Deadshot

I thought I would start posting some profiles of some of my favorite comic book characters. Since I've mentioned him before who better to start with than Deadshot.

Deadshot is a hired assassin and is the greatest marksman in the world, often boasting to "never miss" (he shares this catchphrase with the Marvel Comics character Bullseye). He is capable of using a large variety of weapons, but prefers using a pair of silenced, wrist-mounted guns. He initially appeared in Gotham City as a new crimefighter, but was revealed to be an enemy of Batman when he attempted to replace the Dark Knight. When this plan failed, he attempted to become king of Gotham's Underworld. Batman and Commissioner Gordon publicly exposed his plot, and he went to jail.
After serving his term, Deadshot began hiring his services out as an assassin, changing his costume from the top coat and tails he previously wore to his now more familiar red jumpsuit and distinctive metal face plate with a targeting device on the right side. He has been a major figure in the Suicide Squad in its latest two incarnations, where his skills as a marksman and his absence of care for human life served to greatly further the group's objectives. During a hiatus from the Squad (in a four issue miniseries from 1988), his son was abducted, raped, and killed by a pedophile, whom Deadshot later took revenge upon. Probably his most peculiar trait is a great desire to die in a spectacular fashion, this being his primary motivation for joining the Squad. He feels he has no reason to continue living, and, while he does not want to commit suicide, he simply does not care if he dies. Various reasons have been cited for this, but the most common thread in them is his parents' peculiar hatred for one another, so much so that Lawton's mother tried to hire both her sons to kill their father. In the final issue of Legends of the Dark Knight, it is explained that Floyd idolized his brother. His mother convinced his brother to kill their father. His brother locked Floyd outside, but Floyd, wishing to save his brother from a grim future, took a rifle to shoot the gun out of his brother's hand. He was sitting in the tree branch when it broke and Floyd accidentily shot his brother in the head. Lawton inadvetantly killed the brother he loved to save the father he hates.
Deadshot almost got his wish to die when he confronted a Senator who was threatening to expose the Suicide Squad to the world. He killed the man and was gunned down by the police on the very steps of the Lincoln Memorial. He survived his wounds, to continue on with the Squad.
Lawton's uniform was stolen by an airport employee, who used it to commit many crimes and murders. Lawton was forced to kill the man with a bullet to the head. The shooting of his own 'image' affected him greatly. For a while, he did not even fix the hole in his own uniform. While the suit had been lost, Lawton had threatened to kill his teamate Captain Boomerang, whom he felt had been responsible.
During his last mission for the Suicide Squad, he was asked by Count Vertigo if he, Deadshot, would kill him if asked. Deadshot agreed and the two went off to a secluded area for the decision. Vertigo declined, a decision Deadshot accepted with no argument.
Later, after being affected by the supernatural entity Neron, Deadshot deciced to kill a kindergarten class via a large explosion. The current incarnation of the Justice League stopped him.
Around this time Deadshot traveled overseas to kill the Pope himself. He was stopped at the last moment by Wonder Woman.
A second miniseries was released in 2005, in which Deadshot found out that he'd had a daughter, Zoe, who was being raised in a crime filled area of Star City. Lawton decided to do right by this daughter, and embarked on a lethal war on the local gangs that plagued the area. The series ends with Deadshot faking his death having realized a normal life isn't for him, but having mostly cleared up the area and having convinced Green Arrow to patrol it more regularly.
Deadshot was featured in the Infinite Crisis storyline comic book Villians United. The Secret Six were banded together by a mysterious, shrouded character named Mockingbird (who was actually Lex Luthor) who offered a major reward for committing to the team and a severe punishment for not accepting membership. Deadshot was offered the reward of ruling North America; his punishment was to be the destruction of the neighborhood of his daughter and his daughter's mother. At the end of the miniseries, a stalemate was reached and Deadshot's status remains roughly unchanged from the end of his second miniseries. He remains a part of The Secret Six and was shown having reached a grudging friendship with another member, Catman. His share of the payment for the Six's mercenary work is stated to be sent in it's entirety to his daughter and her mother.
Deadshot is portrayed as having a twisted code of ethics; as long as he's paid for an accepted job, he will not, under any circumstances call it off. Batman was unable to get him to stop threatening a witness (who refused to testify as long as Deadshot was waiting to kill him if he did) by treatening him or his family (Deadshot rightly assumed Batman was bluffing), however, he managed to get Deadshot to drop the hit by getting the bank accounts of his employer frozen. Unable to get paid, Deadshot publically called off the hit, letting the witness go free.

Text from here as it was easier to cut and paste than post all this myself.