The race for Deadshot’s son

Before we get into our the modern day Deadshot, we really need to touch upon his long-forgotten character development of the late 1980s.  You want to know why the man’s callousness and apathy pervades so strongly in all his stories?  Well, it deals with his first miniseries Deadshot #1-4, written by John Ostrander & Kim Yale and drawn by Luke McDonnell.  Also, Deadshot’s an evil supervillain, so let’s not get all sympathetic here, but it’s worth a note.  The master marksman comes across his miniseries’ problem:

Surprise!  Despite being a terrible father, Deadshot has a son (though it is in the title of the article). You know how bad guys outnumber good guys like 10-to-1 in the comic book world?  If they just united, they could easily take down all the do-gooders and destroy/rule the world to their liking.  But the problem with being evil is that instead of teamwork, bad guys’ll do bad things to each other. Because they’re bad.  That’s how it works.  Most importantly, the stakes go much higher than a simple kidnapping — this is gritty post-1986 we’re talking about.  Meet the pedophile:

Look, comic books sometimes handle wildly uncomfortable topics.  Molestation, rape, etc.  And honestly, I get that comics deal with issues like that and some comics should, but honestly?  I don’t really like that stuff in my DC and Marvel.  I know it’s hypocritical if just because of the crazy mass murder committed that I don’t bat an eye about, but if the main character wears spandex and has a cape, can we just stick to the non-creepy crimes?  I mean, the idea of Superman solving an incest case or something?  The thought of that alone makes me want to chug something strong.  But today, we’re getting pedohpilia — I can handle it, unlike say, Deadshot.

How do these people possibly think Deadshot is going to react?  He’s in Batman’s rogue gallery, for goodness sake, the meanest, pettiest, most irrational group of supervillains in the DC universe. Seriously, what is the homicide rate in Gotham City?  Half?  Though you can’t hate Deadshot’s detective skills — he just holds them at gunpoint until they give him what he wants.  Has Batman tried that?  It’s way easier than research and lab work.  Also, here’s what happens when a group of henchmen kidnap the son of the most accurate marksman on the planet.

You can probably guess where this is going.  Pedophiles don’t usually do anything chivalrous when no one’s keeping watch on them.  Chris Hansen isn’t going to step out and ask this pervert to take a seat.  I understand your uneasiness right now, but at least you’ll get to witness every single one of these henchmen — who let the kid run off with a pedophile — get very much what they deserve.  By that I mean a bullet in the head.

Yeah, so daddy’s angry.  Even with my hyper-liberal leanings, I’m all for capital punishment on molesters.  No therapy will kill that attraction. Regardless of this being a fictional universe where none of these characters actually exist, the next few pages fill that broken part of my soul that the previous page shattered.  And now you can probably understand why Deadshot keeps anyone who could get emotionally close far, far, far away from him.  Watch this monster get what he deserves:

Deadshot’s mom orchestrated the kidnapping of his son.  This man never stood a chance of not being evil.  For what this 20 year-old job is the bad guys wanted him to do, what’s the secret involving Deadshot’s family, and the confrontation between mother and son, you’ll have to buy the book.  I’m sorry.  Next time, we jump to his even-harder-to-find second mini-series for his fight against Green Arrow!