Trigger Warnings: This piece focuses on grooming and abuse.
According to RAINN, grooming is “manipulative behaviors that the abuser uses to gain access to a potential victim, coerce them to agree to the abuse, and reduce the risk of being caught.” Modern grooming in the media is often discussed in terms of online chat rooms and social media messages, but in the history of comics, the most famous example of grooming behavior was the relationship between the Teen Titan Terra and Deathstroke the mercenary.
Slade Wilson manipulated Terra into betraying her friends and family and delivering them to be killed by H.I.V.E by taking advantage of her inexperience, and her desire to be appreciated, powerful, and loved. Terra’s entire backstory revolved around her being the illiterate daughter of the king of Markova. She had been told from the start that she was the “national embarrassment” of her country. As such, she had developed some major mental health issues, and Deathstroke used those and her youth to his advantage in infiltrating the Titans team.
While the manipulation of 15-year-old Terra is grotesque in and of itself, the addition of implied sexual relations between the two characters makes it all the more disturbing. When the events of The Judas Contract and Terra’s betrayal were retold during the DC: Rebirth era in 2016, Deathstroke finds Terra naked in his bed.
He rejects the teenager, but this version of the storyline just serves to heighten the ick-factor when he kisses her and manipulates her during her emotional breakdown.
The sexual element of Deathstroke’s fascination with teenage girls may only be evident in his relationship with Terra, his grooming and manipulation tactics resurface in multiple storylines.
In the comics, Deathstroke uses experimental drugs and the previous emotional trauma of a teenage girl to coax Cassandra Cain’s Batgirl to control the league of assassins and frame Tim Drake for the murder of Nyssa al Ghul. Even before Cain is subjected to the drugs, Deathstroke’s emotional manipulation of her emphasizes grooming behavior by highlighting how she doesn’t need to change for him, whereas Batman would never accept the kind of person she’s been told repeatably she is- a killer. Physically, as he comforts Cain on his acceptance of who she is, he cups her face tenderly. Between the drugs and Deathstroke’s emphasis on the emotional damage inflicted on Cassandra by both of the father figures in her life, the pattern of grooming continues.
It’s rounded out by the inclusion of yet another teenage girl- the unhoused heroine Poprocket- moving in with Deathstroke after suffering at the hands of several villains, where he has her assist with his work and calls her pet names. She disappears from the storyline shortly thereafter with no explanation or mention again. His internal dialogue at first meeting the teenager is based solely on his desire to find and manipulate someone who will “follow him unconventionally”.
In 2003’s Teen Titans run, Deathstroke uses drugs to control and manipulate his daughter into becoming Ravenger, an assassin like him. The drugs that gave both of them strength, speed, and advanced healing also drove Rose insane to the extent that she claws out one of her eyes to “prove” herself worthy to be her father’s protégé. This storyline would be blended with Deathstroke’s manipulation of Terra and the infiltration of the Titans in 2019’s Titans season 2, showing how much of Deathstroke’s characterization relies on his manipulation of teenage girls.
Since the beginning of The Judas Contract and Deathstroke’s uncomfortable relationship with teenage girls began, the attitudes about grooming and coercion have changed significantly. Those attitudes are most likely part of what motivated the change from Terra to Rose in Titans, but the print versions of Deathstroke still hail him as a “bad-ass” and a “Man’s man” with little regard to his canonical history of grooming and manipulation. In The Other History of the DC Universe #3 by John Ridley and Giuseppe Camuncoli highlights the darker aspects of the DC canon by highlighting marginalized heroes. Ridley and Camuncoli directly call out Deathstroke’s behavior and the subsequent slut-shaming, gas lighting, and deliberate ignoring of this aspect of the character in favor of promoting him to the male audience’s power fantasy via Katana’s internal dialogue.
Ridley’s focus on the glossing over of Deathstroke’s sexual violence and manipulation of Terra is most likely the most direct acknowledgment of the atrocities of the character’s action from the publishing side of things, and it’s not really a shock that it comes from a creator who has been very verbal about the power imbalances that make up the entertainment industry. And my guess is that even though The Other History of the DC Universe spotlighted the reality of Deathstroke’s behaviors, future retelling of The Judas contract will still feature Terra as a villain, not a victim, and Deathstroke as an Anti-hero badass rather than a pedophilic groomer.
To help you recognize warning signs or to get support if you find out a child or teen in your life has been abused, you can speak with someone who is trained to help. Call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673) or chat online at online.rainn.org. It’s free, confidential, and 24/7.
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