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Floyd Lawton, better known as Deadshot, is mercenary, and known to be the world's greatest marksman and one the most lethal assassins in the world. Lawton has created an armored suit that aids him in his battles against Batman. Deadshot has had a longstanding rivalry with Deathstroke.

History

Deadshot

Deadshot in action.

Origin

As a child, Lawton idolized his brother. When his mother convinced his brother to kill their father, his brother locked Floyd outside. Floyd, wishing to save his brother from a grim future, took a rifle to shoot the gun out of his brother's hand. He was sitting in the tree branch when it broke and Floyd accidentally shot his brother in the head. Lawton inadvertently kills the brother he loves to save the father he hated.

Deadshot is a hired assassin, regularly boasting to "never miss." He is capable of using a large variety of weapons, but prefers using a pair of silenced, wrist-mounted guns. He initially appeared in Gotham City as a new crimefighter, but was revealed to be an enemy of Batman when he attempted to replace the Dark Knight. When this plan failed, he attempted to become king of Gotham's Underworld. Batman and Commissioner Gordon publicly exposed his plot, and he was sent to jail.

359px-Deadshot Aim

Taking the shot

After serving his jail time, he went out in the world and hired out services as an assassin and joined the Suicide Squad. He strived to die in a spectacular way, the main reason he joined the Squad. He feels he has no reason to continue living, and, while he does not want to commit suicide, he simply does not care if he dies. Various reasons have been cited for this, but the most common thread in them is his parents' peculiar hatred for one another, so much so that Lawton's mother tried to hire both her sons to kill their father. During a hiatus from the Squad, his son was murdered by a pedophile, upon whom Deadshot later took revenge.

Deadshot Western

Western Deadshot

Deadshot's death wish has been curtailed somewhat in recent years by the discovery that he has a daughter, Zoe, who lives with her mother in Star City. His personality has also been influenced by his involvement with the mercenary group known as the Secret Six. Founded in protest of the massive villain group known as the Society, the Secret Six were originally gathered by Lex Luthor (under the alias of Mockingbird). Since then, they have gone into business for themselves. Deadshot has formed a reluctant bond with his fellow members of the Six, particularly Catman (who he shares a friendly rivalry with) and the banshee Jeannette (with whom he has been romantically involved). Deadshot is still primarily out for himself however and is not above betraying his teammates if it suits him.

The New 52

As of the company-wide reboot, Deadshot is sent to Belle Reve prison after a failed hit on a senator and is later forced into the Suicide Squad by Amanda Waller. The new Suicide Squad consists of El Diablo, Harley Quinn, King Shark, Black Spider, and new character Voltiac. Deadshot is the Squad's field leader and leads them on their first mission to save a baby in a football stadium filled with nano-genetic zombies, killing Voltiac to cover up the incident. He and the Squad are later attacked by bounty hunters seeking the child, who ultimately fail but seriously wound Black Spider. During this time, Harley Quinn attempts to sleep with Deadshot, which also fails. At the end of the third issue, a new character named Yo-Yo joins the team, and Deadshot's position as leader is taken over by new member Captain Boomerang, who was given the trigger for the bombs in the Squad member's heads by Waller as insurance should the Squad betray him. This is proved a ruse in the next issue when the trigger fails to work, and that Boomerang's involvement in the Squad was simply a bargaining tool as he had killed the friend of a terrorist sect leader whom the Squad infiltrated to capture one of their scientists. Upon returning to Belle Reeve, the Squad is put in isolation and Harley Quinn orchestrates a massive breakout and the remaining four members of the Squad put down the revolt, though Yo-Yo is 'killed' by King Shark in the process. As a reward, Deadshot earned a visit with his daughter, but Waller ends the meeting early to have him head to Gotham and capture Harley Quinn with a new Squad, she is assembling.

When going after Harley Quinn, Harley has both the squad and the GCPD after her, only to have both groups clash. With Limelight's help, King Shark is portrayed as Clayface, terrorizing the GCPD, while the rest of the squad apprehend Harley. However, Harley takes out Deadshot and Savant, only to have Deadshot tied up with Joker's face on him. Meanwhile, Limelight lose their power and are near to being captured, only to have Lime close to telling the truth. Lime dies as Waller pushes the button, blowing her head. Harley, deranged, tries to Joker through Deadshot, while Deadshot plays along, telling her to kill the Bat family. Enamored, she runs to him, only to be shot in the stomach.

When the catastrophe is over, Deadshot is getting treatment for his scar from Harley, while Harley is in ICU, getting treatment from the bullet of Deadshot's. Although Harley is in portraying 'Harleen Quinzel,' Deadshot and his team, including newest member, Iceberg, go on to retrieve Resurrection Man. However, his powers are too great, and the team shatter, only to have Light and Deadshot find a way out. Light complains about Waller killing her sister, only to avenge her sister. However, shielding himself from Resurrection Man, Deadshot uses Light and apparently kills her. He goes away, saying if anyone going to kill Waller, it will be him. Deadshot and the team face off against Resurrection Man once again, only to have Waller stop this, by threatening his love. As he powers down, Waller kills him, only to have her staff cut off his hand. The team returns to base, leaving Resurrection Man alone, for now.

Meanwhile, Harley feels better, and joins Deadshot and the team at the destination point. She talks to him, letting him know that he let her live, and that she owes him one. Their next mission is to retrieve the information, that Basilik is trying to steal at the Columbia Center, where a member of Basilisk has taken a room full of employees from a bio-tech company called Gendreon hostage. Waller wants the hostage taker alive, not the hostages. However, a low profile is required, in order to avoid attracting the Green Arrow.

While Harley fails at a pizza delivery girl, the hostage taker threatens to kill the civilians, only to have Deadshot kill him. As it happens, Gendreon's code of ethics is worse in his books than Basilisk's. Angrily, the gunman threatens to blow himself up. Fortunately, Iceberg sneaks up behind him, and freezes his detonator so that it no longer functions. El Diablo follows it up with a punch, and then removes the unconscious Basilisk soldier's poisoned tooth, lest he try to kill himself with that, too.

Against Deadshot's orders, Black Spider and King Shark head to the control room of the building, and discover some more Basilisk members trying to steal computer data from Gendreon.

With King Shark's help, Black Spider manages to recover the data the Basilisk agents were trying to steal. Meanwhile, Deadshot and company have a problem. Somehow, Tyler Reese managed to kill himself. Waller tells them all to return to base as soon as possible. Somebody has infiltrated Task Force X, and poisoned Reese to protect Basilisk.

The squad receives their orders while riding on a cargo plane. Waller appears on the screen and informs them that new intelligence has given them the location of Basilisk's compound. Their mission will be to assassinate Regulus, the leader. This is despite the fact that the only source of intel that the squad knows of was killed by a Basilisk traitor on the last mission. Waller promises that whoever supplies the kill-shot will have their sentence reduced by half. To facilitate the mission, she has provided backup.

Unfortunately, one of these new backup members happens to be a Basilisk agent, and she punctures her own nanite bomb, causing the plane to explode with the Suicide Squad inside. Waller loses contact, and contacts her superior to inform him that the team has been lost. Rather than let her scrap the program, he orders her to use any means necessary to restart the program with new members.

Each of Deadshot's companions turn him down on his plan to continue the mission, so he reminds them that one of them is a Basilisk agent, and a traitor to all of them. They turn on each other, and Black Spider tries to intervene and keep the peace, but he suddenly loses consciousness. Deadshot doesn't realize it at first, but when he turns around, all of the others are down too. Moments later, he is cracked over the head with a club.

Deadshot wakes chained to a pillar alongside Harley, Iceberg, and Black Spider. Apparently, the natives drugged their food and drink, and because Deadshot didn't eat or drink, they knocked him out.

After their plane crashed over Yucatán in Mexico, the Suicide Squad was captured and drugged by what seems to be the last remaining tribe of Mayans who still perform ritual sacrifices. Now, they must do whatever they can to escape their bonds before King Shark and El Diablo become the first sacrifices.

Fortunately, a team of armed operatives rappels down onto the pyramid, come to the squad's rescue. Surprisingly, though, they are not Waller's men. They are Basilisk, and they are led by Captain Boomerang. He is quite eager to take revenge on Deadshot - to the extent that he drags him from the back of his four-wheeler, all the way back to the Basilisk headquarters.

Boomerang leads the squad to their cells, eventually getting into another verbal altercation with Deadshot. This evolves into a fist fight, but confusingly, Boomerang's demeanour changes, and it becomes clear that he never did convert to Basilisk's beliefs, and has been working as a spy for Waller, all the time. They get the others free, and make an escape, hoping to get out of the compound with the help of Basilisk members whose dissent has grown enough that they would betray Regulus.

Despite fighting their way to Regulus, the Captain Boomerang is suddenly on the receiving end of a massive shock. They all turn to see that Black Spider has betrayed them. They warn that he will not be able to take them all out, but he has used hypnosis to implant a trigger word in all of the squad except Harley and Deadshot. As he expects to be overpowered, Deadshot warns that Waller will simply send another task force after Basilisk, should Task Force X die.

With three of the Suicide Squad under the mind control of Basilisk, Black Spider taunts Harley Quinn and Deadshot with their imminent death at the hands of their cohorts. Rather than listen, Deadshot simply shoots their adversary through the head, revealing that this was not Black Spider. The real Black Spider probably hadn't been with the team since they were last at Belle Reve. The real Black Spider would have dodged the bullet.

Despite their attempts to escape together, Harley and Deadshot are faced with their mind-controlled team-mates. They are forced to find a way to shock them out of it. Harley manages to find a fire-hose, and douse King Shark with water, snapping him out of it. As Iceberg prepares to use his freezing hand against Deadshot, the marksman grabs a sword, and slices it off at the wrist, the pain waking him from his hypnosis. The frozen hand then freezes the flaming El Diablo solid in his spot. With everyone back on-side, Deadshot declares that they should finish their mission to kill Regulus. Fortunately, they will have the help of Captain Boomerang and the freed experimental prisoners of Basilisk to help in that effort.

Back at the Basilisk Compound, Regulus appears, and begins controlling Harley's mind, causing her to shoot at her teammates. Regulus manages to grab Deadshot from behind and urges Harley to kill him. Before she can make a move, Deadshot simply raises his own weapon, and shoots through his own chest, to kill his target. As Regulus dies, Harley snaps out of it, and rushes to Deadshot's side.

Powers and Abilities

  • Master Marksman: Floyd is an extremely skilled marksman, being nick named "the man who never misses" making very difficult shots an ordinary marksman couldn't perform.
  • Master Assassin: He knows every pressure point and vulnerable spot on the human body.
  • Physical Condition
  • Espionage
  • Expert Combatant: Using his assassin skills and military training, Floyd is an expert in the field of hand to hand combat.
  • Tracking

Equipment

  • Deadshot Suit: Floyd wears a very durable suit, able to withstand large explosions, gunfire at close range and electric shocks.
  • Deadshot Helmet: The helmet is strengthened to be able to resist almost all physical attacks, the display has night vision, infrared, binoculars and thermal anemometer. The helmet also has hearing sensors, which enhance his senses to the point that he can hear a humming bird's wings flapping.

Weapons

  • Wrist-Mounted Guns: a pair of compact and silent wrist rifles with interchangeable barrels, allowing him to quickly recharge his weapon. The gun fires projectiles at high speeds, being able to penetrate resistant materials.
  • Various Weapons: Including grenades, rifles and automatic handguns.

In Other Media

Live-Action

Television

Suicide Squad

Deadshot appears in the 2016 film Suicide Squad, played by Will Smith.Depicted as an enemy of Batman, he is inducted into the original Task Force X team by Amanda Waller and is part of the team who fought Enchantress and Incubus. Deadshot was also intended to appear in the sequel/soft-reboot The Suicide Squad, with Idris Elba initially being cast after Smith declined to return. However, the character was replaced with Bloodsport.

Animation

DC Animated Universe

325359-66867-deadshot

Deadshot in Justice League.

Deadshot appeared in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. He first appeared as a man hired to assassinate Aquaman. He was foiled and captured by the Justice League and forced by Batman to tell who hired him. He returned in another episode along with Kalibak, Copperhead, Star Sapphire, Volcana, and Livewire. In yet another episode, Deadshot appeared about to get the electric chair when he was chosen to be in Task Force X, an elite outlaw group. He worked alongside Rick Flag Jr., Captain Boomerang, Clock King, and Plastique. On a mission, Plastique was wounded (or possibly killed), and the other members, including Deadshot, were pressed into service to Task Force X to atone for their crimes.

Batman: Gotham Knight

Deadshot appears in the titular final segment of Batman: Gotham Knight. He was hired to assassinate Lt. Gordon in an attempt to drive out Batman. Batman outsmarted and defeated Deadshot.

Video Games

Batman (NES)

Deadshot NES

Deadshot as he appeared in the NES Game.

Deadshot appeared as an enemy in the loosely-movie-based Batman game for Nintendo. He attacked by waiting and shooting.

Batman: Arkham series

Deadshot appears in the games Batman: Arkham City, Batman: Arkham Origins and Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate. In the former, he is hired by Hugo Strange to assassinate various targets linked to development of Arkham City, being imprisoned within the facility to take them each out. In Arkham Origins, he is one of eight assassins hired by Black Mask to assassinate Batman. Blackgate follows up on these events, with him teaming up with the Joker during a riot at Blackgate Prison. A second iteration of Deadshot will appear as a member of the Suicide Squad in the upcoming game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

Injustice series

Deadshot appears in both Injustice: Gods Among Us and Injustice 2, voiced by Matthew Mercer in the latter. He appears as a background character in the first game, engaging in a duel at Stryker's Island. In Injustice 2, he is a member of Gorilla Grodd's Society, due to the war lord having the detonator to the nano-bomb from his time one Suicide Squad.

Miscellaneous

See Also

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