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| “ | Next time, my plans will succeed... and the Titans will pay. | „ |
| ~ Slade swearing revenge on the Teen Titans – his most famous quote. |
| “ | I am the thing that keeps you up at night, the evil that haunts every dark corner of your mind. I will never rest — and neither will you. | „ |
| ~ A hallucination of Slade to Robin. |
| “ | I have to say, Raven, when I found out the truth, I was very impressed. All this time, I had no idea the power lurking inside you, the glorious destiny that awaits. It's always the quiet ones, isn't it? | „ |
| ~ Slade to Raven. |
Slade Joseph Wilson, known simply by his first name Slade, is the main antagonist of the 2003 animated action series Teen Titans.
Based on the comic book version of Deathstroke the Terminator himself, Slade is a ruthless criminal mastermind bent on taking over Jump City and destroying the Teen Titans by whatever means necessary. He is also the archenemy of the Teen Titans' leader Robin, and is by extension considered the greatest and most dangerous adversary of the Teen Titans themselves.
He was voiced by Ron Perlman, who also played Clayface in the DC Animated Universe, Mr. Grasping in An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island, Dieter Reinhardt in Blade II, Viceroy in Star Trek: Nemesis, Bane and Rumor in The Batman, Kago in Tarzan II, Sheriff Collie Entragian in Desperation, Warhok in Kim Possible, Sozin in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Clay Morrow in Sons of Anarchy, The Lich in Adventure Time, Nicola in Bunraku, the Stabbington Brothers in Tangled, Nino in Drive, Xibalba in The Book of Life, Armaggon in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012), Bular in Trollhunters and the Podestà in Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio.
Appearance[]
Slade is an adult male of unknown age. He wears a partly armored, full-body black outfit with a monochromatic color scheme and steel-toed boots. Attached to the suit are a number of plated silver compartments along with a utility belt in which he keeps any number of items such as communication devices, weapons and detonators. However, his most notable feature is his mask, which is an orange-copper color on the side with his eye and black on the other. In the episode "The End: Part II", the glimpse of the undead Slade's skull face shows that he has only one eye, and the empty right socket has a scar, indicating a wound deep enough to cut through the bone. His remaining eye is dark gray, often appearing black from a distance. He is tall and extremely well-built, with broad shoulders and muscular limbs.
A brief glimpse of Slade's silhouetted head without the mask, shown in "Apprentice: Part II", shows he has short, spiky hair either gray, dirty blonde or brown. He is Caucasian, as his clothes have been ripped various times (usually by Beast Boy) to reveal the skin underneath. In the episode "The End: Part III", however, his outfit is ripped to reveal only bare bones (a good theory is that, when Terra threw him into a pool of lava, it melted his skin off completely, leaving only his bones). He has a notably smooth and velvet-deep voice, which can easily be quite frightening, and a calm and casual demeanor. He rarely raises his voice during the entire series.
His true face is never fully seen. In a few moments when he was seen without his mask, Slade was either magically disguised or had assumed an inhuman form.
Personality[]
Slade is an extremely calm, composed and imperturbable individual, remaining an enigma to both enemies and allies alike throughout the series. As a result, not much is known of his true personality by anyone, although the comparison has been made on multiple occasions by multiple people that he and Robin share similar traits, such as an intense hatred of losing and a fierce dedication/borderline obsession in accomplishing his goals. Unlike Robin, however, Slade is a cruel, ruthless, calculating and violent man and a master manipulator. He prefers operating from the shadows, but is quite capable of holding his own in any kind of battle, and is exceedingly dangerous. He is very hard to startle or faze, and his emotions are nearly impossible to read. He maintains an unexcitable demeanor throughout most situations, and only loses his temper very rarely.
Despite his animosity with Robin and status as the Teen Titans' main arch-nemesis, it is worth noting that Slade never truly treats Robin like an enemy. Slade has saved Robin's life more than twice throughout the series for unknown reasons, even when Robin's death would have been beneficial to him. His attitude towards the Titans resembles in many ways a toxic and twisted father figure; while he might not be looking out for them the way a father would, his actions against them push them to mature and do their best, and grow as individuals and as a team.
From various battles with Teen Titans, Slade gave few hints of his motive:
- In "Birthmark", Slade quotes that it is "always the quiet ones".
- In "Apprentice: Part II", he quotes "Betrayal. Destruction. Revenge.".
These all may reference his son Joseph (which is later known as Jericho), since he can't talk, and the incident leading up to him being unable to talk (and Slade losing his right eye) was because of Slade supposedly betrayed his family, which led to the minor destruction of his home (but major destruction to him and his son). It's possible that before the incident, Slade used to be a good individual, but after the incident, he sought vengeance against the world.
Ever since the incident, Slade was further turned to the dark side, effectively making him depraved from any regret over his actions nor chance of redemption; despite that fact, he reluctantly joined forces with the Titans during their battle against Trigon the Terrible. When Robin tells him that everything that he has ever done has only made people suffer, he said "it's what I do best", showing that he was highly sadistic, longing for suffering and terror to occur on many people, whether for his foes and allies alike. At the first two seasons, other things that made him despicable were for reasons which are not entirely clear, he is shown tirelessly working on recruiting new apprentices, setting his sights on both Robin, Terra, and others like Thunder and Lightning, respectively.
Using his intelligence and charisma, he exploits their weaknesses and fears, and is not above blackmailing them into submission, as he did with Robin in "Apprentice: Part I". On top of that, after each candidate failed to be his apprentice, he would recruit others and treat them in both active and aggressive manners if necessary. It means, when he had a new apprentice, he would treat them worse than the former (as seen in case of Terra where she turned out treated in a more harsh and aggressive manner than Robin previously had).
Occasionally, he will lose his temper; an example is when Trigon betrayed him and had his minions seize him, which lead to him to demand the demons to obey him with outrage. He also got angry when Robin attempted to betray him after making him his apprentice, remarking how Robin only cared about his "worthless. Little. FRIENDS!" a fact that really seemed to infuriate him.
Despite all his cruelty and irredeemable nature however, it seems that even Slade knows that there are things that should be left forgotten and that life must move on. This is shown when Slade tells Beast Boy that he is truly hurting Terra after he meets her again upon being revived through unknown means, but she refuses to have anything to do with him, seemingly trying to help the Teen Titan. Although one could easily argue that he was trying to taunt Beast Boy as well, aside that this Slade was actually a robot duplicate, so perhaps it doesn't reflect the nature of the real Slade, who likely would have used Beast Boy for his own ends.
Biography[]
Season 1[]
Slade's first appearances are "Divide And Conquer" and "Final Exam" where he first appears as a silhouetted figure hidden in shadow. In "Divide And Conquer", Slade sends Cinderblock to free Plasmus from jail, as well as other criminals. After Cinderblock and Plasmus were defeated and sent back to jail, Slade then hired Gizmo, Jinx, and Mammoth to defeat the Teen Titans, who were then defeated although they took over their tower for a while. The headmistress told Slade that Jinx, Gizmo and Mammoth will be punished. Slade however did not care as he told her that their job was just to send the Teen Titans a message.
In "Forces of Nature", Slade disguised himself as an old man and convinced Thunder and Lighting to work for him until the two brothers realized that their "fun" was harmful and wrong (thanks to Beast Boy teaching them a lesson). Robin fought the disguised Slade while the other Titans took out the flame monster. After Robin kicked Slade's face, his real face was revealed. Slade then vanished into thin air.
In the episode "Masks", Robin searches obsessively for Slade's identity, going so far as to create a new villain persona known as "Red X" to propose a partnership with Slade. Slade, however, was aware that Robin was Red X all along and the two do battle, with Slade escaping yet again.
In the episodes "Apprentice: Parts 1 and 2", he tricks and forces Robin into being his apprentice. When Robin refuses to work for him, Slade threatens to destroy Robin's friends with nanobots of his own design hidden within their bodies. Robin defeated Slade by placing the same nanobots into his system, telling Slade that if he killed his friends he would also lose his current apprentice, Robin. Rather than wipe out the Titans in one blow and have nothing left standing in his way, Slade chose to shut down the nanobots and in doing so allowed Robin to attack him and break half his mask off. Slade brought his entire lair down and escaped once again.
Season 2[]
Slade returns in Season 2, where he discovered a girl named Terra, blessed and cursed with tremendous power. 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 did not 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 him 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.
Season 3[]
Sometime after the final battle with Slade, Robin (still obsessed with Slade) accidentally inhaled a hallucinogen drug (in dust form) released from Slade's cracked mask. After Robin was knocked out of the battlefield by Cinderblock while his other fellow Titans defeated him, he spots Slade in the woods, and goes after him in pursuit. He tries to fight Slade, but every time a lightning bolt strikes, he vanishes every time (due to him being a hallucination). Robin's team eventually catches up to him, and Robin explains to his team that he saw Slade, although Cyborg stated that he fell into a pit of lava. Robin tells the team that Slade is going to create a massive earthquake with three generators, and orders Beast Boy (who catches a cold), Raven and Cyborg to find the generators, but the generators were not there. When Robin and Starfire go after Slade, Robin orders Starfire to stop him, but she was unable to see him.
Robin continues to go after Slade and eventually corners him in his old hideout. Robin's friends couldn't see Slade, because only Robin could due to the dust he inhaled; Slade was a hallucination. Robin fights Slade again, but was unable to touch him and gets pummeled very badly by Slade, receiving a lot of bruises. Robin’s friends try to explain to Robin that Slade is not there, but Robin (who was still angry) threatened to take down his friends if he got in his way, but Starfire knocks him out.
Back at the tower, Slade continues to haunt Robin's mind, and Robin continued to fight a losing battle. Raven enters Robin's head to see through his eyes and saw Slade herself. She then reveals to the others that the stress on Robin's brain is destroying his body. Just as all hope is lost, the flickering lights made Slade disappear who admits that he is an hallucination. Robin finally believes in his friends that Slade is not real, and switched on the lights, and the Slade hallucination vanished completely.
Robin was then cured of the hallucinogen drug but after he left, Cyborg then discovers and reveals to the others that someone triggered the mask from outside the tower. In the basement, the eye in Slade's mask glows red.
Season 4[]
In the fourth season, Slade surprisingly returned, now sporting the S-shaped Mark of Scath on his forehead. Slade had gained new, demonic pyrokinetic powers, flight and invincibility. It is later revealed that, after Terra killed him, he met Trigon the Terrible, Raven's demonic father, and was resurrected by him.
After Raven sacrificed herself to release Trigon, Robin had no choice but to join forces with Slade to look for Raven. The two traveled to Hell, where it was revealed that Slade was existing only as a reanimated corpse. After Slade delivered Raven to him, Trigon reneged on their deal and refused to give Slade his mortal body back. After parting ways with Robin, Slade then came face-to-face with a demonic guard and stole his weapon after destroying him and regaining his mortal body. Slade then aided the Titans in their final battle against Trigon, only for the demon to blast Slade away. He was never seen again after this, though Robin vowed that if he ever showed up again, they would be ready.
Season 5[]
Although he does not make an appearance in the final battle between the Brotherhood of Evil and the Teen Titans (likely due to refusing the offer of being a member of the Brotherhood of Evil), Slade does appear again in the last episode of the series, taunting Beast Boy about how the seemingly revived Terra no longer wants anything to do with him. After an intense battle, this Slade is revealed to be a robot duplicate, though its existence revealed that the real Slade is still alive and active.
Video Game Appearance[]
Relationships[]
Teen Titans[]
For reasons that are unknown Slade had a personal interest in destroying the Teen Titans. Throughout season one, Slade sent various villains such as the Hive and Thunder and lighting to fight the Titans. He was also interested in their powers, abilities and weaknesses by how he would continuously watch videos of the Titans in action. In season one, Slade wanted Robin to be his apprentice, but promised to spare the other Titans if Robin never made any contact with them and followed all of his orders. However, when the Titans tried to save Robin, he nearly killed them with the nanotechnology in their bodies. In season two, Slade was completely interested in annihilating the Teen Titans with his new apprentice, Terra. However, when she failed to do so, Slade took his rage out on Terra. In season four, Slade did not show any interest in destroying the Teen Titans, but was concerned with carrying out Trigon's plans. It is likely that Slade will continute to fight the Titans unless they stop him for good.
Raven[]
| “ | I have to say, Raven, when I found out the truth, I was very impressed. All this time, I had no idea the power lurking inside you, the glorious destiny that awaits. It's always the quiet ones, isn't it? | „ |
| ~ Slade to Raven. |
In earlier seasons, Slade wanted Raven, along with the rest of the Titans, to be destroyed and used measures at his disposal to try and kill her. However, in season four, Slade was revived by Trigon and given powers that rival those of Raven. Slade took a unique interest in Raven, since he found out from Raven's father, Trigon, that she was the portal for the demon's arrival on Earth. In the episode "Birthmark", Slade took pleasure in trying to tell Raven about her destiny, despite knowing how much she wanted to run away from it due to her fears. In this episode, his persistent attempts at trying to tell Raven Trigon's message resulted in psychologically breaking Raven, which Slade enjoyed. Throughout the season, Slade would try to prey on Raven's weaknesses and fears, by telling her about her destiny of allowing Trigon to appear on Earth to destroy it. He would even take this further by trying to make Raven feel bad for not telling her friends about her destiny and bringing them into her personal problems. Slade cared little about the psychological abuse he put her through and only saw her as a means to finally reclaiming his flesh for completing Trigon's deal.
Raven was afraid of Slade and tried to escape from him. Raven did not want to listen to Slade and tried to ignore him as much as she can. In "Prophecy", Raven confronted Slade and fought him, admitting that she was no longer afraid of him. When Slade told her about the completion of the plan in "The End", Raven called him a fool for making a deal with Trigon. However, as a child who was stripped of her powers and memories by Trigon, she did express concern for Slade when Trigon attacked him. Overall, Raven, like the other Titans, detests Slade.
Powers and Abilities[]
Slade has no superhuman powers, but is still extremely dangerous. He is a ruthless martial artist of the highest caliber and knows a wide range of martial art forms; combined with his heightened speed, strength, reflexes and agility, he is even able to put all five Titans united in combat to shame. He seems to possess some knowledge of ceremonial magic (as seen in the episode Forces of Nature) which could possibly imply that he was working with/for Trigon all along, or he merely has extensive knowledge of the occult. He appears to have access to extremely advanced technology and various secret hideouts, nearly unlimited resources, and a vast army of robot minions. However, his most dangerous attribute is his genius-level intelligence; rather than get his own hands dirty, Slade is adept at laying traps, utilizing high level technology, orchestrating numerous schemes and attacks, and even manipulating others to do his bidding. He is a master of manipulation and psychology, allowing him to get his foes to do almost anything he wants through threats, bribes, or simple fear. Like Robin and his mentor Batman, Slade also uses many gadgets during his fights, including explosives. He was said to have a healing factor.
Following his demise and resurrection as Trigon's herald, he commands a wide range of psychokinetic abilities used to rival those of Raven, particularly his pyromancing (i.e., fire-controlling powers). When serving as Trigon's agent, he is empowered with vast pyrokinetic abilities, superhuman strength and durability, flight, regeneration, phasing, electricity generation, teleportation, and other supernatural powers making him far stronger than the Teen Titans (except for Raven). Moreover, as he was only a skeleton without a body at the time, he was able to sustain heavy damage and was near immortal.
Trivia[]
- Slade's voice actor, Ron Perlman, later voiced Deathstroke in the 2013 animated film Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox in the DC Animated Film Universe before being replaced by Thomas Gibson and the late Miguel Ferrer.
- Due to censorship reasons, Slade was not permitted to be referred to by his comic book name Deathstroke. Also, instead of being a mercenary and a killer, he is a terrorist and criminal mastermind. However, in the French version of Teen Titans, his comic book name Deathstroke is still used.
- For the later release of Young Justice however, Slade was referred to by his original name Deathstroke, only because the Young Justice cartoon was ranked for older audiences (TV-PG), compared to the Teen Titans cartoon (TV-Y7).
- Slade is the only villain from the original comics to not use his original villain name.
- In "Forces of Nature", Slade is disguised as an elderly mystic who bears a resemblance to Slade's unmasked comic book appearance. Somehow, Slade was able to disguise his muscular frame to look like a small old man.
- Although Robin and Slade vowed in Season 4 that, if they were to encounter each other again, a fight would not be reconsidered, Slade has not fought with the Titans since (unless you count his robot duplicate's encounter with Beast Boy).
- During his solo fight with the doorkeeper in "The End" Part 2 (with a small glimpse in Part 3), you can see his scarred skull. However, he regained his mortal body after the fight was finished and his face was never revealed.
- His height is 6`4.
- Slade was also planned to appear in the 2013 Teen Titans Go! spin-off where Ron Perlman would possibly reprise his role. Due to his dark, serious nature in the original series however, the creators had trouble in working out how Slade's portrayal would looked like in the series' silly format in spite of able to successfully integrating Trigon's character in the show to make him more comedic while retaining his threatening nature.
- In Teen Titans Go! to the Movies, Slade eventually made his debut where, like Trigon, his character was written to be more comedic while retaining his threatening side. In contrast of his 2003 version, however, this Slade never directly (and repeatedly) engaged the Titans and only wanted to mind his own evil plans until the Titans insisted that he become their archenemy, much to his dismay.
- Slade's face was revealed in an issue of Teen Titans Go! comic, and his face was like Deathstroke where he was unmasked.
- Despite being based off of Deathstroke, he has more in common with Ra's al Ghul. He is a terrorist mastermind instead of a mercenary, he tries to recruit a member of the Bat Family (only Robin instead of Batman) to be his successor, and he used supernatural means to cheat death (his deal with Trigon in comparison to Ra's Al Ghul's Lazarus Pits).
- Slade is the only main antagonist to be remained undefeated, while Brother Blood got sent to prison, Trigon was banished by his daughter Raven and the Brain was frozen.
- Slade is the second main antagonist of a Cartoon Network show that is not defeated at the original end of it. The first was Aku, although Aku would later be killed during the show's revival in the final season years later).
- In the Season 3 episode "Haunted", there are many hints that Slade was just a hallucination beyond his disappearances whenever light appeared.
- During in the fight with Robin in rain, Slade wasn't showing any signs of being rained on.
- When he jumped tree to tree, the branches did not move.
- Whenever he landed on his feet, they didn't make a sound.
- His ultimate whereabouts are unknown, and the reason for his absence in Season 5 is not given (being one of the few villains to not join the Brotherhood of Evil), though given that one of Slade's robot duplicates encountered Beast Boy in "Things Change", Slade is still alive and waiting in the shadows. It's possible that Slade was invited to join but turned them down.
- According to Glen Murakami, the initial plan for Slade in Season 5 when it originally had 20 episodes was that he would have returned to usurp the Brain as the leader of the Brotherhood of Evil around the midway point of the season. This was scrapped when the order was reduced to 13 episodes.
- It is also stated that Slade was initially planned to return in Season 6 of Teen Titans before it was canceled.
External links[]
- Slade on the Pure Evil Wiki.
- Slade on the Teen Titans Wiki.
