Deathstroke Inc. #3

Deathstroke Inc. #3

DC Comics 2021

Written by Joshua Williamson

Illustrated by Howard Porter

Coloured by Hi-Fi

Lettered by Steve Wands

Deathstroke hunts the deadly Cheetah to the last place you'd expect…the legendary land of Che-terra, a storybook fantasy of Cheetah’s creation! To get to Cheetah, Deathstroke must hack his way past evil witches, murderous unicorns, and an army of cat warriors! Plus: Black Canary went undercover with T.R.U.S.T. to learn who was really pulling the secret organisation's strings, but she is not prepared for what she finds!

I was intrigued enough to pick up the first issue and here we are at issue three and I'm still intrigued. The reveal at the end is great and I’ll be honest I had to google their history because I was aware of only their first appearance and vaguely recalled the most recent and now I’m thrilled to see what’s to become of this here. Now the main part of the story it’s been a while since I’ve seen her too, well either of the featured women really. I guess this is Slade’s book technically so it makes sense he’s the one who goes into this unknown realm in search of the target without Dinah, though she’s got things to do too. Part of me is over Slade and seeing him trying to figure out which direction he wants to go in and which side of the angels he’s fighting. It’s Black Canary and Toyman that make this worth reading.

I’m enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information are exceptionally well rendered. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does a magnificent job with their personalities. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story the more we eagerly await what’s going to come out of the ending.

I’m a fan of the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. I’m also liking how we see the layers opening up new avenues to be explored. Whether or not they are explored they all add this great death, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward are extremely well handled.

The interiors here are really very interesting to say the least. I love the Dinah segments and while not my thing the Slade segments are brought to life with such aplomb, they really are fanciful with a flourish. That we see backgrounds utilised in such abundance makes me happy as they expand and enhance the moments. They also work well within the composition within the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show an extremely talented eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a sensational understanding of how colour works.

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This is a solid book. Nothing over the top spectacular and I’m waiting to see how much Black Canary is going to learn and where exactly Toyman fits into all this. Slade is a mercenary and he’s for hire so there’s no real wonder what his motivations are here, I'm sure he’s getting handsomely paid. Either that or this isn’t the real Slade Wilson. Now wouldn’t that be a twist worthy of the knickers. The writing is solid, the characterisation is pretty interesting and the interiors are extremely well rendered. I’m still intrigued by this book and want to see where it is going to go next.