Flashpoint: Deathstroke and the Curse of the Ravager #1 (of 3)

DC Comics
Flashpoint: Deathstroke and the Curse of the Ravager #1 (of 3)
By Dan Horn
June 8, 2011 - 23:18

DC Comics
Writer(s): Jimmy Palmiotti
Penciller(s): Joe Bennett
Inker(s): John Dell and Joe Bennett
Colourist(s): The Hories
Letterer(s): Travis Lanham
Cover Artist(s): Bennett, Dell, and The Hories
$2.99 US

Deathstroke has taken advantage of the turmoil that has spun out of Flashpoint's Atlantean-Amazonian war in Western Europe, commanding a battleship, The Ravager, over the sunken continent. He and his crew loot and plunder (and whatever other hackneyed verb for acts of piracy you can think of), vying with other pirates like (I really applaud this cameo) Warlord and eventually the emperor Aquaman and his brother Ocean Master, but perhaps most importantly Deathstroke is on a quest to find his daughter.

Deathstroke and the Verbose Parenthesized Title is just as savage as the cover image infers, and Palmiotti's story and Bennett's art are acceptably entertaining, musty pirate vernacular notwithstanding. Like a Waterworld incorporating decades of DC lore, tiresome buccaneer cliches, an unfortunate titular evocation of a Pirates of the Caribbean film, and thankfully no Kevin Costner, Deathstroke satisfies a genre niche, Mad Max on the high seas, that is perhaps too small to have been noticed without this series occupying it in the first place.

I have to say, though, it gets a bit difficult to discern what marked similarities a direct tie-in to Flashpoint such as Deathstroke and an otherwise isolated supplement like the vastly superior Batman - Knight of Vengeance have in common. Right now it seems more of a hodgepodge than a comprehensive epic, and I think that statement pretty much sums up the entire Flashpoint event: all dressed up and nowhere to go.

Rating: 6.5/10