Last week saw Ben Affleck tease that Deathstroke was to be the villain of the upcoming Batman solo movie, and now it’s been revealed just who will be playing the iconic master assassin.

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, DC’s Geoff Johns has confirmed that Joe Manganiello will be the man tasked with playing Deathstroke. Manganiello will likely be best known to genre fans for his turns as Flash Thompson in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy.

Whilst Johns confirmed that the rogue will indeed be the ‘big bad’ of the upcoming Caped Crusader movie, he wouldn’t comment on whether Deathstroke will be a part of Zack Snyder’s Justice League when that arrives late next year. Of course, Affleck’s recent social media posts show Deathstroke on a set somewhere, with many presuming that this is indeed an indicator of the rogue having a presence in Justice League given how that film is currently shooting right now.

As for the character of Slade Joseph Wilson himself, he was created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez and debuted in 1980’s New Teen Titans #2. Slade, aka Deathstroke, made an instant impact as a master assassin and mercenary, and it wouldn’t take long before he’d become famous for battling the likes of Nightwing, Batman, and Green Arrow. In later years, Deathstroke would even be turned in to more of an antihero at times. And just to give you an idea of just how badass he is, Slade Wilson is one of the few people to have defeated Batman in hand-to-hand combat. Multiple times, too! In fact, it’s even taken the combined might of the Justice League to defeat Deathstroke on certain occasions.

This upcoming still-untitled Batman movie (believed to be currently known as simply The Batman) will see Ben Affleck on directing duties, with Affleck working on the screenplay alongside the aforementioned Geoff Johns, who is a legendary comic book writer and has recently landed the gig of President of DC Entertainment, meaning he’ll also be overseeing all of Warner Brothers’ DCEU movies from here on out.

In case you missed Affleck’s recent Deathstroke tease, you can find it below: