The Deadpool Cometh

Coming to the conclusion that I am ignorant of whatever Marvel is doing with Deadpool nowadays, I decided to find out.

The story begins with rocking an all you can eat sushi lunch special for 5 rolls at like 10 bucks.  Dice, I know.

Moving on, the local comic shop is like right next to this sushi place, so I go in and check it out.  I had forgotten how messy and unkempt these places can be, but that's exactly how they want them.  Gotta keep out the outsiders, you know "hey, I just saw spiderman 3, can you show me some spiderman stuff, I like that venom guy, his face peels back when he talks, that is neat."  Anyways, local businesses equal awesome businesses, usually (still gotta keep out the riff raff), and I'd rather support the community than some corporate headquarters in East St. Louis.

So I check out the Deadpool titles (yes, they are plural, they are legion).



Having read like the first 20 of the new "main" run, written by 20, I knew they sucked.  I was also aware of "Merc With a Mouth," of which I knew little but also cared little, and "Deadpool Corps," which I had even less interest in reading.

Two titles piqued my interest, at least a bit, so I decided to purchase and etc -- "Deadpool Max" and "Uncanny X-Force" (of which Mr. Wilson is now a part).  Even better, both had recently started, so I could start from number 1.

Having more cover appeal, I read "Uncanny X-Force" first.

I mean, yeah, it's a reboot of a reboot and so on and so forth, and this one really is pretty damn dark.  There's alot of bold black and whites with good color saturation for the other stuff.  But I guess this comic thinks it's 1992, and darker sells like crazy.  Given that the two biggest names on the team are Wolverine and Archangel, yeah, it's gonna be dark.

That being said, Deadpool is pretty faithful to actually being Deadpool, and while at least in the first issue he seemed like a background character (at the very least he was not driving the plot), he was a scene-stealer -- much like in the original X-Force run, where he served as Cable's foe and Siryn's love interest.

The beginning of the story arc also seems like the issue is at the very least looking forward to tackling big issues in the Marvel universe and big issues from a writing standpoint.

Sadly though, this series definitely canonizes (if it hasn't already been done) the "X" in "Weapon X" as meaning 10.  Wolverine would be "X", and one of the new characters, Fantomex, is a higher number.  Where does this leave Deadpool and his past with the Weapon X program?  Also, there was a line towards the end about detecting "5 new mutants," (the team is 5 deep).  Problem is, Deadpool is not a mutant, nor is he an X-man, in fact, that is a running gag in most of the older series.

Probably will check out newer offerings from this, at least the arc (as long as it doesn't get too long).

Deadpool Max.

For those who don't know, the "Max" series is "unrated" and "adult" and whatever else they want to say to make it seem edgier.

Deadpool, being a violent, sadistic person, would seemingly be perfect for something like this.

The problem, however, is two-fold.  One, as I mentioned before, super Deadpool saturation -- there's too much of him right now.  Two, while the gloves can come off with gruff language, I don't expect Deadpool to swear, or at the very least, swear as one would in this kind of publication.  I expect angry pop culture references, and chimichangas, and burritos, not fuck, shit, ass, cunt-fart.

So, the actual content -- the artwork is not to my liking.  Light lines, light coloring, lazy coloring.  I mean, stylistically, it just doesn't really say "Deadpool" to me.

The story is not told from Deadpool's perspective, but rather his handler.  In a way it makes his erratic behavior seem even more erratic, and thus finds a good way of showing how unhinged he is without going inside his head.  That being said, his thought processes were among my favorite bits of his other comics.  It's an interesting thing to do, I'll give them at the very least that much.  It's a creative way to try and put a new spin on it.

But overall, I just didn't like it.  It kinda fell flat.  It kinda felt like if Rob Liefeld was writing Deadpool, I dunno.

The thing about Deadpool, while he is a dark character, an anti-hero (or villain) of sorts, he is more a satire of the 90's anti-hero.  That's what made him the perfect nemesis for Cable in the 90's, and then perfect teammate for him in the 00's.  He fit perfectly in these time periods because he could stand apart from these absurdly dark characters, blending in with their love of pouches.  It's one of the reasons the current series kinda sucks.  It also makes it wierd when his new series are also absurdly dark.  His old things were dark, but also had a lot of dark humor.  While Deadpool can add humor to X-Force, there's also a lot Wolvie and Archangle brooding.  While Deadpool can still seem out of place in "Deadpool Max", he's only out of place in his own universe, it isn't in his perspective, and his universe is incredibly dark.

Maybe they should have just pulled the plug, and let us enjoy the old stuff.  I think a lot of these characters have shelf lives, and Deadpool's has past.

-- Knuttel