Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

So before I get into the meat of this, I'm going to find my splint, then explain things like character crush vs character lust for me.   A character crush - by my definition because I have no better one for me - is someone who I am attracted to personality wise, but does nothing for me because they are meat.   It's someone who I most likely would be attracted to if they were not and were, in fact, metal.   Character lust is someone who I am attracted to personality wise, and is metal, so check, check, wants.  A character crush could potentially be a whole 'oooh, you move nice/look pretty' but there is no tingling in any areas, thank you very much, and I'm more attracted to personality than body types.  (Although there are exceptions: I normally don't enjoy Ultra Magnus' super anal personality type, nor his body type, but yikes, put them together and biggest character lust ever so go figure.   Just like there are exceptions to about everything in my level of attraction/lust towards characters or worlds.   If someone is done well, I find there are no fast and hard rules other than the one that, despite my best efforts, sticks: if it's meat it's relegated to crush, metal can transcend to lust.)

I bring this up to tie into Deadshot.   Deadpool was a huge character crush of mine, and I'm finding Deadshot may be DC's Deadpool for me: I desperately want to know more about this character and read more about this character.    Remember when I blew through everything about Deadpool thanks to MU?   If DC had a monthly/yearly reading plan, I'd be blowing through everything Deadshot.  

That being said, I'm searching for more stories that show this side of him, which is sympathetic.   Oh, he's still a villain, he's still a killer, but there's something incredibly touching about why he goes on his latest killing spree.   I was hooked from the casual revelation, by another character, that Deadshot had a son who was raped and killed by a pedophile: it was dropped in as an explanation for why he lost it when another character made a snarky comment about Floyd being a potentially horrible father, and I immediately imagined it set in a flat tone of voice.   In fact, that's a conviction that still holds: I very rarely hear lines in comics said this clearly and I did then. 

It's not something that's dropped in quite so casually in most comics.   There's a huge buildup there's a revelation, when something like this comes up and here it was just out there.  It felt bold, if only because of the presentation.   Nothing fancy leading up to the declaration, and instead it was just left to hang there on it's own.   I kinda held my breath, asking myself if I'd really read that revealed like that.   Yes, I had. 

That being said, I immediately felt badly for this character.   It's something horrible to happen to anyone, but it didn't quite make me feel sympathy for him when he was doing his jobs.   Which as an assassin means killing people.   And yet, this storyline shows him finding out he has another daughter, being raised in an incredibly poor, crime-ridden part of Star City.   When he finds out that Zoe's mother is too proud to take money, he decides he'll protect his daughter the best way he knows how: by killing, or threatening, anyone who might be hurting her.  

Just so you know, I don't consider this a spoiler.   The first part is an early reveal about his son, and the second part, about him trying to protect his daughter, is on the back cover.  All of this happens fairly early on: this is more about him trying to make him and his daughter and his daughter's mother work.   I was less interested in the love interest - she interested me so little I forgot her name - than the familial issues that Deadshot has with both his parents and his daughter.   Because of what happened to his son, he's both determined not to allow his daughter to come to harm, and also convinced he won't be a good parent.   (He's allowed - in that he wasn't able to stop - harm from coming to his son, so how can he be?   It's not spelled out that clearly, but it's pretty clear.)

It's also fascinating that he's a truly sympathetic villain, something that DC isn't so great at in general.   Marvel has a far better track record.   I'm thinking Magneto is a particularly good example here.   Erik is not a sympathetic villain because he lived through the Holocaust or was persecuted, or watched his family post-Holocaust get killed by a terrified, racist mob.   No, he's sympathetic because he doesn't do harm for his own good.   Let me explain: when he kills men - not mutants, but human men and women and children - he does so to spare those he sees as persecuted because the lesson he's chosen to take from his life experiences are that man will kill what is unknown and what he fears.   He does it to spare those from that pain who are most like him.   He absolutely uses methods that include those of his oppressors - like attempted genocide - and that makes him no better than them.   And yes, the horrible shit that's happened to him helps that sympathy right along.  

But it's the fact that he's not in it all for himself that clinches that sympathy for me.  (And yes, he's a megalomaniac who does do it a little, or a lot, for himself - but it's not his sole reason.   He's shown that he cares deeply for the mutant community as well.   He simply has delusions of being a mutant messiah of sorts, and sees himself as that messiah via elimination of all competition to mutants.)

Which brings me back to Deadshot.  Horrible things happened to him, yes, and that makes it a little easier to understand him and sympathize with him.   But it's only when he starts using his own horrible methods to protect those closest to him that I truly sympathize with him.   (It's much like the Punisher, although on a less broad scale.   Also, Deadshot gave many gang members the choice to move out or get killed; Punisher would track them down and kill them.  Castle cares about all innocents, and Floyd's vision is far more myopic.)   As long as his daughter and lover - who is often called 'his woman' because, yeah, sure she belongs to him despite her insisting he doesn't work as an assassin if he's with her - are safe, he doesn't care if crime goes elsewhere.   

I was fascinated by this loyalty, just sucked into this part of his character.   And while there is plenty of action, I would say this is far more propelled by Floyd's character development and motivations than anything else.   It was a near perfect story for me. 

Some of the art didn't work, but that's why I knocked it down one half star. 

There is also a story at the end about Deadshot and Batman, in which Batman has to think of a way to get Deadshot to drop a job without killing his target.   Nothing he tries works, and it looks like it's going to be a confrontation between them that promises to have deadly consequences.   i was fascinated by the way Batman attempted to think his way around an opponent determined to finish the job he's taken.   Deadshot has a very short code: he doesn't kill kids, and he finishes a job once he's accepted a target.   That being said, it's the second part that's given Batman a hard time.   I found myself just as fascinated, despite the fact that this didn't tie into his family or that storyline. 

I did like that it delved into his childhood and what happened between him and his brother, and his parents, though. 

I'm hoping to find more that I enjoy with Deadshot in it, and work through those stories.