The latest issue of Faces Of Evil, has Deathstroke turning over a new leaf by beating up his kid, shooting down some military helicopters, blowing up all evidence of his past life, taking in a runaway to train, and deciding to become a ‘weapon of righteous anger.’

I approve of the change of direction.  Deathstroke, from The Judas Contract through his early years, was never supposed to be a generic baddie with plans for world domination.  This move is getting back in line with the original character, who was defined by his own morality and who often helped various heroes get certain missions done.

However, I am a bit tempted to swap out the end of the issue of Faces Of Evil and substitute the end of Faces Of Mischief, from the Tiny Titans.  One minute Slade is swearing to end the cycle of violence and the next he’s . . . taking Rose fishing, and to a baseball game, and to an amusement park.  Now that would be a new leaf.

However, if the overall arc of Faces Of Evil is sweeping change for the bad guys, there is another big change that would be possible with Deathstroke.  I think the biggest change of all would mean that he gets his ass surgically removed, wrapped in protective cellophane, packed in ice, wrapped up, given to a reliable next-day-delivery company, delivered, and officially handed to him by some character in the DCU.  Honestly.  Someone ought to be able to beat the guy, right?  Anyone?

That being said, what with the ten thousand AUs and the various universes, are there any stories in which you would mix and match the characters?  I Can’t Believe It’s Not The Justice League’s Max Lord being put into Infinite Crisis’ storyline comes to mind.

I yapped this preview from IGN. Don’t bother clicking, IGN is terrible.

Basically, this is a pretty good way to show that retcons are pretty much a lame storytelling device. Nine times out of ten, it’s just another way of saying, “Welp, we screwed up and we don’t want to have to deal with the consequences.” Sometimes it’s something like, “We need this character to be in this position for this story to work and don’t want to do the in-betweening.”

Retcons can be used well, but by and large, they are about sidestepping consequences. Hal Jordan murdered a whole bunch of people, and so far, it seems like his punishment is to get called a stupid earthman and sneered at once every eight months or so. Why? Because he’s Hal Jordan, Hero, and DC Comics needed him to be a Green Lantern for some reason. Sinestro? He ain’t dead! Why, he faked his death! Why? Because Hal Jordan needs Sinestro as a villain. Jean Grey isn’t dead, she’s just in the bottom of a bay. Why? Because we need a team featuring the original X-Men. Prometheus? He hasn’t been looking like a buffoon all over the DC Universe for years. He’s been all locked up, who is that other guy? He’s just some guy who acts just like him, has the same gimmick, costume, personality, and powers.

This is stupid. There’s dozens of other ways to get around Prometheus being an idiot. Faulty tech. A deep-seated fear of Batman (it worked for Deadshot). Slumming it and trying to stay off the radar. Anything but “it wasn’t him, nope.”

That’s just lazy.