Sorry (Again) to have been gone so long and thank you Dave for checking in.

I’m a little puzzled by the many “Slade is a pedophile” comments. Mostly because they feel accusatory toward me, as if Slade and Terra’s relationship was my idea or my doing.

I’m sure (or at least hoping) you are aware that Slade and Terra’s relationship was established 30 years before I got here. The relationship was the centerpiece and gut punch of the Teen Titans’ most famous and revered story arc, The Judas Contract. But I’m sure most visitors to this blog already know that, so maybe I’m missing the point.

Ignoring or rounding the edges off of that seminal story felt disingenuous. I wasn’t happy about it at all. If anything, I’d have made a much tougher statement. All Rebirth Deathstroke did was kiss her, and he wasn’t happy about doing that. SHE came on to HIM and he threw her out of his hotel room (#27, magnificently rendered by Diogenes Neves and Jason Paz– wow, maybe my favorite issue of Dio’s run, he gave tremendous emotional depth and complexity to Terra in a story designed to make us understand why she is the little witch that she is).

I’m a little lost about all of the pedophile comments and accusations. Slade is certainly _not_a pedophile or a child sexual predator. He IS, however, a villain. I’m constantly having to remind people, some of whom work at DC, that Slade is a *villain.* He’s a bad, bad man who does terrible things. But few fans seem all that concerned when Slade slaughters a dozen black soldiers (#6) but the sheer volume of protest over his killing a dog continues to resonate.

Accusing me of something, even obliquely, because we revisited Deathstroke and Terra’s history, which was important to do in terms of defining her character and why she hates him so much, just seems oddly unfair. Slade is not a pedophile or even a (more diagnostically accurate) Ephebophile. He had no sexual interest whatsoever in Terra or any other youth.

He is, however, an incredible bastard who does shocking and heinous things, like killing a dog right in front of its master. Faulting me for Slade being an evil jerk is wrong and inaccurate as well, but I’ll take it.

Or am I missing the point?

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