DC Comics has lifted the lid on a new four-part crossover between Teen Titans, Deathstroke, and Titans that will see Deathstroke once again strike out against the Teen Titans—this time in an attempt to get at the returned Wally West, who Deathstroke believes can bring his dead son Grant (the original Ravager) back to life. It’s going to be called The Lazarus Contract. Get it?
If you don’t get the title’s reference, The Lazarus Contract shares a name with Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s 1984 classic The Judas Contract, which was also about Deathstoke fighting the young heroes and is arguably the most famous Teen Titans story ever written. But this time it doesn’t appear that Slade has a turncoat inside the superteam, as Terra was in the original story.
Who knows, though? There’s still plenty time for someone to be revealed to be a traitor ahead of The Lazarus Contract’s May debut (courtesy of the creative teams of the Teen Titans family of books, namely writers Benjamin Percy, Christopher Priest, and Dan Abnett, and artists Paul Pelletier, Brett Booth, Carlo Pagulayan, and Khoi Pham). But I doubt DC would go that far in duplicating the classic event, despite basically duplicating the name.
So between this and the animated Judas Contract movie finally happening, it seems like it’s going to be a good year for the Teen Titans and Deathstroke. And contracts, I guess.