professional

By Christopher J. Priest, Carlo Pagulayan (Penciler), Jason Paz(Inker), Jeromy Cox (Colourist), Willie Schubert (Letterer), Larry Hama (Breakdowns), Joe Bennett (Penciler), Belardino Brabo (Inker), Mark Morales (Inker)

I received a free copy of Deathstroke Volume 1: The Professional from DC Comics in exchange for my honest opinion.

If you want to check out the other book in DC Comics Rebirth series that I have read and reviewed, click here.

Deathstroke may be one of the most hardened anti-heroes in the DC Universe, but there’s no cutting corners when it comes to contract killing, especially when your family is on the hit list! 

Confronted by his own troubled past and challenged to reinvent himself before he loses everything and everyone in his life, Slade Wilson, a.k.a. Deathstroke, finds himself and those he values most in the crosshairs–stalked by an unseen enemy.

Collecting: Deathstroke 1-8, Rebirth

Summary from Goodreads.

I feel like Deathstroke is a character that you feel both sorry and not sorry for. You feel sorry for how he became what he is currently, but you don’t because he enjoys what he does and he chose this life. This is touched on in Volume 1, which does not bother me. They tried to humanise someone who really does not deserve it; but the way that they tried to humanise him just got me confused. We jump between the past and the present, but I did not find that out until the second to last issue collected in this volume. Once I had figured out that certain scenes were in the past, it made a lot more sense though.

We start out with being how deadly Slade Wilson is, he easily takes down a bunch of what appeared to be mercenaries with ease. I got excited to understand how Deathstroke works; but apart from this small display of Deathstroke at his best, that was the only time that we see Slade Wilson using his power on others. The rest of the time is him using his brain to out-trick others. Whilst this is an important element to how he works, I would have enjoyed it more if they had followed up on the killing and power that they showed that he possessed at the beginning.

After the initial bloodbath that Deathstroke goes on, the main focus of this story is on his daughter (yes, Deathstroke has a daughter, that is something to watch out for in the movies) and on figuring out who has put a contract on her to get her killed. Whilst enjoyable (mainly because their is a passing mention of golf, which is always a bonus for me), it did not grab my attention. I found this quite odd as it is not predictable at all. I was constantly guessing wrong as to people motives, as well as what was going to happen.

The art style was reasonably enjoyable. I never got confused as to how people were acting, or what was the purpose of the panel. I could have easily gotten the plot if no wording was provided. That, for me, mean that the artists did a great job of getting across what was going on in an appropriate manner and not relying upon word to purely tell a story.

Enjoyable read which looks better in my eye for mentioning golf.

3/5

Have you read Deathstroke Volume 1: The Professional? Do you agree with my review? Let me know your opinion in the comments below!

Check it out on Goodreads here.

Get it on Comixilogy here.

Purchase it on Amazon here.