Batman: 9 Things You Need To Know About Deathstroke

9. Deathstroke Was Originally Known As ‘The Terminator’

Arnold Schwarzenegger made the moniker iconic but he wasn’t the first killing machine to adopt it.

Deathstroke was introduced to comic fans as the Terminator in 1980 when he emerged as a gun-toting pain in the Teen Titans’ collective backside, a hardboiled merc with a military background who’s hellbent on wiping out the super youth club.

Created by writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Perez, Deathstroke soon built up a fierce rivalry with the Titans, particularly Beast Boy, who gave him a severe pummelling at the conclusion of that storyline.

Although the assassin failed in his attempt to end the Titans, his popularity among readers soon saw him established as a DC Comics mainstay, but the Terminator codename proved shortlived.

These days, he’s simply referred to as Deathstroke, even by characters who called him Terminator for years. DC beat James Cameron to the Terminator branding by four years, so who knows why they chose to say hasta la vista to the name?