Christopher J. Priest

2 stars
And it's all for the artwork.

I can't tell you how much I was looking forward to this title. And that makes the resulting mess all the more hard to stomach. It's my own fault really, I should have paid closer attention to the name on the front cover. Not the artist; Carlo Pagulayan's art is the sort I like. Clear and concise. Reader friendly with plenty to look at but not so busy that things get lost in the detail. Some really great panels.

No, my issue was with the writer, Christopher show more Priest, and he's a writer I've had issues with before. I dnf'd his collection of Black Panther stories for being incomprehensible, boring, and written from a random pov.

In Deathstroke I found myself at a total loss. The story, such as it is, jumps about in timeframe with no indication where the reader is in the timeline. There is no attempt to explain to the reader who any of the characters are or their connection to Slade Wilson. For a first book in a new line I would expect some attempt to fill in backstory for the new readers in manner that doesn't have them scrabbling for wiki at the first opportunity. (I held out until the appearance of Wintergreen, and then found myself reaching for my phone.) There is no attempt to explain who Deathstroke is, what happened to Slade to make him become DS, what his enhancements are, where they came from, who any of the side characters are. With no prior knowledge of DS and his origins, the reader is completely lost in this comic.

For a character with no moral compass to work the reader needs to have some empathy for them. With little to no explanation for his actions, and such a fractured telling of his backstory it is impossible to have any empathy or understanding for Slade.

Also, almost every character in the story seems to have their own agenda so you literally have no reliable narrator to hang the 'story' on.

For something I'd been so looking forward to, I finished this book frustrated as hell.

While Christopher Priest continues to write this line I think I'd be better served going back in time and checking out some of the earlier Deathstroke titles. show less

A lot funnier/sharper/more readable than I originally figured. Reads easily and pulls humor from multiple sources (timing, dialog, visual gags, callbacks, flashbacks, puns, you name it). Good to know that the recent Valiant series came from, and is true to, its roots.

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

After his run on Black Panther came to an end, Christopher Priest began a short-lived ongoing called The Crew, a team book that included one-time Black Panther Kasper Cole (now the White Tiger) among its members. I wasn't super into Kasper part of Priest's Black Panther run, but The Crew was included in the Christopher Priest Black Panther: The Complete Collection volumes, which you can read for free on Hoopla, so I figured show more why not read it? (I'd already read the issues from the main title collected here, #50-56 & 59-62, so I did not reread them.)

It was kind of worth reading, kind of not. Certainly it wasn't worth it for Kasper, who continues to spin his wheels as a character, arguing with his girlfriend and expectant mother of his child, chasing promotion so he can afford to support his mother and girlfriend. The ongoing thing about his dad wasn't picked up at all, and by the end of these seven issues, Cole isn't really anywhere we haven't already seen him.

The other three members of the "Crew" (never called that in the story) are James "Rhodey" Rhodes, the one-time Iron Man and War Machine; Junta, a superpowered information broker whose mom is a robot who I think appeared in one issue of Black Panther vol. 3; and Josiah X, the son of a black man who was experimented on during World War II in an attempt to create super-soldier serum. The first few issues look at each man in turn; the "team" really only kind of comes together with issue #7, when of course the title was cancelled. Junta probably could have become fun with time, but the real standouts here are Rhodes and Josiah.Rhodes I don't think I have ever actually read a comic about before, but I liked what Priest did with him here; a man who use to be on top but has found himself at the bottom trying to climb his way back up using his sense of justice as a guide. I don't know how the character is in actual Iron Man comics, but I would read more stories about him if they were like this.

Josiah X (called "Justice" in behind-the-scenes information but not in the actual book) is a really interesting character, a black Muslim community organizer who dons Captain America iconography. Can such a man reconcile the contradictions that led to his own existence? How can he wear the emblem of the country that treated him and his father so disposably? Priest and artist Joe Bennett do their best work with Josiah, and unfortunately only scratch the surface of the character. I gather he hasn't really appeared since, but I am curious to pick up the Captain America: The Truth miniseries where his father originally appeared.

As I've alluded to, it's a bit of a slow burn, which was probably a mistake for a book that bundled together a bunch of has-been and also-ran characters; I cannot imagine it sold well at all. I enjoyed it well enough, but by the end of seven issues, I wasn't convinced we needed seven issues to see the Crew take down some pretty ordinary gangsters. A decent read, but not really for Black Panther–related reasons. I gather the Crew returns during Ta-Nehisi Coates's run, but not with this line-up. show less

2 stars
And it's all for the artwork.

I can't tell you how much I was looking forward to this title. And that makes the resulting mess all the more hard to stomach. It's my own fault really, I should have paid closer attention to the name on the front cover. Not the artist; Carlo Pagulayan's art is the sort I like. Clear and concise. Reader friendly with plenty to look at but not so busy that things get lost in the detail. Some really great panels.

No, my issue was with the writer, Christopher show more Priest, and he's a writer I've had issues with before. I dnf'd his collection of Black Panther stories for being incomprehensible, boring, and written from a random pov.

In Deathstroke I found myself at a total loss. The story, such as it is, jumps about in timeframe with no indication where the reader is in the timeline. There is no attempt to explain to the reader who any of the characters are or their connection to Slade Wilson. For a first book in a new line I would expect some attempt to fill in backstory for the new readers in manner that doesn't have them scrabbling for wiki at the first opportunity. (I held out until the appearance of Wintergreen, and then found myself reaching for my phone.) There is no attempt to explain who Deathstroke is, what happened to Slade to make him become DS, what his enhancements are, where they came from, who any of the side characters are. With no prior knowledge of DS and his origins, the reader is completely lost in this comic.

For a character with no moral compass to work the reader needs to have some empathy for them. With little to no explanation for his actions, and such a fractured telling of his backstory it is impossible to have any empathy or understanding for Slade.

Also, almost every character in the story seems to have their own agenda so you literally have no reliable narrator to hang the 'story' on.

For something I'd been so looking forward to, I finished this book frustrated as hell.

While Christopher Priest continues to write this line I think I'd be better served going back in time and checking out some of the earlier Deathstroke titles. show less