| “ | No, Robin. I won't stop. Not now, not ever. I am the thing that keeps you up at night, the evil that haunts every dark corner of your mind. I will never rest - and neither will you. | „ |
| ~ Slade speaking to Robin from the grave. |
| “ | Robin: So why did you do it? For money, status, those dark powers? Slade: Not everything is so cut and dry, Robin. Robin: Selling out our world for your own personal gain seems pretty cut and dry to me. Slade: With or without me there was no stopping this. Robin: But, you played a part. And, just like everything else you've ever done, it's made people suffer. Slade: It's what I do best. |
„ |
| ~ Slade and Robin about the former's motives and actions. |
Slade Joseph Wilson, known better by his first name Slade, is the main antagonist of the 2003 animated television series Teen Titans.
He is a dangerous criminal mastermind bent on defeating the Teen Titans and taking over Jump City, the arch-nemesis of Robin, and, by extension, the greatest enemy of the Teen Titans themselves. After his failure to make Robin his apprentice, Slade tries to recruit Terra to serve him and even goes to join forces with Trigon.
He was voiced by Ron Perlman, who also voiced Mr. Grasping in An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island, The Lich (as well as his Farmworld counterpart) in Adventure Time and the Podestà in Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?
In General
- While his identity, past and motivations (and why he cared for finding an apprentice) are unknown, he has enough personality to not be considered a Generic Doomsday Villain, and what is known about him is that he is cold, sadistic, cruel, unempathetic, and manipulative without real redeeming qualities. Robin (in a dream where he's pursuing him) calls him a psychopath that only cares about destruction and Slade claims causing suffering is what he does best.
- His actions are so horrible that they bring out the worst in Robin, which is made evident when he attacks a completely innocent man due to thinking he works for Slade, and when he yells at Starfire for thinking that she let Slade run past her.
- He is taken completely seriously and darkens the otherwise lighthearted cartoon series. All of his humorous liners are dry and twisted, thus they don't even make him Laughably Evil.
Season 1
- In “Final Exam,” while he tells the Headmistress to spare Gizmo, Jinx and Mammoth, this is pragmatic as all he wanted them to do was send the Titans a message.
- In “Divide and Conquer,” he has Cinderblock break into the prison that Plasma was kept in so that he could wreak havoc while Plasmus distracted the titans, dismissing his human form's plea not to awake him by saying that said form is useless to him.
- He encourages and sends criminals to commit crimes for the sole purpose of getting Robin's attention. In “Thunder and Lightning,” he disguises himself as a Japanese sorcerer and manipulates the titular duo into constructing a giant fire monster and sending it into the city to try and burn it to the ground.
- In “Mask,” while he does have his robotic copy save Robin from falling to his death, it is only to test Robin to see if he is a capable apprentice that he can use for his plans later.
- He implants microscopic bots inside Beast Boy, Raven, Starfire, and Cyborg's bodies (by tricking the titans into thinking he wants to time freeze the city with a detonator) before coercing Robin into becoming his apprentice under the threat that he will kill Robin's friends and make him watch as he does so if he does not obey everything he says. To make it worse, he planned on making this permanent.
- During his apprenticeship of Robin, he compliments him every time he acts similar to him, hoping he becomes as monstrous as he is.
- He activates the microscopic bots inside the Titans' bodies, burning them from the inside out, to threaten Robin into compliance.
- He only removed the nanoscopic bot controller when Robin implanted himself with some and told him he would lose him as an apprentice if the other Titans die. Then he angrily attacks Robin immediately after.
Season 2
- He uses his robotic army to take over Jump City, turning the city into a desolate wasteland.
- He tries to use a giant robotic worm to destroy the Titan Tower and also cause chaos in Jump City.
- He tries to make Titan Tower sink into the ocean.
- He manipulates Terra into becoming his apprentice, and she is forced to betray the Titans by joining his side. He watched as she seemingly killed the Titans one by one with delight.
- He viciously beats Terra when she refuses to fight the Titans. His beatings were brutal enough that parts of Terra's armor were torn off.
- He takes control of Terra's body with his technology against her will, forcing her to nearly kill Beast Boy. He even promises to keep Terra that way forever, causing her to feel so sad and broken inside that she begged Beast Boy to kill her; it's by all means a fate worse than death.
Season 3
- As an apparition in “Haunted,” he tricks Robin by saying he placed a explosive generators around the city that would break it in half in 3 hours, then mercilessly beats him to near death to the point where he begs him to stop for the first time. He also causes Robin to almost hurt the Titans when they try to tell him that Slade and the generators he placed aren't there.
- When Raven went inside Robin's mind to prove to him that Slade wasn't there, she got out (literally) of his mind after Slade punched him, thus proving that Robin was half-right about his "return". He is also the one who created the toxin in one of his masks as a backup plan.
Season 4
- He made a deal with Trigon to get his mortal body back. He knows that Trigon plans to destroy Earth when he arrives on it, but Slade only cared about regaining his body by any means necessary.
- Upon his return, although he makes it clear to Robin that he isn’t after him, he still fights him and the Titans.
- He psychologically torments Raven to the point where she has a mental breakdown.
- He mocks Raven's new power by saying that her friends might fear her just to hurt her.
- He actively plays a role in helping Trigon kill all of humanity. He escorts Raven to the altar, where she will become the portal for Trigon to arrive on Earth and destroy it afterwards.
- Though he claims that even he would not wish for the fate Trigon had given the Earth, he still actively chooses to assist Trigon regardless as called out by Robin, on the basis that he should not prolong the inevitable.
- He also admits that he served Trigon to fight the Teen Titans.
- Robin also makes it clear that Trigon's plan being prophesied to happen doesn't change the fact that he still took part in it of his own free will.
- He kills the Gate Guard by using a bomb to reclaim his flesh and blood, while stating that he is not such a nice guy himself after being told he can’t stop pure evil, although he kills the Gate Guard out of self-defense, he still has some sadistic pleasure in doing so.
- Although he helps the Titans save Raven and beat Trigon, it is clearly not out of any compassion whatsoever. He only agreed to help them so he could achieve his own selfish goal of regaining his flesh and blood back and to get revenge on Trigon for betraying him. He even says that his "generosity" is not to be mistaken for regret.
Season 5
- In the final episode, he apparently sends one of his android duplicates to torment Beast Boy and mock him over the fact that Terra does not remember him. He faces no comeuppance for his actions afterwards and will most likely continue his goals to take over Jump City, unless the Titans manage to find and stop him.
Trivia
- In the Teen Titans series finale, "Things Change," Slade seemingly tries to help Beast Boy move on with his life by insisting to him that he is making Terra uncomfortable. However, aside from the fact that he could have been trying to taunt Beast Boy instead of helping him, this Slade turns out to be a robot duplicate, so perhaps it doesn't reflect the real Slade's true nature.
- However, it was shown that Slade knows how much Beast Boy loves Terra, so it's likely that if Slade was helping Beast Boy move on, then it is possible that he knew that Beast Boy would still be depressed either way.
- Slade is a rare instance of Adaptational Villainy and Adaptational Nice Guy at the same time. On one hand, Deathstroke in the comics is an On & Off mercenary who commits crimes only for money, has some moral standards, and cares for his butler and three children (despite abusing them on occasion), whereas Slade in the cartoon is an overall power-hungry sadist with no good qualities at all. However, Deathstroke in the comics also repeatedly raped a mentally unstable Terra while she was underage (15-16 years old), whereas nothing in the cartoon implies Slade did anything of the sort.
- To further drive the point of Slade's Pure Evil status, the showrunners of the comedic 2013 spin-off Teen Titans Go! confessed at their panel at Comic-Con that they had a hard time in developing his counterpart for such spin-off, only able to provide hints up until the feature film Teen Titans Go! To the Movies due to finding the character's dark and serious nature would made him out of place in said spin-off owing to its sillier format in comparison of original 2003 show. Ironically, they had better success in working on a sillier yet cunning take on Trigon who similarly a dark and serious force to reckon with.
- While the Teen Titans GO! iteration of the character is still a criminal mastermind like 2003 one, such version of Slade ultimately contrasted the latter; a no-nonsense supervillain and reluctant nemesis of Teen Titans who only wanted to mind his evil plans until the titular group of young heroes became a nuisance for him, Robin in particular.
External Links
- Slade on the Villains Wiki
- Slade on the Vs Battles Wiki
- Slade on the Teen Titans Wiki
 Pure Evils
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Comics Television Movies See Also | ||
