Titans rumors: What you need to know from Jericho to The Judas Contract

Jericho in Deathstroke (2016) #35. Photo Credit: DC Comics.

Here’s the deal with the Wilson family

Slade might not have taken Trigon’s parenting courses, but his parental guidance is still messed up, to say the least. No, his daughter isn’t a walking demonic portal. However, he isn’t opposed to strict parenting techniques — which include attempting to murder his kids… and he sometimes succeeds.

Wilson family bonding time might be nonexistent, but his ex-wife, Adeline Kane, does have a supportive role in Deathstroke’s life. Apart from training him in combat, Adeline helped Slade navigate from his villainous path to a complicated antihero. Despite indirectly and directly helping Slade become less of a jerk, she also embarks on a villainous arc of her own — organizing a new H.I.V.E. team of villains. Her strange turn to evil also marks one of Deathstroke’s team-ups with the Teen Titans.

We can’t predict what the new version of Slade Wilson, his character development, and his family dynamics will look like, or if the series will include his extremely heightened reflexes and intelligence. However, Deathstroke definitely doesn’t have a traditional family. Beyond manipulating Rose on a few occasions, Slade doesn’t have the best relationship with any of his kids, but especially not Rose since she tries to distance herself from him altogether.

While Rose eventually takes on the Ravager moniker after Grant dies, she adopts a new identity around the alias. As a sometimes-member of the Teen Titans, she mostly uses her enhanced perception to at least try to live a less homicidal lifestyle.

Meanwhile, Joey (better known as Jericho) has some conflicting character development. While Rose gradually works to distance herself from whatever missions her dad works on and nefarious actions in general, Jericho transitions from the life of a hero to a villain.

Though Jericho starts out as a prominent Teen Titans member, he has an unfortunate paranormal experience on Azarath. Basically, the souls of the interdimensional realm possess him, but the souls are influenced by Trigon, so he turns evil until Raven helps his soul and resurrects his physical body.

Seeing as Deathstroke and Trigon both have a connection with Jericho, he would help tie them together. After all, Slade still isn’t over what Jericho did to William Wintergreen (Slade’s sort of father figure), and regardless of Jericho’s good or evil alignment, he’s a target for Deathstroke.

Despite the fact that Trigon and Deathstroke are common archenemies of the Titans, we can assume the second season probably won’t draw inspiration from the Teen Titans animated series when Deathstroke made a deal with the devil (the eighth devil, Trigon, specifically). However, weaving Slade, Rose, Adeline, and Jericho into the live-action lore doesn’t mean that we won’t see Trigon anymore.

Given the powerful heroic lineup, the team will probably banish Trigon back to his layer of Hell. This won’t be a permanent solution for the interdimensional demon, though. If Rachel can temporarily control her Soul-Self and use it to send her dad back to one of her portals, she can sequester him for a while, which will give him some time to brood before he surprises the team again. Still, the series might redirect its attention to Deathstroke as a primary antagonist for season 2.

Based on the new reports about Slade’s new on-screen backstory and Geoff Johns’ comments at NYCC, the show will take some creative liberties with Deathstroke’s journey to his antihero persona, but we can expect to see a similar villain to antihero narrative nonetheless. Given the show’s apparent affinity for changing its on-screen characters, both with the Slade rumors and Angela’s on-screen counterpart, we could see new versions of the rest of Slade’s family as well.