Figured I may as well actually use the blog here... I picked up Team 7 and Deathstroke the other day. I was looking forward to Team 7 because I am a fan of Wildstorm, and also really liked Luther Strode. Not a lot of plot to Team 7, basically just an introduction to the characters, but it was well put together for what it was. I decided to give Deathstroke a whirl this month cus of the potential ties to Team 7, and yeah, predictably, I hated it. but whatever, that's not the complaint here.

I must bitch about something. This isn't directed at any of the creators, it's directed at editorial. We've all heard from various sources that there has been a lot of editorial meddling going on at DC, and have seen evidence of it in a number of books. I was upset on the one hand because it seemed to be dumbing down some books, and restricted freedom, but I tried to tell myself that if they want to make a cohesive universe, it's kind of a necessary evil. You need to have editors to make sure everything matches up with everything else and makes sense, and also be there to tell creators 'no' when they want to give Batman a sex change or something. But as time goes on, I see that's not really what's happening, and with Deathstroke and Team 7, we had 2 books released on the SAME DAY that directly contradicted eachother.

The problem is that the editors of these two books clearly didn't consult eachother beyond the barest details. In Team 7, the team is created just after the Justice League hits the scene, about 5 years ago. Deathstroke is not recruited to the team until then, and before that he's working as a mercenary. (though he did apparently have some connection with Lynch previously) In Deathstroke he goes right from the military to Team 7 and this was before his wife (who he married at a ceremony with the angriest bridemaids in the history of ever, it was hilarious) gave birth to any of their children. Later when his family is attacked, his oldest son is a young teen at the youngest, and that still isn't up to present day. So a whole lot more than 5 years had passed since he first joined Team 7, probably around 25 years. And you can't even argue that this was just the past history with Lynch, because it included one of the new characters, Bronson, by name, as well as Grifter and Black Canary who clearly aren't as old as Deathstroke in the present day, but would have to be the same age to have participated in the story the way it was presented.

So, to recap: in Team 7 his family isn't mentioned, but we can assume that he had his family BEFORE joining Team 7, since his (and Fairchild's, for that matter) daughter is active in the DCU and is all grown up, and his son, too. He also spent time as a mercenary before Team 7, considering they interrupt one of his mercenary jobs in order to recruit him. But in Deathstroke he had his family AFTER Team 7, and did his time as a mercenary after Team 7 as well. They are directly at odds with eachother, yet they came out on the same day. No one in editorial noticed this? What's all this editorial meddling been for, if they can't even keep something like this straight?

*edit - and now I learn that on top of inconsistencies with Team 7, Deathstroke #0 was pretty much ripped off wholesale from Tales of Teen titans #43... unbelievable slip up from DC editorial on this for catching neither the inconsistencies between Deathstroke and Team 7 and the blatant theft on Liefeld's part. As far as I'm concerned they should esxcise the zero issue from any trades and pretend it never happened.