Neorealist Crime drama mini-series starring Helena Bertinelli, with references and themes to classic Italian neorealism cinema.
Things like Bitter Rice (1949) which examines themes of overt sexualization and critique on capitalism and L'Avventura (1960) which deals with the disappearance of a young woman and has themes surrounding spiritual emptiness, social alienation and character communication.
These are themes that can be translated to comic style fairly well, especially in the scope of neo-noir styles of storytelling and the general aesthetic of Helena Bertinelli as a thematic character.
Everytime I reread this panel I just get refilled with all the pain both Slade and Addie (yes her too) put their two sons through 😭.
Father thinks wife and youngest son are dead. Proceeds to further indoctrinate older son to seek revenge and go down the path of a merciless killer for hire.
Mother fakes her own death and death of her youngest son in order to escape the repercussions of her husband's choices but does not make any such efforts to A) somehow inform older son or B) not do that to begin with.
Now, you have Grant working through layers of grief and survivor's guilt because he believes Joey is dead and falling deeper into the path that his parents set him out for.
Of course, this is the 2011 20 issue + #0 run, so some of this information is nullified anyway, but so much of it is actually great material for the Wilson/Mercfam as a whole. Especially when it comes to Grant (and Joey) whose material can be quite contradictory, or rebooted often to accommodate for Slade's storylines. Lots of great material to piece together a cohesive timeline for both sons though!
Some more of my musings, old and revamped (unformatted):
Another thing however, is that Issue #0's continuity errors can be corrected while still maintaining some other aspects of it that can be used to formulate a stronger timeline.
1) Joey still needs to get his throat slit by the Jackal and Adeline has to be the one who shoots out Slade's eye, not a random soldier. I think the soldier segway is still good though, but it shouldn't be Slade who killed the soldier's brother nor should it be him who kills the soldier. It should be Grant.
2) While enemies of Slade can still attack their home, it makes more sense for their to either be an attack and then Adeline and Joseph get kidnapped or for the two of them to be kidnapped. I don't think Alex being present is necessary at the moment of the attack/kidnapping, but Grant being present in some way makes sense*.
3) This allows the segway for Slade to go in and rescue them, leading to Joey still getting his throat slit because of Slade's 'code of ethics' and getting his eye shot out by Adeline.
4) I believed it nonsensical then as I do now: there is no reason for Grant to be the only one unaware of Deathstroke's identity. His initial introduction and death in TNTT vol. 1 (Issue #1 and #2) served only for Slade (and eventually Joeys) introductions. We've grown past that in the last 46 years I think.
Nuff said for now, my void shouting secedes.
*I have a few different ways this could pan out, which acts as the hinge for other events later on.
