~deathstroke year one fiend~

Custer-Mars (you can call me either) 23 yo ~Deathstroke fan since 2014~ \winterstroke side blog is sladebilly-inc/ -Deathstroke and Winterstroke content (Also big on Watchmen, comics in general) My Ao3 : https://archiveofourown.org/users/Custer_Mars

[custer-mars]

Fucking dreamed Slade was ugly crying because Wintergreen had somehow been transformed into this weird little puffy fish that he carried around everywhere in a tiny tank.

He kept shoving the tank into people's faces like "LOOK AT HIM!!" while absolutely sobbing his eyes (well... eye) out.

Meanwhile Fish Wintergreen was just happily swimming in circles, not a single thought behind those tiny fish eyes.

GUYS does this even mean something?? 😭

[custer-mars]

Unlikely romance...?

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They had another one and she's uh...

God Rorschach definitely had prettier babies with Dan in the old game 😭

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I really never thought I'd have to say this but god, I wish Dr. Manhattan would stop making Rorschach pregnant... 🫩

[custer-mars]

"in that continuity"

sorry, but what are you smoking? this is the main continuity. fleecs literally spoke about bringing back respawn and tanya spears and cont. theyre story. meaning addie killed wintergreen AFTER being all BFF with him in rebirth.

What am I smoking? I don't smoke man Idk what you are insinuating. Never even tried it. 🤷‍♀️

As for the rest... I don't know what to tell you. Characters change depending on who's writing them. Sometimes those changes stick. Sometimes the next writer quietly pretends they never happened. Details disappear for twenty years, get retconned, then randomly come back. That's comics. So yeah. Continuity. (And I still don't smoke btw)

No need to get all aggressive about that bud.

Blocked. Next. .)

[rosepaya]

[ravagersruin]

Sick to my stomach I want them back

[custer-mars]

STILL waiting for that full dead wife Wintergreen issue

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There's got to be at least ONE universe where Slade lied to Adeline and told her he became a mercenary, when in reality he was just going on hunting trips with Wintergreen.

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!Potential spoilers for DTT (2026) #5!

Adeline killing Wintergreen in that continuity actually makes sense to me because Wintergreen's immediate post-Slade-shooting thought process being "okay cool, now revenge arc against Adeline" was NOT an indicator that those two people were besties and that he cared much about her 😭

My theory is that early-career Wintergreen was kind of a bastard. Not necessarily evil, but colder. More pragmatic. More "mission first, feelings later." The Wintergreen we love is someone who got there after years of living with the consequences of that mindset.

Which means there is a very real possibility that Adeline never knew the older, wiser version of him. She knew the guy standing next to Slade when they were both at their worst.

For all we know, they barely spoke. For all we know, he was once perfectly willing to have her removed if she became inconvenient.

And Adeline? Girl remembered.

P.S : Of course, I know Wintergreen's cold reaction could also just be the result of him being affected by the violence of what happened and being furious on Slade's behalf... But I don't know. The way he talks about it feels very professional. Almost like he's switching straight into "mission mode" rather than reacting purely out of grief or anger

[custer-mars]

Info : This post is my answer to Niko's ( @eroticuntnectar ) ask—which I accidentally erased from my inbox because I'm a fool and, well... life happens.

He asked me what my favorite aspect of Deathstroke Inc: Year One is, as well as my favorite scene from it .)

First off, thank you so so much for this wonderful ask, and sorry for the wait! I recently got my master degree (which is great!), but I think it slowed my brain down. 😭

It's exceptionally hard for me to pick just one aspect, but I absolutely love how balanced Slade feels in Year One. I've already rambled at length about how great the writing is and how it manages to combine so many of the traits and interpretations I love from different Deathstroke runs.

His vulnerability. The shift in his personality after the serum experiment. How that sense of betrayal completely reshapes the way he sees the world. But above all, the direct effects of that dangerous substance on his brain.

I feel like modern writers tend to shy away from something that earlier comics weren't afraid to imply: Slade going through what looks a lot like bipolar episodes. Wintergreen outright describes them as "manic, energetic phases in which Slade felt powerful," followed by intense depressive states. Year One actually lets us sit inside Slade's head and hear his thoughts about what the army did to him, instead of only learning about it through Wintergreen's perspective. That's genuinely fascinating to me.

More generally, I love seeing Slade trying to navigate everything that's changed inside him—not just physically, but psychologically too. He's aware that he's become colder. Less sensitive. More detached. Yet at the same time he's still the absolute prick we all know he can be.

The best example, for me, is his infamous god awful reaction to Adeline telling him she's pregnant.

I joke all the time that he just really hates phones, but on a more serious note, what makes that scene hit so hard is that we never actually know what's going through his head. Had he already started giving up on the idea of family life? Did another child simply make that realization impossible to ignore? The ambiguity makes it so much stronger.

And then, of course, there's his dynamic with Wintergreen.

We get to see just how much he loves this man while also remaining the emotionally constipated disaster he is. Sure, he can be a prick to him—but honestly... I don't even need to explain it when THOSE panels already exist.

God.

Now THAT is my favorite scene.

The two of them desperately trying to save each other is, to me, the single most accurate representation of their relationship across decades of comics. If anyone went through my blog history they'd probably find, like... ten separate posts about this sequence alone because I genuinely think I could redecorate my entire apartment with those panels.

Bonus: Wintergreen has NEVER been this baby boy-coded before, and I would give anything to see Dexter Soy draw him like this again—but older. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, Dexter Soy.

[custer-mars]

I genuinely think reading Spawn as a child permanently altered the way I look at things because every time something goes catastrophically wrong my first instinct is to go

"Yeah but imagine being Al Simmons though."

Instantly feel better.

(If you also grew up reading very inappropriate comics for your age please share! )

[custer-mars]

POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR DTT # 5

This issue was pretty meh to me but I do greatly enjoy Slade's incommensurable rage regarding the work husband's murder.

Looking like a wild animal

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VERY SMALL SPOILER FOR DEATHSTROKE THE TERMINATOR (2026) #5

Wintergreen calling Slade sir got me like :

[custer-mars]

Rebirth Slade insisting on representing himself in court, sitting through the entire case against him without so much as blinking...

...only to finally stroll up to the bar and go:

...Losing the case miserably

[custer-mars]

Is it a coming out about me not believing in Winterstroke?

Of course not.

...But I can see how it might sound like it.

For me, the most compelling depiction of Slade and Wintergreen—the one that best combines all the layers added over decades of comics—would actually be for them to never settle into a conventional romantic relationship. Instead, they'd remain in that wonderfully undefined space where you could never quite pin down what they are.

Best friends with benefits? Partners in an open relationship? Two guys who have had one too many "one-night stands" for them to still count as little mistakes?

Who knows.

The appeal, to me, is that they'd both go to absurd lengths to avoid ever putting a label on it—for themselves or for anyone else—while it was made completely canon that they're undeniably more than friends. The awkward situations. The loaded silences. The innuendos. Everyone knowing except the two people involved.

Of course I'd love some fluff. Some tenderness. Some genuine wholesome moments.

But if I'm being honest with how I personally read them... I'd rather watch two aging men with decades of deeply ingrained heterosexual norms tying themselves into knots because they genuinely cannot picture themselves in a conventional romantic relationship with each other—

—while literally everyone around them has been looking at them like they're basically a married couple for the past thirty years.

P.S : While I'm at it...

I don't support erasing the women in either Slade or Wintergreen's lives just to make their relationship seem more special.

Adeline was important to Slade. Lilli was important. Pat was important, etc.

I fully believe he loved each of them in their own way.

And the same goes for Wintergreen. Even though we haven't really seen shit of his ex-wives, erasing his attraction to women—romantically or sexually—doesn't make sense to me. I can understand and even find some interest in the theory of performative heterosexuality, but I don't think it should be used as a way to completely rewrite his character.

More generally, I don't stand for the erasure of women in fiction. The idea that Slade couldn't have loved Adeline as deeply as he loves Wintergreen bothers me because, to me, it often comes from a refusal to see women as interesting love interests.

And honestly? That mindset annoys the hell out of me.

[achilles-was-better-than-u]

HELLO WILSONS!!! i had to give the kids the redneck canon event of ur dad teaching you how to shoot a gun bc he doesn’t know how to bond any other way.

[custer-mars]

Probably late to the party but that's so magnificent 🥹

[custer-mars]

i'm sorry but Waller/Wintergreen where Waller tries to find a bit of Addie in Wintergreen (bc of his connexion to Slade) and Wintergreen tried to find a bit of Slade in him (bc of his connexion to Addie) only for Waller to go "wtf do you mean Slade doesn't love you like that I thought you two were fucking 🤨" when Wintergreen tells him of his pining and this is how Waller accidentally rendered the greatest service to Slade. Rest assured Waller is mad about it 😌

Now you have me invested too! 😭 I love all the layers to it, especially the fact that Waller does seem to have a soft spot for Wintergreen (particularly with that letter he sends him, see bellow...). They could honestly become the perfect confidants for each other.

"What is it about them that makes us care so much?"

[custer-mars]

literally i'm so sad everyone forgot Waller 😭 i mean even the writers didn't give much thought to him in Deathstroke 1991... I would have loved to see him work with Addie and pine for her....

Damn, Jelly, I had no idea you were so passionate about Waller! 😭 And boy, do I agree??

So many missed opportunities. It really centers Addie as a character too, showing that she has her own entourage separate from Slade’s. What’s most frustrating is that he already had his whole little arc going on, and they just cut him out of that?

N O P E. Please give us Waller back, we need that sass queen to shit on Slade more than ever.

Can you imagine that man being around in Rebirth? The diss tracks would have been absolutely insane.

[custer-mars]

I swear sometimes talking about Waller to people feels like you just made him up, like a Graggle Simpson situation