Deathstroke the Terminator

Today we are going to take a closer look at DC Comics character, Deathstroke the Terminator most specifically the annual #3 that goes by the same name. When he first appeared in the early eighties, he was simply known as the Terminator. I assume the name was changed to avoid confusion with the movie of the same name.

Deathstroke the Terminator is actually a Vietnam veteran named Slade Wilson. He volunteered to test an experimental truth serum for the army, and the serum gave him enhanced strength and super reflexes. It also drove him a bit insane. He was originally a villain who fought the Teen Titans, then he became a hero who was awarded his own series, then he became a villain again sometime after the year 2000. He looks a bit like Uncle Sam, but with only one eye. The ancient Egyptian god Horus had only one eye, as did the later Norse god Odin.



I've posted this cover before, sometime last year when I first started this blog. The date for it is 1994. On the cover you can see a smoking WTC standing in front of a setting sun.



On the bar code, you can see the dates 1941 and 2001, with a 6 on both sides of them. Anyone familiar with bar codes knows that the sixes to the right of the center are symbolized by two thin lines. Two thin lines are also at the beginning, the center, and the end. The reason for these lines is supposedly so the scanner knows when to stop. If you take the two thin center lines and give them a value of 6, then you get 6, 1941, 6, 2001, 6. 1941 was the year Pearl Harbor was bombed, and of course our generation's Pearl Harbor occurred in 2001. Three sixes is the biblical mark of the beast.

There is no more pictures of the WTC after the cover, but it is an interesting story nonetheless.



500 years in the future, Deathstroke is on the trail of a post human race called the Genetix. The Genetix are genetically enhanced humans. The Genetix are immortal, but so is Deathstroke. He is eventually captured by the Genetix and crucified, then burned to death.

Here I think the author is trying to warn us about the danger of genetics programs. In Germany during WWII, the Nazis euthanized thousands of mentally handicapped people in the name of their pure Aryan race. Genetics is an evil science that has always led to genocide.




Deathstroke is killed, then resurrected. He then researches the files on the Genetix. In this next panel, the "terrorist wars of 08" are referenced.



Slade eventually finds surviving humans living in an underground city. He leads them out of the city to wage war on the Genetix, a war he eventually wins. The humans and genetix then pledge to work together to rebuild the world.

And that is what is inside Deathstroke the Terminator Annual #3. Very interesting indeed.