Jul 1984
The Judas Contract: Book Three - There Shall Come a Titan!
By Marv Wolfman, George Perez, Dick Giordano, Mike DeCarlo, Todd Klein, Adrienne Roy
Adeline Kane Wilson tells Dick Grayson about how and where she met Slade Wilson, Deathstroke the Terminator. It was a little over 20 years before, in the early 1960s. Captain Adeline Kane was one of the instructors at a special training facility at Camp Washington. Major Slade Wilson was her star pupil. He was the best of the best but she trained him to be even better.
They stayed close after he graduated. They got married. Slade was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and sent to Vietnam. Adeline stayed home in the United States to raise Grant, their first child. Slade volunteered for military experiments which did horrible and amazing things to his body.
Slade was injected with Adrenocorticotopicsl hormone. He went into a coma temporarily due to the experiments. He applied for active duty when he recovered but he was turned down. He left the army and became a big game hunter and then later a mercenary.
It was about this time that Adeline and Slade’s second son, Joseph, was born. Grant was very much like his father and later followed in his footsteps. He encountered the Titans and was killed in New Teen Titans (1980) 2 when he was known as Ravager.
Slade was knowingly putting his family at risk with his job. Masked men broke into Slade and Adeline’s home one night when he was gone. She fought back. She killed some of them but
the others escaped with Joseph.
Adeline and Deathstroke traveled to Tangiers to get Joseph back from the Jackal, an international terrorist. The Jackal wanted some information in return for their son but Deathstroke refused to give it to him. He gave his word that he wouldn’t reveal that information. His word was more important to him in that moment than his son’s life. He killed the terrorists but Joseph’s throat got slit. Joseph survived but he lost the ability to speak.
Adeline never forgave Slade for what happened. She tried to kill him but his reflexes were too fast. He lost an eye but he survived the attempt on his life.
Adeline knows where the Terminator took the other Titans. She agrees to tell Dick where they are but only if he agrees to take Joseph with him. Dick dons his new costume and becomes Nightwing for the first time. He is skeptical about Joseph until he demonstrates his “mutant” ability to take over another person’s body on Nightwing. The two men leave Adeline behind in the Titans Tower and head west in the Titans jet.
Thoughts
I love the cover and this issue but the title really doesn’t capture what this issue is about. Ninety percent of this story is the origin of Deathstroke. Yes, it is also the first appearance of Nightwing and Jericho but that isn’t the thrust or focus of this issue.
I found it interesting that Wolfman chose to characterize Joseph as a mutant. Adeline says his superpower is a byproduct of the experiments Slade underwent. Mutants were a Marvel thing at this time, maybe they still are. The term meta-human would later become a DC thing but I think that was a post-COIE development. Nightwing does make an offhanded remark about mutants which is probably a veiled reference to the Uncanny X-Men and the New Teen Titans crossover.
George Perez does a masterful as always in laying out each page.
Meanwhile...
Dick Giordano gives three of his employees the chance to introduce themselves: Alan Gold (editor), Pat Bastienne (editorial coordinator), and Sal Amendola (talent coordinator).
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