Floyd Lawton

"As much as I'd love to show the Wall what we think of her, it's just a little matter of tick-tick-boom."

- Deadshot to John Diggle

Floyd Lawton, known to Interpol under the codename Deadshot, is the world's deadliest marksman. He is an assassin who uses long-ranged weaponry and uses the signature neuro-toxin curare to poison his bullets. He has murdered countless targets in his time, including John Diggle's brother, Andy Diggle. After each job, he tattoos the name of his latest victim on his body. He has a daughter named Zoe, and most of the money he earns he sends to her. He is widely considered as the "personal archenemy" of John Diggle, due to having killed John's brother Andy.

Season 1
In "Lone Gunmen", Lawton was first seen as he killed James Holder and injured Oliver Queen in the process. Finding out the bullet was poisoned, Oliver tracked down Deadshot with aid from the Bratva to an apartment he had used before under the name Floyd Lawton. Where they confronted each other, only for Floyd to flee the scene. At the Unidac auction, Deadshot prepared to take out Walter Steele, who was saved by Sergeant Quentin. Oliver and Deadshot later had another confrontation where Oliver shot an arrow through his right eye, knocking him to the ground, unconscious.

When he regained consciousness, an elderly homeless man approached him. Deadshot wrenched the arrow from his eye and stabbed the old man with it. As he staggered out of the building, he was kidnapped by a group of men in a van after losing consciousness again, before he could be taken by the police. In a hospital room, Floyd woke to find his eye having been operated on. Before his brain could be examined, under the instructions of an unidentified man, broke out of his restraints and walked out.

Two months later, Deadshot appeared in Blüdhaven and approached a man who apparently had a job for him, but was rejected due to having only one fully working eye.

In "Dead to Rights", three months following, Floyd had retired to "drink and smoke his life away". However, when China White approached him with a eye scope to replace his eye, asking him to kill Malcolm Merlyn, Floyd agreed to come out of retirement. The two formed a plan to kill Malcolm by forcing him outside his office building, so Deadshot could kill him. However, Malcolm and his son, Tommy, headed to a safe room in Malcolm's office. Deadshot managed to destroy the bullet-proof windows by firing a grenade from a launcher at them and was able to shoot Malcolm several times. Malcolm became poisoned by the curare toxin in the bullets and Deadshot and China were able to escape. Malcolm survived, however, after Tommy gave his father a blood transfusion.

In "Home Invasion", Sometime later Deadshot returned to Starling city for a potential contract which in reality was a trap A.R.G.U.S was setting to capture him with. When he was going to meet with potential contractor (Lyla Michaels), he had somehow learned what their plans were and he plan to kill the A.R.G.U.S agent setting the trap while sitting sniper. He killed three of the agents and when he moved to kill Lyla, John showed up and saved Lyla's life. When Deadshot (now sporting an eyepatch in stead of his scope). was On his way out John tried to stop him but Floyd easily disarmed him and held two guns on John, who said he was going kill him for what he did to Andy. Floyd replied "I would kill you right now, but there's no one paying me". Whilst showing him his tattoo of Andy's name and told him that it was best that he remembered that he had a place just next to his brother's name and then he punched John in the head with a gun and left the building.

Season 2
In "Keep Your Enemies Closer", he is found to have been captured in Russia and taken to the gulag. It is revealed that Lyla Michaels was tracking Deadshot for John Diggle but was taken captive there. Lawton meets Diggle again while in solitary. He kills John's contact inside the prison with an icicle and says he would help find Lyla if John gets him out too. After they find Lyla, Diggle helps Lawton out of the prison. They escape in a van with Oliver Queen, Felicity Smoak, and Anatoly Knyazev. Out of honor, John allows him to walk free instead of just shooting him. When asked, Lawton tells Diggle that he was contracted to kill Andy by H.I.V.E.

In "Suicide Squad", Lawton and a few members of the Suicide Squad are temporarily released from imprisonment by A.R.G.U.S. to participate in a mission in Markovia. He would attempt a fake assassination in order for Diggle to gain trust from Gholem Qadir. During a Humanitarian Benefit which Diggle was invited to, Lawton would pose as Diggle after Diggle bypassed the security with Qadir. Lawton would look for the nerve agent only to discover that it was much larger than expected. After Lawton learns that it was planned for him to be killed along with the destruction of the nerve agent, he decides to stay before being reminded of his daughter, Zoe by John Diggle. Lawton would later realize the drone that was set to destroy the nerve agent was locked onto a chip inside him. Lyla would cut the chip out with Ben Turner's claws. After they return to A.R.G.U.S., Amanda Waller decides to place the chip back in the spine of the Suicide Squad members.

In, Lawton is broken out of imprisonment by John Diggle and Lyla Michaels to stop Amanda Waller. After being instructed to take no kill shots, Lawton is armed and holds up the control room of A.R.G.U.S. with other members of the Suicide Squad in order to stop Waller from leveling Starling City with a drone attack.

Further work with the Suicide Squad
In late 2014, Deadshot was working as part of the Suicide Squad, killing members of the extremist sect Onslaught in the Republic of Kasnia.

Personality
Lawton motivation as a sniper is money. He is driven by money - so much so that he didn't kill John Diggle only because he sees him as a potential source of income later, since no one has yet paid him to fulfill the task. It was later revealed his obsession with money was because it's his only way to provide money for his daughter Zoey, who he sends most of the money via a blind trust. He has several pictures of her in his cell at A.R.G.U.S. He will kill anyone who gets between him and his target(s); when Floyd found out that A.R.G.U.S. set a trap for him, he killed three A.R.G.U.S. agents, despite the fact that they were not getting in his way between him and his target(s). However he does show remarkable bravery and character by remaining underground when Waller orders him to do so, despite his knowledge of an impending drone strike. It is possible that he envies John Diggle's code of ethics and honor, suggesting that he wasn't always borderline-sociopathic, this was merely a personality adjustment that eventually consumed him. This is shown in when he says that it was the way he wanted to die, doing something honorable.

Abilities

 * Peak of human physical condition: Floyd is strong enough to go toe-to-toe with John Diggle and come out on top.
 * Master marksman: Floyd is considered to be the world's deadliest marksman and highly skilled with many ranged weapons. This is partially supported by his proficiency with his eye scope. Floyd's marksman skills are so great, he is said to never miss his mark, earning him the nickname Deadshot from Interpol.
 * Expert hand-to-hand combatant/Martial artist: Floyd has shown himself to be a capable hand-to-hand combatant and martial artist. He was able to take on John with relative ease and even overpowered him in their confrontation.

Equipment

 * Laser eye patch: One of Floyd's signature trademarks was the high-tech laser sighted eye-patch that he wears over his right eye. This eye-patch augments his amazing marksman skills, and when combined with his sniper rifle's scope, makes it almost impossible for him to miss his target. This eye-patch also resembles the eye patch Cyborg wore from the DC comics.
 * Cybernetic eye patch: This cybernetic eye-patch was given to Floyd by China White to replace his damaged eye, after it was seriously injured by The Arrow. It was later upgraded to act as a sniper rifle scope and also possesses thermal imaging. A.R.G.U.S. agent's can remotely access the eye-patch to use it as a camera, seeing what Lawton does.
 * Wrist turrets: Floyd possessed two wrist turrets, one on each wrist which can emit continuous gun shots in rapid fire.
 * Sniper rifle: One of Floyd's weapons of choice include a long-ranged sniper rifle with curare-laced bullets.
 * Grenade Launcher: Floyd used this weapon in order to penetrate Malcolm Merlyn's bullet proof glass.
 * Deadshot suit: Floyd wears a suit as his villain alter-ego, Deadshot, when he is out on an assignment. The first incarnation of the suit was little more than a dark suit and jacket. The second and current incarnation of the suit is far better equipped, including an armored chest piece, fully loaded Bandoleer and various magazines of ammunition.

Appearances
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Arrow

 * "Time's Arrow"
 * "Back from the Deadshot"

Arrow: Season 2.5
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 * "Ascension" (Suicide Squad: Crisis in Kahndaq)

Trivia

 * Deadshot is one of the more popular DC comics super villains, having featured in several animated adaptations, and video games, and is a prominent member of the Suicide Squad, a team of convicted felons that frequently perform missions on behalf of the government. This incarnation, however, does not appear to have the "silver spoon" background of his comics counterpart.
 * In, Floyd Lawton appears in Blüdhaven, the city he has chosen for his "retirement". In the comics, Blüdhaven is Nightwing's city, and during the episode, Guillermo Barrera appears. He's a criminal mainly operating in Blüdhaven, with Nightwing as his nemesis.
 * In, John Diggle is reading an article about Deadshot suspectedly killing the Bialyan president. Bialya happens to be a prominent country in the DC mythos.
 * Deadshot getting tattoos with the names of his victims is similar to Victor Zsasz, a villain from the Batman series who carves a tally mark into his body every time he kills someone.
 * Many of Deadshot's tattoos are references to in-series characters, extended DCU characters, and Behind-the-Scenes crew members. They include "Glen Winter" (series director), "Andrew Diggle" (Diggle's brother and also the writer of "Green Arrow: Year One" for DC Comics), and "Joseph Cray" (a reference to Adam Cray, who takes up the mantle of The Atom after Ray Palmer and joins the Suicide Squad in the comics).