Slade's History
Slade is the Titans' main adversary and the main antagonist of the first two seasons. His main goal is to defeat the Titans, destroy the city, and quite possibly rule the world, all for unknown reasons. He has had two secret bases, which were both destroyed. He also seems to have a massive army of robotic commandos and superhuman physical capabilities, such as being strong enough to leave a dent in solid steel with one hit.
In many episodes in Season 1, he tries to recruit others to his side. He initially hires Jinx, Gizmo, and Mammoth from the H.I.V.E. Academy for his team but the Titans succeed in beating the three graduates. Slade then tries to trick Thunder and Lightning, two teenage storm elementals, into destroying Jump City, but that too failed when Beast Boy helped the brothers to see the error of their ways. He then makes a deal with the mysterious Red X, before revealing to him that he knew he was Robin and was merely using him. Later, Slade forced Robin to join him, with the threat that if he did not, Slade would use nanobots he planted in the Titans to destroy them from the inside out, therefore killing them. Robin eventually overcame Slade with his friends' help. Interestingly, when presented with an opportunity to kill all five of the Titans after Robin infected himself with the nanobots, he chose not to kill them. Two theories exist for this behavior. One, if Robin, currently his apprentice at that time, was killed, he would have been completely powerless or two, he simply would have had no archenemy.
In Season 2, Slade set his sights on recruiting a new apprentice, the superheroine Terra, who, in the animated series, is portrayed as more of a lost soul than an irredeemable psychopath. Throughout the season, Slade tormented her and exploited her fears of being unable to control her powers and of alienating her newfound friends, the Teen Titans, slowly drove her to his side. Slade coaxed Terra into subjecting herself willingly to apprenticeship, despite the Titans having warned Terra of Slade, and promised that he could teach her to control her powers. After believing that Beast Boy betrayed her trust and told the other Titans of her difficulties in controlling her powers (even though Beast Boy didn't tell her and Robin only figured it out), Terra eventually betrayed the Titans to Slade, who indeed taught her to control her powers, and took over the city with her help. During this time, Slade had crafted a new suit for Terra, one bearing his insignia, and was able to access her powers to assist her in combat, and to an extent, control her. With Slade's help, Terra mercilessly defeated the Titans, who were reluctant to fight their old friend, and were focused on trying to redeem her rather than defeat her. The Titans, however, returned and fought her again. But this time, they fought her mercilessly and viciously. By failing Slade's command to destroy the team, she returned to him, only to be beaten by him in anger. Slade then controlled Terra and used her to nearly kill Beast Boy, who arrived at the base to redeem Terra. Beast Boy and the Titans then convinced Terra to overcome the link her new suit had to Slade, and she sent him to his apparent doom in a lava pit while she turned to stone.[1][2]
Being apparently dead, Slade was absent for most of the third season. He appeared in a flashback in the episode "X" which Robin narrates about how he created Red X. He did appear in the Season 3 episode "Haunted". But, he is a figment of Robin's imagination, due to a dust released from his mask onto Robin, which made him see, hear, and feel Slade. This almost killed Robin, but Robin saved his own life by turning on the lights (thus banishing the Slade hallucination).[3]
At the end of the episode, Cyborg revealed that someone from outside the tower had activated the mask. The mask is then shown in the basement and one eye turns red, hinting at his later return as Trigon's ally.
Slade returned in full for Season 4, as the servant of Raven's demonic father Trigon. Slade now had fire powers and a red mark on his forehead, called the Mark of Skath. He delivered Trigon's message to Raven, that she would cause the end of the world. It is explained that Slade's defeat at Terra's hands had indeed killed him, and that Trigon had promised to give him back his flesh in exchange for his services. However, Trigon went back on the deal, and Slade decided to join forces with the Teen Titans.[4] While Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast Boy tried to distract Trigon, Robin and Slade went to find Raven (who had been transformed into a child version of herself) in the underworld. Upon returning to the surface with Raven, the Titans assaulted Trigon in a somewhat vain effort to defeat him. Nevertheless, they managed to hurt him, as did Slade, who recovered his flesh and stole the demonic weapon of one of Trigon's minions. Raven finally defeated her "father" and restored the world to normal, but Slade escaped the Titans shortly after, with a solemn promise from Robin that nothing has changed, and he will make that clear if he sees him again. Slade is also one of the only villains who did not join the Brotherhood of Evil and that didn't make an appearance in the final battle. He appeared in a flashback in the episode "Hide and Seek". So, he only appears in one episode of Season 5 ("Things Change") to convince Beast Boy to leave a girl that looks and behaves like Terra alone forcefully. In anger, he seemingly kills Slade, but it was just another one of Slade's robot clones.
