James Gunn’s DCU will include its own version of Deathstroke, and Scott Adkins would be just the man to tackle Slade Wilson. With the release of Creature Commandos and the impeding release of 2025’s Superman, James Gunn’s DCU is in full swing, with multiple projects in the works and several still in development. Some of these either will or could involve DC’s ruthless mercenary Deathstroke.
Among the projects Deathstroke could appear in are the announced Teen Titans project, or a rumored Bane and Deathstroke team-up. Given the mercurial nature of Slade Wilson as a mercenary villain, he’s one of the easiest DC villains to pop into any project opposite any set of DC heroes, and more than capable of giving all of them a real challenge. To really bring Deathstroke’s gritty, take-no-prisoners attitude and fighting skills to the DCU, the perfect candidate could well be none other than Scott Adkins.
Scott Adkins Is A Martial Arts Movie King
Action fans have come to regard Scott Adkins as an undisputed titan of the martial arts movie world – pun intended, given that he first broke out with his signature role of Yuri Boyka in Isaac Florentine’s Undisputed 2: Last Man Standing. That 2006 underground straight-to-DVD hit following on the all-but-forgotten 2002 boxing movie Undisputed, and turned it into instant cult classic among martial arts fans, spawning two sequels, Undisputed 3: Redemption and Boyka: Undisputed, with Adkins and Florentine loyalists still awaiting Boyka’s return in Undisputed 5.
Since making a name for himself as Yuri Boyka, Scott Adkins has been a power player on the martial arts movie scene for the last decade and a half with hits like Avengement, Triple Threat, the Debt Collector films, Isaac Florentine’s two Ninja films, and many others. Scott Adkins has also been seen in Hong Kong martial arts movies like Ip Man 4: The Finale and in action movie mega-hits like John Wick: Chapter 4 (both opposite Donnie Yen.) Adkins remains as busy an any action hero in the game, with a whopping five upcoming Adkins-led martial arts action films on the docket to debut in 2025 – namely Skyline: Warpath, Diablo, Death March, Reckless, and Day of Reckoning.
Adkins also consistently brings a dynamic screen presence and acting chops to both heroic and antagonist roles alike. Funnily enough, the combination of that and his astonishing martial arts skills have been seen not only in his portrayal of Boyka and other characters, but in one specific subset of the Scott Adkins filmography.
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Scott Adkins Already Has Multiple Comic Book Movies Under His Belt
In the infancy of his career, one of Scott Adkins’ first major roles was in the Hong Kong superhero movie Black Mask 2: City of Masks, in the role of the villainous Dr. Lang opposite Andy On’s Kan Fung/Black Mask. While Black Mask 2 wasn’t exactly warmly received, Adkins’ role as Dr. Lang afforded him a real chance to showcase what he could bring to a superhero movie with his martial arts prowess and screen presence. Since Black Mask 2, Scott Adkins has gone on to appear in numerous other comic book movies, notably bringing his martial arts skills to the role of Weapon XI in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Say what you will about the movie as a whole and the lackluster version of Deadpool it presented, but it at least gave Scott Adkins the chance to deliver his signature flips and kicks in a pretty solid superhero fight scene. And it of course bears repeating that Adkins did screen test to portray that Dark Knight himself in Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Adkins later made a very memorable impression as the zealot Lucian in the 2016 MCU movie Doctor Strange, in which Adkins has a wild supernatural fight scene with Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sorcerer Supreme. Additionally, Scott Adkins also took the cult British comic book property Accident Man and made it into in full-blown action-comedy franchise with 2018’s Accident Man and 2022’s Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday. Following the adventures of professional assassin Mike Fallon, the Accident Man movies blend Adkins-style martial arts action with irreverent black comedy into a one-of-a-kind comic book movie franchise, with Adkins also serving as executive producer and co-writer. With Accident Man 3 in the works, the series’ success, along with Adkins’ prior superhero movie appearances, is testimony to how much his on-screen charisma and martial arts skills can add some action movie grit and fun to both grounded and fantastical comic book movies.
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Why Scott Adkins Would Be Perfect For The DCU’s Deathstroke
While Scott Adkins’ comic book movie resume is as solid as his straight-up martial arts movie legacy, the combination of his three most signature roles – Yuri Boyka of the Undisputed franchise, Casey Bowman of the Ninja films, and Mike Fallon of the Accident Man movies – that really exemplify what he could bring to the role of Slade Wilson. While all three showcase Scott Adkins’ flashy martial arts abilities, each also shows a different side of Deathstroke’s personality that Adkins could easily embody.
In Boyka, Scott Adkins captures the no-non-sense grit and scowling intensity that is Slade Wilson’s mindset. In Casey Bowman, he channels the stealthy focus of a true Ninjutsu master. In Mike Fallon, Adkins brings the morally agnostic, casual attitude of an assassin whose next target is nothing more than a dollar sign to him.
With that combo and the martial arts skills to back it up, there’s no question that Scott Adkins would make an amazing Deathstroke indeed for James Gunn’s DCU!
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Tell us, would you like to see Scott Adkins as Deathstroke in James Gunn’s DCU?
