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Aug. 2nd, 2020 05:08 amCHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Joseph William Wilson
Age: 23
Canon: Deathstroke: Rebirth (DC 2016-2019)
Canon Point: Final issue
Character Information:
Wiki page - (cw: mentions of child abuse, self-harm, suicidal ideation, drug abuse, and a inappropriate May-December relationship between Joseph and a family friend/uncle-figure.)
Personality:
Joseph Wilson is a troubled but well-meaning young man with such an overabundance of compassion and empathy that it (almost) makes up for the rest of his family's collective lack-thereof. Despite being raised by two ruthless, tough-as-nails former soldiers, Joey inexplicably turned out to be a kind, gentle, and borderline pacifistic – he'll resort to violence if a situation calls for it, but it's not something he actively enjoys participating in. Rather, Joey enjoys living a peaceful (relatively) normal life, free of the dangerous, illegal, and often amoral thrill-seeking his parents are so fond of. Sure, occasionally he'll moonlight as a vigilante, but that's just what you do when you've got superpowers and way too much give-a-damn for your own good – or at least that's how Joey rationalizes it. He's spent his entire life learning from his parents mistakes and trying his damnedest to not become them, his father especially, and so he's greatly discomfited by any comparisons or parallels that prove that the apple hasn't fallen as far from the tree as he would like.
In truth, Joey is terrified of becoming his father. As much as he loves the man (and he does, foolishly, irrationally, despite having every reason not to) Joey does not approve of what he does or how he behaves – he simply accepts what he is, loves him in spite of it, and fights every day to not turn out like him. To the outside observer, this might seem like a completely irrational fear – Joey is friendly and thoughtful with a passion for the arts, and his father is Toxic Masculinity personified. They come across as polar opposites of one another, and in many ways they are, but when Joey looks into the darker parts of himself he sees the worst parts of his parents – his mother, a manipulative liar, and his father, a ruthless psychopath.
But then, Joey is extremely self-critical and has a massive guilt-complex so he's perhaps not the best judge of his own character. In fact, his self-assessment that he is 'exactly like' his father is frequently refuted by the people who know him best: his sister Rose laments that she cannot avenge their father's death because Joey “infected (her) with his goodness”; his father asserts with confidence that Joey is “incapable of killing”; his former lover/long-time family friend Dr. Isherwood goes so far to describe Joey as “One of the kindest human beings to walk the earth.”
These testimonies are further supported by Joey's inability to do anything wrong without feeling immense, crippling guilt. He experiences chronic psychosomatic migraines whenever something weighs on his conscience, and in particularly severe instances his guilt has even driven him to engage in self-harm and experience suicidal thoughts. Compounding matters further is Joey's inability to forgive himself for his mistakes; he latches on to his wrongdoings and has a difficult time letting them go, even when the people he has wronged have forgiven him completely.
Ironically, Joey has no such difficulties forgiving other people when they've wronged him. If anything, he's too forgiving – he forgave his fiance for cheating on him with his own father, and he still loves and tries to maintain a relationship with his father despite the aforementioned adultery, in addition to a lifetime of abuse and neglect. By rights, Joey has every reason to despise his father – if not for his sub-par parenting than for being the reason he was mutilated and crippled as a child – but somehow Joey has the grace to overlook his old man's numerous shortcomings. He doesn't approve of or excuse any of the terrible things his father has done, but unlike his mother, Joey refuses to let his disappointment, hurt, and resentment turn him bitter. He accepts the fact of who his father is, even if it's not who he wants or needs him to be, and he actively tries to keep his dad in his life even though his presence often brings him nothing but trouble.
Of course, the sheer amount of things that Joey overlooks in order to maintain peace and keep his relationships from falling apart has resulted in no small amount of emotional repression. Unsurprisingly for someone so empathetic, Joey feels things very deeply. He has a difficult time regulating his emotions, and in true Wilson Family fashion, he tends to just ignore his painful or uncomfortable feelings instead of addressing them directly. This inability to cope with his emotions in a healthy way eventually lead Joey to abuse prescription pain medication in an effort to ease his physical and psychological pain, mitigating the symptoms rather than treating the injury. To illustrate just how far Joey is willing to deny his feelings and pretend everything is alright - he was able to turn a cosmic power ring fueled by negative emotions against its wielder simply by having so much repressed trauma and emotional damage that he was able to temporarily usurp the wielder's control.
All trauma and damage aside, Joey is actually a relatively happy and well-adjusted young man. Or at least as happy and well-adjusted as one can reasonably be, having lived the kind of life he has. He's the sort of positive, chipper person other people can easily get along with – charming, gregarious, quick with a joke and always willing to offer a hug or a shoulder to cry on. Sure, he has more issues than People magazine and he's as self-destructive as a stick of dynamite, but at the end of the day Joey is a well-meaning young man who just wants to live a good life, have a good time, and put more good into the world than he takes out of it.
