While Dark Crisis event. Williamson, who's written everything from DC's The Flash to his own creator-owned serial killer series Nailbiter, teased a lot of information about the Dark Crisis event series in an interview with Comic Book Resources.
Following in the wake of the 'Death of Justice League' arc from Justice League #75, the creative team of writer Joshua Williamson, artist Daniel Sampere, colorist Alejandro Sánchez, and letterer Tom Napolitano will be ing together for the seven-issue event Dark Crisis. This event kicked off on Free Comic Book Day with issue 0, and will be bringing together plot threads from the major events established in Infinite Frontier.
In the past, Deathstroke has been depicted as an outright villain willing to risk his own children to win, a reluctant antihero with a unique moral com, and even an outright hero after seeing the error of his ways. However, in his interview with Deathstroke's previously fluctuating moral com, Williamson said:
As far as I'm concerned, Deathstroke is a villain. He's not a hero or an anti-hero. He's a villain. I wanted to make that absolutely clear before we got to Dark Crisis. If you've been reading Deathstroke Inc. and Shadow War, you can see where the pieces have all been put together that explain his attack in Dark Crisis.
Shadow War, in particular, explains how Deathstroke gets to the place of being an all-out villain and dives deeper into his mindset. You can really understand what happened to him by the time you get to Shadow War Omega. There's another piece to the puzzle that will explain how everything flows and establishes how important Deathstroke is to the story. He is a villain throughout, and there is no redemption or going back and forth for him here.
Williamson specifically mentions Deathstroke Inc. and Shadow War as laying the groundwork for Deathstroke's villain morality. Deathstroke Inc. has seen Slade Wilson take his place as DC's new King of Villains. Meanwhile, the Shadow War event, which sees Deathstroke's new alliance of villains go up against Talia al Ghul's League of Shadows, will apparently leave him in an undeniable villain role. It will be interesting to see how fans interpret this version of Deathstroke, especially as his daughter Ravager is on a mission to bring Slade back towards the light.
Some may consider removing the option for his redemption as making the character too simplistic, but others will praise the decision for not pulling any punches, instead making him that much more of a threat as the DC Universe faces perhaps its greatest ever threat. However readers interpret it, the villainous Deathstroke will seemingly play a big role in the Dark Crisis event, with redemption no longer on the cards for DC's assassin supreme.
Source: Comic Book Resources
Dark Crisis #1 will be available from DC Comics June 7.
