Deathstroke

FIRST APPEARANCE: The New Teen Titans Vol. 1 #2 (December 1980)

After lying about his age and joining the US Army when he was only 16 years old, Slade Wilson proved a natural fighter and tactician. He attracted the attention of Captain Adeline Kane, who decided to personally mentor him in guerrilla warfare and black ops. Wilson proved an exceptional student, and he and Adeline later married. It was during his career in the army that Slade met William Randolph Wintergreen of the SAS, and the two became friends.

Eventually, Slade Wilson agreed to undergo a military experimental procedure. As originally detailed before CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, this procedure was intended to alter the adrenal gland and make a soldier immune to interrogation with chemical agents. It was later revealed in DC UNIVERSE: REBIRTH that the experiment, Project X, was meant to create a super-soldier. In both cases, the procedure seemingly failed and rendered Wilson comatose for weeks.

Discovering his physical and mental abilities now operated on superhuman levels, Slade Wilson became a black ops agent called Deathstroke, with Wintergreen acting as his second in command on most missions. Wilson also recruited scientist and technologist Dr. David Isherwood, who later acted as the super hero Dr. Ikon. Isherwood designed a “gravity sheath” bodysuit for Deathstroke that would absorb kinetic energy and create a force-field-like shield, but the assassin dismissed it and instead wore a custom-made bodysuit of promethium armor.

Adeline was kept in the dark about Slade Wilson’s new career and the real reason why he disappeared for days or weeks at a time. Fed up with his father’s absences and his mother’s behavior, young Grant Wilson eventually ran away from home. On the same day, Adeline told Slade that she wanted a divorce. He conceded that he'd expected this, but then left to go on another secret mission.

Adeline then investigate this latest mission of her husband’s, leaving young Joey home alone (assuming Grant would return home to take care of his younger brother). When she returned, Grant had been kidnapped by agents of Qurac in retaliation for Deathstroke killing a colonel in the Quraci army. Adeline found Joey, but his throat was slashed, leaving him permanently mute.

This led not only to Adeline discovering her husband’s true career, but to learning his most recent absence was because he had been saving the life of Rose Wilson, his illegitimate daughter by a Hmong prostitute in China. Feeling betrayed in several ways, and blaming him for Joseph’s injury, Adeline shot Slade in the head when he returned to the States. The wound wasn’t fatal, but Slade lost his right eye, as his regenerative healing abilities weren't yet powerful enough to regrow an entire organ. Following this, the couple officially divorced and Slade cut ties with Adeline and Joey.