Magnificent Baddie Wiki

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I admire your work. Guess you won't be extending me the same kind of professional courtesy.
~ Deadshot noting his respect for the Hood.
John: Lawton, what are you talking about? That wasn’t part of the plan. You said you could find your way down.
Lawton: Yeah, I lied. Someone needs to cover your escape. Me up here is what gets you out down there alive.
John: Why?
Lawton: You and your new wife, you just get back to your baby girl, all right, John?
~ Lawton sacrificing himself to save Taskforce X and the Markovian hostages, ensuring his former enemies John and Lyla could go back hone to their daughter.

Floyd Lawton, also known as Deadshot, is a supporting antagonist in the Arrowverse, serving as a major antagonist in Season 1, a supporting anti-hero in Season 2 and a minor character in Season 3 of Arrow and a posthumous character for the rest of the series. He is a world class assassin renowned for never missing a shot and was (seemingly) the murderer of John Diggle’s brother. Despite this, he eventually goes from the archenemy of John Diggle to allies with Lawton later sacrificing his life to save John and fellow criminals on the Suicide Squad.

What Makes Him Magnificent?[]

  • He has a tragic backstory. He was a U.S soldier who returned home after being discharged, but not only did his young daughter not recognise him , but he also suffered severe PTSD over having to kill people that made him unable to socialize or get a job. When he cooked a meal for Zoe and she refused to eat it, he lashed out at her and when his worried wife tried to reach out fo him, he lost it over his trauma and pointed a gun at Susie and told her how he had to kill so many people before he realized what he had done and pulled back in immense remorse, but it was too late as the damage was done and he was arrested. Even when an agent of H.I.V.E visited him and posted his bail, he refused to take a job to assassinate someone for them, disdaining his skill at killing people and planning to go back to his family until he learned that his wife filed a restraining order against him and he would never get to see his family again, figuring that working as an assassin would allow him to financially support his daughter.
  • He is an anti-villain who sends all the money he makes beyond expenses to a blind trust for his daughter.
  • He has sarcastic and witty sense of humor that serve to make him more enjoyable.
  • He is a world-class assassin who never misses, earning him the moniker Deadshot, and laces his shots with the poison curare to quickly eliminate his target if the bullet wound was non-fatal.
  • He evaded A.R.G.U.S for years with them not being able to figure out his true identity.
  • He assassinate his target who happened to be a mutual one with the Hood and managed to hit Oliver and vanish without a trace.
  • He deduced Oliver was about to ambush him and managed to distract him before escaping.
  • He infiltrated the police perimeter Detective Lance set up with the Hood to try and stop him and impersonated a guard he killed to deceive Lance when he checked in on the radio and allow him to successfully start assassinating people in the Unidac Industries liquidation auction.
  • He holds respect for Oliver’s work, telling him so when they confront each other face to face for the first time and puts up a very good fight against Oliver, seemingly missing with Oliver shooting him through his right eye and seemingly killing him, only to reveal that he actually shot Oliver’s bodyguard John Diggle who had just arrived, forcing Oliver to retreat to save Diggle while he in reality survived and escaped.
  • He came out of retirement when the Chinese Triad gave him a cool eyescope to replace his right eye and hired him to assassinate Malcolm Merlyn, improvising the plan when the triad’s attempt to draw Merlyn out failed and having them successfully drive Merlyn up to the penthouse instead while he switched vantage points, using a grenade launcher to penetrated Malcolm’s bulletproof windows and shoot him, departing away scot-free.
  • He deduced A.R.G.U.S’ trap for him and ambushed them instead, taking several agents down and nearly killing Lyla herself had it not been for the intervention of John who happened to be there. He then defeated John when John confronted him and forced him to surrender, demonstrating some honor by sparing John’s life since he wasn’t being paid to kill him and knocking him out instead, escaping scot-free once more.
  • He is a Karma Houdini in all of his appearances in Season 1, escaping capture each time.
  • He broke out of the chamber in the Russian gulag he was being held in and used the opportunity of John being there to rescue Lyla to kill John’s contact to force him to let him escape with him in exchange for leading him to Lyla’s location to rescue her.
  • He revealed to John the truth that his brother was his target and gave John all he knew about the organization that hired him to kill his brother, it’s name H.I.V.E, as a lead for John in a major moment of honor.
  • He realized the true purpose of Taskforce X and sarcastically coined the term “Suicide Squad” to describe it.
  • He faked an assassination attempt on John to successfully get Gholem Qadir to invite John to his compound so Taskforce X could infiltrate it.
  • He had a personal conversation with John, revealing his motivations for him along with remorse for what he had done.
  • He infiltrated Qadir’s compound using a copy of John’s fingerprints and located the nerve agent, being willing to sacrifice himself when Waller was going to airstrike the compound to die doing something noble until John gave him one reason to stay alive, his daughter, and escaped with him.
  • He figured out and informed the rest of the team that Waller’s drone wasn’t targeting Qadir’s compound, but the bomb chip in his neck which was why Waller told him to stay behind, allowing the team to extract the chip and outsmart the drone.
  • Upon being busted out of his A.R.G.U.S cell by John and Lyla, he led them in ambushing A.R.G.U.S’ control room to stop Waller from nuking Starling City in an attempt to stop Slade Wilson.
  • He appeared in John and Lyla’s limo to greet them with a bottle of wine when they came in after just getting married and inform they were needed in another Taskforce X mission.
  • He shot Cray’s detonater out his hand to prevent him from killing them all and stopped John and Lyla from falling into despair, ensuring they would see their daughter again.
  • He formed a successful plan to have the rest of Taskforce X rescue Cray’s hostages before his charges went off, sacrificing himself to save them all and ensure his former archenemy could go home to his daughter, taking out and smiling at a picture of his own family before the building exploded, facing death with dignity.

What Makes Him a Baddie?[]

  • He is an assassin who has killed dozens of people.
  • He nearly succeeded in killing Oliver and John and laid a trap to successfully murder several A.R.G.U.S agents and nearly Lyla herself.
  • He killed John’s contact to force him to let him escape with him in exchange for taking him to Lyla’s location.

External Links[]

Navigation[]

           Arrowverse Magnificent Baddies

Franchise-Wide
Leonard Snart | Damien Darhk | Mar Novu | Grodd | William Tockman | Eobard Thawne (Flashpoint)

Arrow
Deathstroke | Floyd Lawton | Talia Al Ghul | Vincent Sobel | Tommy Merlyn (Earth-2)

The Flash
Hartley Rathaway | Abra Kadabra | Music Meister | Goldface

Supergirl
Manchester Black | Rick Malverne

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