Slade

Slade is the main antagonist of the Teen Titans series. He serves as the main antagonist of Seasons 1 and 2, a posthumous antagonist in Season 3, the secondary antagonist of Season 4, and the overarching antagonist of Season 5. He is also the arch-nemesis of Robin.

History[]

Slade appears in the Teen Titans animated series, where he is referred to only as Slade due to censorship issues. He is the Titans' main adversary and was the primary antagonist for the first two seasons. His main goal is to defeat the Titans, destroy the city, and quite possibly rule the world, all for unknown reasons. He has had two secret bases, which were both destroyed. He also seems to have a massive army of robotic commandos and incredible strength, enough to leave a dent in solid steel with one hit.

In many episodes in Season 1, he tries to recruit others to his side. He initially hires Jinx, Gizmo, and Mammoth from the H.I.V.E. Academy for his team but the Titans succeed in beating the three graduates. Slade then tries to trick Thunder and Lightning, two teenage storm elementals, into destroying Jump City, but that too failed when Beast Boy helped the brothers to see the error of their ways. He then makes a deal with the mysterious Red X, before revealing to him that he knew he was Robin and was merely using him. Later, Slade forced Robin to join him, with the threat that if he did not, Slade would use nanobots he planted in the Titans to destroy them from the inside out, therefore killing them. Robin eventually overcame Slade with his friends' help. Interestingly, when presented with an opportunity to kill all five of the Titans after Robin infected himself with the nanobots, he chose not to kill them. Two theories exist for this behavior. One, if Robin, currently his apprentice at that time, was killed, he would have been completely powerless or two, he simply would have had no archenemy.

In Season 2, Slade set his sights on recruiting a new apprentice, the superheroine Terra, who, in the animated series, is portrayed as more of a lost soul than an irredeemable psychopath. Throughout the season, Slade tormented her and exploited her fears of being unable to control her powers and of alienating her newfound friends, the Teen Titans, slowly drove her to his side. Slade coaxed Terra into subjecting herself willingly to apprenticeship, despite the Titans having warned Terra of Slade, and promised that he could teach her to control her powers. After believing that Beast Boy betrayed her trust and told the other Titans of her difficulties in controlling her powers (even though Beast Boy didn't tell her and Robin only figured it out), Terra eventually betrayed the Titans to Slade, who indeed taught her to control her powers, and took over the city with her help. During this time, Slade had crafted a new suit for Terra, one bearing his insignia, and was able to access her powers to assist her in combat, and to an extent, control her. With Slade's help, Terra mercilessly defeated the Titans, who were reluctant to fight their old friend, and were focused on trying to redeem her rather than defeat her. The Titans however returned and fought her again. But this time, they fought her mercilessly and viciously. By failing Slade's command to destroy the team, she returned to him, only to be beaten by her in anger. Slade then controlled Terra and used her to nearly kill Beast Boy, who arrived at the base to redeem Terra. Beast Boy and the Titans then convinced Terra to overcome the link her new suit had to Slade, and she sent him to his apparent doom in a lava pit while she turned to stone.

Being apparently dead, Slade was absent for most of the third season. He did appear in the Season 3 episode "Haunted". But, he is a figment of Robin's imagination, due to a dust released from his mask onto Robin, which made him see, hear, and feel Slade. This almost killed Robin, but Robin saved his own life by turning on the lights (thus banishing the Slade hallucination).^[3] At the end of the episode, Cyborg revealed that someone from outside the tower had activated the mask. The mask is then shown in the basement and one eye turns red, hinting at his later return as Trigon's ally.

Slade returned in full for Season 4, as the servant of Raven's demonic father Trigon. Slade now had fire powers and a red mark on his forehead, called the Mark of Scath. He delivered Trigon's message to Raven, that she would cause the end of the world. It is explained that Slade's defeat at Terra's hands had indeed killed him, and that Trigon had promised to give him back his flesh in exchange for his services. However, Trigon went back on the deal, and Slade decided to join forces with the Teen Titans.^[4] While Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast Boy tried to distract Trigon, Robin and Slade went to find Raven (who had been transformed into a child version of herself) in the underworld. Upon returning to the surface with Raven, the Titans assaulted Trigon in a somewhat vain effort to defeat him. Nevertheless, they managed to hurt him, as did Slade, who recovered his flesh and stole the demonic weapon of one of Trigon's minions. Raven finally defeated her "father" and restored the world to normal, but Slade escaped the Titans shortly after, with a solemn promise from Robin that nothing has changed, and he will make that clear if he sees him again.

Slade is also one of the only villains who did not join the Brotherhood of Evil and that didn't make an appearance in the final battle. So, he only appears in one episode of Season 5 ("Things Change") to convince Beast Boy to leave a girl that looks and behaves like Terra alone forcefully. In anger, he seemingly kills Slade, but it was just another one of Slade's robot clones.

Jericho (Deathstroke's son from the mainstream DC comics) has appeared in the final episodes, but no reference has been made to Slade's and Jericho's connection in the show. His daughter, Ravager (Rose Wilson) also appears in the "Teen Titans Go!" comics, but is not referenced or seen even once in the actual show.

Trivia[]

Slade appears in a total of twenty episodes in the series; though one of which was as a vision only, one of which where he is not seen but a robot replica is seen, and two in a flashbacks only.
Slade's original comic name "Deathstroke" did not make it through the censors due to hesitance to use the word "death" in a children's animated series; thus, the character is referred to by his first name. However, his original name is mentioned in the tie-in comic Teen Titans Go! and in some foreign language versions of the show. He is also changed from an assassin and mercenary-for-hire to an enigmatic criminal mastermind.
He is actually the only villain from the original comic to not use his original supervillain name.
In "Forces of Nature" Slade is disguised as an elderly mystic who bears resemblance to Slade's maskless comic book appearance.^[5]
Only two of Slade's three children appear in the cartoon. The only child of Slade not to appear was his firstborn son Grant Wilson. In the comics, Grant was the first criminal to be called the Ravager. He was killed in his first encounter with the Teen Titans.
Slade is the final boss character in the video game, as well as a playable unlocked character.
In the mainstream DC comics line, Slade/Deathstroke was originally a soldier in the service of the US military that was trained and artificially modified to become the ultimate killing machine. However, Slade vowed to exact revenge on the rest of the world when his son, Joseph, became mute because a mercenary assigned to kidnap him damaged his vocal cords. In the same incident, Slade lost one of his eyes. Even though Slade became an assassin and criminal mastermind, Joseph discovered his superhuman abilities and became the Teen Titan Jericho.
In The End - Part 2 and a glimpse of part 3 you see his scarred skull.
Slade is the only villain to shift alignments completely (unlike Jinx who became a full-fledged hero). The first and second seasons he was indeed a villain, but in seasons 4 and 5 he seemed to develop more of an antihero alignment.
Although Robin and Slade vowed in Season 4 that if they were to encounter each other again a fight would not be reconsidered, Slade (at least as a villain) never fought with the Titans afterward even when encountering Beast Boy.
A similar character named Wade Wilson (a.k.a. Deadpool), who appears in Marvel Comics, also has regenerative abilities.
In The End - Part 2, it is revealed that his face was skeletal after his "solo fight". However he regained his flesh after the fight was finished and his face was never revealed.
Height: 6`4.
It is unknown why the Teen Titans (specifically Robin) want to find out Slade's name, since they already call him by his name, Slade. However, it is possible that they assume Slade to be an alias.
He supposedly has a connection to having an apprentice, but always picks someone who is unwilling to serve him (like Robin).
Slade using robotic clones to fool others, is very similar to Doctor Doom from Marvel Comics, who uses "Doom-bots" for the same purpose.

Slade

History[]

Trivia[]

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