Flashpoint: Deathstroke and the Curse of the Ravager #1 – Review

By: Jimmy Palmiotti (writer), Joe Bennett (artist), John Dell (inker), Rich & Tanya Horie (colorists)

The Story: Yargh, ‘tis Deathstroke, most fearsome pirate of the however many seas!

The Review: We can all admit we’ve at one time or another fallen for something where the concept is so intriguing, it gets us halfway in before we can step back and think how the execution will actually turn out.  And nothing takes in comics readers faster than putting our favorite characters into the guises of other geeky genres: cowboys, ninjas, and of course, pirates.  Who knows why?  It just does.  Of course, some characters take to these roles better than others.

Fortunately, Deathstroke, being a coldblooded, mercenary killer to begin with makes a perfect fit for the whole pirate deal, and that’s before you get to his eye-patch, beard, and perfectly white follicles.  Slap him with a sturdy ship, roguish crew (with a few metahumans peppered in), and a dashing bandanna-cap, and he’s golden.  Certainly Palmiotti pulls off the idea with much more gusto than Morrison does with Batman in the disappointing Return of Bruce Wayne #3.

The pleasures of reading pirate-Deathstroke are simple, but satisfying: it’s just fun to watch him land someplace, cause some havoc, punk a few things in the chaos, and then take off.  Of course, his swordplay duel with the Warlord aboard the good ship Skartaris offers some classic pirate antics, but his raid on the isle of Saint Helena and its metahuman prison is no less action-packed (love how his grappling hook winds up clawing into one of the guards as it grabs the wall).