Vigilante
48 years ago - Patricia Trayce is born.
33 years ago - 15-year-old Patricia first learns that her uncle Adrian Chase is the tactical director of ARGUS, a black ops paramilitary unit.
31 years ago - 17-year-old Patricia attends an accelerated weapons design program, joining the tech division of ARGUS.
25 years ago - 23-year-old Patricia becomes the technical operative for Team 7, creating their equipment and often joining them in the field. She and Slade Wilson become combat partners.
19 years ago - 29-year-old Patricia, tired of the bureaucracy of the DEO, retires and instead chooses to use her own weapon designs as a mercenary, often working with or against Slade Wilson, their relationship equal parts rivalry, partnership and romance.
12 years ago - 36-year-old Patricia takes a job from Carmine Falcone to stop Batman. She is killed by Floyd Lawton.
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We've made a few pretty drastic changes to the story of Patricia Trayce, but we happen to think the resulting character is quite a bit stronger for it.
The ORIGINAL character to go by the name Vigilante was actually a western-themed hero, but the costume worn by Patricia was actually created by a district attorney named Adrian Chase, who had a series of Punisher-lite adventures. Patricia was therefore the third character to assume the name. The costume was re-imagined in a pretty 80's tastic fashion, but if I'm being honest I have to say I'm still a fan of it. dial back the shoulder pads a bit, maybe... but it's still cool. She was a former GCPD cop that was frustrated with the red tape and chose to step out and take the law in her own hands. What made the character really great was her ongoing working relationship with Deathstroke at the height of his popularity. It translated into her getting her own series, and she wound up being one of the coolest gun-toting vigilante characters of the era. She was a bit of a deep cut... not everyone who picked up her comic knew just who she was, but for those of us who did she was a great read. We're latching onto certain ideas about her story, but shifting the timeline around her to make her fill a very specific purpose. |
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Her relationship to Deathstroke makes her a great candidate for Team 7, but rather than just make her another spy or assassin, we decided to tie her into the history of the team a little bit more. We made her the nephew of the person in charge of Argus (who we decided would be Adrian Chase, just for fun) and that she's actually the team's technician. Patricia's version of Vigilante always had some pretty cool weapon gadgets, so why not lean into that and make that her specialty! It's in this format that we can make her the battle partner of Deathstroke, have her earn his respect.
From there, her story can unfold largely the same way. Rather than make her a disillusioned cop, we can make her a disillusioned tactical operative, which makes her feel more bad ass. We like to imagine that she's working more on the side of the law... taking jobs that help protect people that she thinks need protecting. That would just as often put her at odds with Deathstroke as make them partners, and that's exactly the sort of relationship they should have. There was always the sense that she was a character more of the past than of the present, so we decided to use her one more time... as a way to explain Deadshot's standing as the second best assassin in the world, having taken out Deathstroke's long-time partner. It creates a lasting enmity between the two of them, and gives Patricia a fantastic sense of narrative purpose. |
