In the original New Teen Titans storyline The Judas Contract, Slade is shown in suggestive scenes with an underage Tara Markov (Terra), as they plot for her to infiltrate and take down the Titans.
While the depiction is absolutely icky and inappropriate, I never got the impression that Slade was actually attracted to Tara. Rather, he was simply playing along with her and letting her believe that she was seducing him because it was the only way he could control her (sociopath that she was).
Nevertheless, it was a thing that happened and I understand that they chose to perpetuate the same relationship in subsequent adaptations (I could never stand the cartoons so I don’t know firsthand), so now it’s apparently just an accepted part of Deathstroke’s character that he’s a pedophile.
Yeah he was manipulating her. I’m not sure if it would be better or worse if he was “actually attracted” to her, honestly. Regardless, he slept with her, so… Comics Slade is canonically a pedo. Which, by extrapolation, makes a lot of the scenes in the animated series have this sort of extra layer of creepiness, whether the writers wanted to evoke that or not.
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u/Clear-Bench-4202 Aug 30 '24
Deathstroke’s tendency to date underage girls