Warning! Spoilers ahead for Deathstroke Inc. #9
While Deathstroke may be one of the deadliest mercenaries in the DC Universe, he just got epically roasted by Batman's oldest ally Ghost-Maker. During the events of Shadow War, the League of Assassins and Deathstroke's Secret Society have gone to war over the death of Ra's al Ghul. However, Batman, Robin, and Batman Inc. have been in the middle trying to prevent further bloodshed, allowing Ghost-Maker to share his biggest criticism of Deathstroke with Slade himself.
Thus far in DC's Shadow War, Slade Wilson has been framed for the murder of Ra's al Ghul by an imposter dressed as Deathstroke. Naturally, Talia al Ghul has taken over the League to exact vengeance on Slade. However, the mercenary has elected to go after Talia with his Secret Society of Supervillains after the League of Assassins killed Deathstroke's secret son Respawn. Throughout the conflict, Batman and Robin have been trying to discover the identity of the real killer in order to stop the conflict.
While Batman had asked Ghost-Maker and Batman Inc. to capture and protect the Secret Society from the League, Deathstroke ended up freeing his army of villains so they could strike back at Talia's forces as seen in the new Deathstroke Inc #9 from Joshua Williamson and Paolo Pantalena. As such, this issue features Ghost-Maker and Deathstroke facing off for the very first time despite being two of the most formidable fighters in the DC Universe. That being said, Ghost-Maker admits that he's never been all that impressed by Slade seeing as how his frequent rivals have long been the Teen Titans.
While it's undoubtedly a brutal burn preceding an epic one-on-one duel, Ghost-Maker's perspective makes a lot of sense. Why would one of the deadliest and most capable supervillains make a group of teenage superheroes his main nemeses? Even though DC has gradually moved Slade away from solely being a Titans villain, history is still history. Case in point, Deathstroke's first appearance was in 1980's The New Teen Titans #2 by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez. He was literally created to fight a group of kids. When one really thinks about it, it's downright creepy (not to mention Deathstroke's terrible arc with Terra).
It's not hard to agree with Ghost-Maker's assessment of Deathstroke, being an adult supervillain whose main foes have been adolescents. His history with the Teen Titans does put an odd light on his professional career as a deadly mercenary. To make matters worse, Slade's fight with Ghost-Maker ends in a stalemate after Deathstroke threatened to kill Clownhunter, Ghost-Maker's teenage sidekick (making the vigilante's point for him). At any rate, Deathstroke and Ghost-Maker meeting for the first time in DC's Shadow War is still a very exciting moment even if Slade hadn't been so accurately burned for his creepy past.