Alex says:

See, this was my point about the crossover being bad business. Some fans are so rabid and so obsessed with the status quo that it’s clear they don’t want change, they don’t want characters to evolve and they don’t want substance, they just want the same storylines endlessly recycled and remade and I think the general direction of Rebirth is encouraging this behavior. The crossover brought in fans of Damian and Wally West(the white version) which are notoriously obnoxious and unreasonable and a lot of the complaints are from them, not your regular Deathstroke readers. I just hope this whole affair doesn’t tick you off too much, it seems you’re aware that most comic book readers deal in extremes and hyperbole so… yeah.
For me, I found the crossover a bit of a mess, certainly not “garbage” or anything close to that and there were some moments that I really enjoyed BUT those moments were written by you(and I really don’t mean to come off as disrespectful toward your colleagues, Ben Percy and Dan Abnett but there’s a reason I don’t normally follow those series and only picked up the crossover issues, their issues had way too much time wasted on the heroes pointlessly bickering and as a regular Deathstroke reader, I was not pleased by the fact that I had to pick up two issues from two series I don’t read and don’t want to read). The storyline is called “The Lazarus Contract” but the actual lazarus contract is only briefly mentioned at the start and never actually ends up playing a part in the rest of the story. Apart from being a fairly predictable arc(solicits kind of gave away stuff too), I also think Slade’s failure didn’t pack the emotional punch that some other scenes in the past issues involving his family had(again, maybe the predictability is at fault). Please don’t listen too much to “the fans” because there are a lot of people reading comics and you can never satisfy everyone, a writer needs to be fearless, lay out HIS storylines and not try to please the masses. Hell, if you were to listen to the masses then you’d have to insert boring inner monologue boxes, stop trying to make Slade a complex character and just make him evil for the sake of being evil and have him constantly trying to fight the Teen Titans(and lose) and maybe then you’d please the status quo obsessed crowd.
I only have about 4 currently ongoing comic books that I’m constantly excited to read each month and Deathstroke is one of them… I have kind of lost hope in this industry and so I really NEED this title, it means a lot to me in these times so I really hope you’re not losing interest in comics because of this.
Regarding Dick Grayson, I get where you’re coming from. I like the character but I do not like the Nightwing persona and the endless mediocrity that it brings. Have you by any chance read the “Grayson” series from a few years back written by Tom King and Tim Seeley? I thought it was a very fresh and exciting direction and the writing was charming, funny and at times even deep. Particularly the Future’s End special and #3 were SO good, if you haven’t read it then maybe you can ask your editor, Alex Antone, to hook you up with the issues. Rebirth traded in this new and exciting direction for more of the same and it’s a shame because the ending to Grayson is very rushed due to this and although I like Tim Seeley, he is not doing as great of a job on Nightwing as he did on Grayson, part of the problem is that he’s been recycling storylines like crazy(Rebirth BABY!!!).

Anyway… yes, some fans want their favorite characters to be boring, they want to see their favorite character defeat everybody so they can brag to friends that their favorite character is better than everyone else’s. They want characters to be stuck in the same storylines, they want the status quo and their shippings to be true and so on and so forth. And for the record, you did NOT do a bad job writing Damian. We are talking about a character that started out as a jerk and with time developed into a better person and died a hero. DC then decided to bring him back from the dead despite the fact that killing him off was always the creator’s intent, so DC brings him back and proceeds telling the same “Damian is a jerk but then he becomes very nice and friendly” plot EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. Damian remained a jerk until the day he died, he just developed a complex personality in which he understood certain things and wasn’t as mean spirited on the outside but recently his direction is going from cold to hot to cold to hot to… you get the picture. I mean, the heart stopping thing was pretty bad as he shouldn’t take “death” so lightly and apart from one panel of “what the hell?”, everyone else didn’t really seemed to mind what he did, even if (as I understand) he’s the cause of Wally’s heart problems in the present day but you did a good job nailing his voice, his dialogue was good(as it was in #5). You didn’t really do anything wrong with Wally either, his fans are just upset that he didn’t beat Slade in 0.001 seconds and solve the day.

horace Conrad says:

while i didn’t really know much going in, i thought it was a decent overall story. that nickelback medley thing made me laugh. your work is awesome, are you going to be on Deathstroke and that Inhumans book at the same time? If not, looks

Jack says:

This is a very interesting post.

For the most part, I agree. I think when “fans” scream about how you wrote Damian, they aren’t being fair to the character. He is very much still a little shit and handles things in a very cold, apathetic and logical manner when the chips are down, just as he always has. Sure, he’s grown and developed in many ways since his inception, but the idea that he’s “fixed” or whatever seems quite ridiculous to me, because that’s just not who he is. I read both volumes of Batman and Robin that included him, and his solo as well, and I don’t believe you betrayed the character as egregiously as others would have you believe. People love when Damian is an asshole to people they don’t like, but when he shows his colors to a character they are a fan of, they let their discontent be known. The only thing I can really complain about was how easily Damian seemed to “get away with it” so to say. Everyone just says “bad Damian” and moves on. It feels very hand-waved. That being said, him leading the Teen Titans seems to bring out the worst in him and I’d love for Percy to explore that instead of it being played straight and unquestioned, because as I said, he HAS developed a not-insignificant amount since Morrison birthed him.

When it comes to OG Wally, I think they as a whole feel slighted or something. They expected Wally to come back after several years of absence and they expected heaps of fanservice as “reparations” of a sort. Some character-centric comic book fanbases seem to have a large focus on fanservice these days (I personally know many Dick Grayson fans who would much rather read a comic that does nothing but recite how awesome and sexy he is rather than read a story where he actually struggles and is forced to confront his shortcomings as so many others do). I also think this ties in to the reception of Damian’s behavior, since many Nightwing fans hold Morrison’s Batman and Robin as some sort of sacred cow, and see Damian’s vast improvement in behavior as a direct representative of how good an influence Dick Grayson is, and when they see that Damian is still a fucking asshole, it damages that notion in their eyes.

Much to their chagrin, you and some of your fellow writers at DC would rather tell a story with the characters, explore new ground, build upon what others have done, cast new narratives and so on than simply please the kinds of fans that so rabidly take to social media pages showcasing just how awesome their favorite characters are. I myself am guilty of fanboying like this, I made my displeasure with the entirety of Charles Soule’s work on the Inhumans very much known to anyone who would listen. There simply is no pleasing everyone.

Now I’ve been somewhat critical of some of your past works (some things in your Power Man and Iron Fist run left very sour feelings in me), but all in all I believe your work on Deathstroke has been nothing short of stellar and I absolutely cannot wait for each issue. It’s fresh, it’s exciting, it’s entertaining, all while remaining true to the characters involved. I really don’t think much else needs to be said on that matter.

I think the biggest problem with the crossover issue in question was that the issue was…well…it kind of felt like a lot of masturbation with very little payoff, of course the “payoff” being the upcoming story arcs it set up. Once these stories start unfolding I’m sure the vocal dissenters will find something else to complain about.

Inigo says:

It was a solid little crossover, as these things go. Was pleasantly surprised you scripted the finale, as I wasnt expecting it. Wally chickening out was a human moment, and a breath of fresh air. Slade freaked him out, and made him go get his team for help, something more natural and human than yet another, ‘No i’ve got this!’ Damian was as shrewd and demented as i’ve come to expect. Honestly, i only read it bc I’m following “Deathstroke” anyway, so I enjoyed it.

David says:

Hello, Mr. Priest! I’m actually quite a big fan of yours but I’m also part of the number who heavily criticized Lazarus Contract. So here’s my honest response — I hope nothing is taken too personally, but you did ask for fans’ opinions so I’m happy to oblige. I’m quite wordy so if you’re too busy to read this then no problem. I’m just happy you’re asking, most creators don’t do that much.

On the issues with Damian, this is a long running contention in the Batfandom. Damian fans have to constantly argue and defend the, for lack of a better word, little shithead from hordes of people denigrating him as a horrible character to be a superhero whose existence damages those of others (Particularly Tim Drake fans). Damian has gone through quite a few years of rehabilitation in his unsavory attitude and, as a result, the impulsive, downright sadistic mentality he used to have has gotten smoothed over. Now he’s still an obstinant, holier than thou little asshole, but he’s not this weirdly ruthless, uncaring monster he seemed to be in Lazarus Contract. He literally crippled one of Dick’s friends and teammates (and Damian cares about no one’s opinion more than Dick’s) and, instead of apologizing for what he thought was necessary, bragged about how cool and awesome his plan was while Dick had to restrain him instead of talking to him. I think this problem might just be an issue of real estate, you only had so many pages to tell the story, but I feel like some of the fallout for what he did to Wally 1.0 would’ve been better than the rather out of nowhere and out of place scene between him and Raven.

On the topic of his plan, I had an issue with this because I honestly still have no clue how to make sense of that story. Probably my heaviest criticism of the finale is everything to do with Damian’s “plan” to foil Deathstroke. How does killing Wally stop Slade from getting powers? Slade stole his powers from Wally 2.0, who got his powers entirely independently of Wally 1.0. Is it because Linda never writes that column about Wally 1.0 for Slade to get the idea if Wally was dead? But Wally didn’t actually die, he was never going to die, so how is causality afffected? Assuming any of that somehow makes sense, wouldn’t crippling/killing Wally 1.0 also…prevent any of them from going back in time? So Damian could never kill him? Because Wally’s the one who took them there. You can’t kill the dude who allowed you to time travel 10 years before he makes you time travel. It’s a bog standard Grandfather paradox. The worst thing is, it works! Damian’s idiot move where he kills another superhero magically works, vindicating his assholery and idiocy with little to no fallout amongst the characters it affects most (The Titans).

Speaking of The Titans, and even the Teen Titans, basically everyone seemed like wallpaper except Wally, Wally, Damian, and Slade. Even Dick, who apparently created the titular Lazarus Contract, was pretty irrelevant to the proceedings. This seemed like a Deathstroke issue painfully stretched out across multiple books that didn’t really need to be involved.

Onto characters I wish weren’t involved in this: Wally West, the original. I’ll put myself out there and say I’m a huge Wally West fan. I have been for many, many years, basically since I could read. I am incredibly biased on this point so I understand if you waive me off as a blathering fan with no vision. I absolutely hate the twist you guys attached to Wally here — not because I’m completely averse to seeing my favorite characters suffer (my favorite Wally stories involve crazy amounts of Wally suffering). But because it is a plot point that has already been used. Giving Wally a heart condition that forces him to temporarily retire from being a hero is exactly what Wolfman did ages ago. I’m not looking for a revisit of the worst plot point to ever grace Wally. Secondly, and much more personally, I greatly disliked your writing of Wally West (assuming you were the one who headed up the writing on the Deathstroke issue). There is no world I can imagine where Wally West runs away while a person he’s responsible for letting get away goes around and murders people. There’s no world where Wally is a coward who runs away, then cries to himself about how he’s a coward to Jericho (someone Wally would literally never trust).

Let me tell you a big Wally fan’s view on this (I’m no writer, so like I said, take this with a grain of salt). Wally would die to save people, that’s who he’s always been. Wally runs into odds he can’t beat constantly and has gotten his ass kicked none too few times for it (especially speedsters, both Thawne and Zolomon have beaten Wally to a pulp while he was helpless). I can’t conscionably stomach the Slade and Wally exchange in that scene. Again, it’s not that I can’t take Wally suffering — I can totally take that. I can point to a dozen stories about Wally suffering that I love. What I can’t take is Slade telling Wally he’s not the real Flash and then Wally proving him right. It felt like DC giving me some mandate through the mouth of too cool, too awesome villain who’s now at his coolest and most awesome. Even if they’re right that Wally isn’t the real Flash in DC’s eyes, it still hurts to see and and is miserable to see it proven right. There’s many other options, Slade just beating Wally to a pulp and Wally staggering back to the Titans, humiliated. Slade just getting away, because Wally was tranq’d and had no idea where Slade ran off to. This scene seemed constructed purely to get a message across that Wally was too scared to do anything — I honestly don’t see the purpose otherwise. I really don’t understand how a character who looked death in the face and said “Let’s boogie,” can possibly be afraid of Deathstroke, no matter how much Speed Force energy he’s stolen. All I saw from this scene was that Wally really wasn’t The Flash, which is horrifying and sad to me because that’s all I see him as. Everything that defines The Flash to me comes from Wally and I saw none of that in your story. Just an incompetent, scared boy pretending to be The Flash. And the followup of this scene, where I felt like Wally wasn’t himself and wasn’t worthy of the name he earned over 20 years, was him losing his ability to use his powers! So now he actually ISN’T The Flash! It was this one two punch of annihilation of anything that is Wally.

As you said, you can’t read 200 comics in preparation for a 4 issue crossover event. That’s a big undertaking for anyone even as a hobby, much less on top of work. I have no idea what the writer’s room was like for you, Abnett, and Percy when it came to this story. My hope would’ve been that Abnett and maybe the Titans editor (Atone?) would’ve been able to get this conceptualization of who Wally is across when this scene came up. I don’t think all blame falls squarely on your shoulders when there’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen. But this is how I feel, as a fan, on the subject. I’m not begging for a flat, boring character who never suffers through trauma. But Wally has already suffered through more trauma than any other DC hero around right now (unless you can point me to another hero with dead kids, a lost life, and a universe that doesn’t care about him) and this trauma is both unoriginal and a great symptom of fear for Wally fans — massive character regression. Regressing him to who he was before he was The Flash. Because that’s what fans HATED about New 52 Wally 2.0. He took the name but was regressed and unrecognizable. It’s why there was a such backlash against him. And here in this story, we get an urecognizable Wally (a coward, not worthy of being The Flash) who’s beeing massively regressed.

There were other miscellaneous bits of the story that felt really unsatisfying or unnecessary to me. Most of them amount to feeling like this book was just ticking off bullet points rather than putting together a sensible story — like how I still don’t understand the real purpose of that giant psychic link up scene aside from shoehorning the wallpaper cast as somehow relevant to the plot and, I guess, getting Damian to hug Raven as some weird hail mary contrition for him to save some face after he was utterly awful for the rest of the book.

As a writer I can’t honestly comprehend how to do your job. I don’t know all the many crazy intricacies and demands it requires, especially in huge mashup crossovers. Fully understanding so many characters you’re not usually responsible for has to be hard. I don’t begrudge you, personally, for any of this, but I certainly did not like this book. That’s how I feel on it.

Isaac says:

“The impression I am forming is fans want their characters to evolve into flat, lifeless droids who, I guess, have adventures wherein their decisions are always spot-on, they are always portrayed in a heroic light, and nobody ever gets damaged.”

I can only speak for myself, but that’s not what I want at all. I just don’t want a character’s prior development seemingly tossed to the curb just for the sake of the story, and with Damian in particular, I think that’s what happened here. It felt like too much of a regression with little explanation why, at least that I could see.

Zander says:

I’m not a Deathstroke fan, never have and you’re the only reason I’m buying it and I still don’t much care for anything related to him outside of Rose. I currently switch between either keep getting the single issues or trade wait

The disconnect comes from the fact that ever since Barry came back fans had to sit and deal with OG Wally’s importance being rapidly deminished, he went from being a example of what a lace you hero is to that bum who is interchangeable with a blank slate younger black character that has his name because tv show. Since the start of nu52 OG Wally fans had to sit as various Flash writers came up with excuses on how it is difficult to fit Wally in and this was all before nuWally came into being but they had no problem during Flashpoint to let you know off panel that Captain Cold killed a depowered OG Wally. OG Wally finally comes back but now he’s treated worse than how he was before he was erased from existence and now a new found heart problem out of nowhere that threatens to basically retire him would leave some folks with pause and some anger, why continue to pay money to read a comic when a character you like is continually dumped on and the attitude in response is “well he’s here so suck it up and be happy”. One can draw a comparison between how Roy Thomas wrote Black Panther as a punching bag and how that to this day draws fan ire but your run after it is used to show how to write him correctly and is the platinum standard for the character.

Also Wally fans aren’t the most obnoxious comic fans as that title will always remain with Hal fans with a honorable mention to Rich Ryder fans

that’s not even mentioning other characters who suddenly became hard to write like Cass Cain & Steph Brown because you know there’s a walking Barbra now so folks should enjoy that and hey instead of figuring out something to do with those two here’s Harper Row who’s so much easier to write because she’s new( and that’s not even getting to how the original Batwing was treated once his comic ended ). Damian had gotten out of the little douche role but it seems that outside of what Morrison/Tomasi/Gleason did to add multiple layers everyone saw “oh he’s a little shit, got it” and that was it and appear to not care enough to write him beyond that role.

Most will agree that there hasn’t been a good Titans book since Wolfman/Perez and the current series continues in that tradition and this was just seen as both a quick cash grab for the animated movie and to correct the erasing from canon the pre nu52 stuff. You and the other writers unfortunately were going to run into this kick back regardless and when this was announced I was of the mind of was this necessary and while I am a OG Wally fan( he was Flash when I started reading the Waid stuff ), a Damian fan thanks to the three writers mentioned already this event really for me did everyone a disservice and at the most makes me feel bad for nuWally fans as this said “this character ain’t sh!t” but DC has cultivated that attitude with characters not named Bruce/Hal/Barry for years.

Roger Dering says:

What we want isn’t all that complicated. We want the characters we like to be around, have stories and be occasionally successful. We get two with Wally, we get one with Donna and Tempest. The Titans have historically had a tough enough time competing with the Bat-characters for character focus. Titans’ opening arc was all about Wally, this crossover as it pertains to the Titans was all about Wally and ended only with introducing a new status quo for Wally.
As for Damian, I’m fine with him still grappling with not using the skills he learned in the League of Assassins to solve stressful problems. But struggle is not what I saw (more like open glee) and I don’t expect it to get the appropriate reprecussions from Nightwing or Batman who are all about their no killing rule. Which doesn’t make them perfect, it can in fact make them quite difficult to work with.

Too bad to hear how you feel about Nightwing though.

Lhynn says:

Agree 100% with you. Both with Dick Grayson, and Damian.
What i would advice you guys to do is keep a reference document with character development from all characters, it would make writing them on character much easier, no one wants to read about their favorite character with a voice that isnt the characters own voice.
Other than that you are 100% right, obstacles and drama and how they deal with that is what makes a character worth reading, so keep throwing them curve balls.
This is my humble opinion.

porto says:

Thank you for informing that I never should pick anything that you write in the future. With your understanding of characters, Slade must be your limit.