Deadpool #1
Written by Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan
Art by Tony Moore and Val Staples
The short of it:
The country is falling apart, and if you ask this nut with sheep blood, the answer is bringing back our greatest leaders to save us from ourselves. Unfortunately, these revived Presidents have no interest in saving the country, in fact, they’d much rather just destroy it. Also unfortunate, Captain America taking them out is absolutely terrible P.R., which means they have to outsource to someone that can take care of the job without making a big public mess for SHIELD. That answer winds up translating into everyone’s favorite Merc with a Mouth…of course, that has nothing to do with them.
Deadpool cuts his way out of a giant dinosaur after a team up with a hero who wishes not to be mentioned, and before he can get cleaned up and head out….FDR shows up blowing things up and killing people, and it’s up for Deadpool to give the dead President a ‘new deal’ of his own to try and save New York. SHIELD enlists him and sends him to top the evil undead Commanders in Chief, but nothing is ever quite that easy….
What I liked:
- While the book isn’t laugh out loud funny, there are definitely moments that made me smirk. More so than in previous years, at least. Posehn and Duggan don’t make the humor rely entirely on the slapstick, as most writers try and do with Deadpool. There’s a lot of one liners, and a lot of banter, and while it doesn’t all hit…it’s a step in the right direction for actually making Wade funny again.
- The Deadpool team up is one of the moments that did get me to laugh.
- I really did get a kick out of the evil, undead Presidents. They were the funniest parts of the entire book.
- Tony Moore’s art style isn’t what I was expecting, I mean, for some reason I really do always expect dark and gritty art from Deadpool, but i rarely get it, and I’m always happier that I didn’t. They hit a homerun with the art choice here.
- Speaking of the art, much love to Val Staples for the coloring job. For as much credit goes to Tony Moore for the pencils, it was Staples’ coloring job that really set the tone for the entire book. No talk about the book not going dark and gritty can be complete without crediting the person responsible for actually doing that, and that’s something that Staples has been quietly doing for years. Seriously, go look at a list of books he’s worked in and unless you’re brand new to comics, chances are you’re going to go “Hey, I read that!” quite a few times.
What I didn’t like:
- The book tries way too hard at times to put over the fact that it’s a comedy book. Wade is a bit too…happy. Like he just absolutely loves that he’s there and doing this stuff. It’s not dark enough.
- I get doing the brief recap of the characters origin, but let’s be honest, Deadpool doesn’t have the mass market appeal that Marvel thinks he does. A number one issue is most likely not going to bring in readers who haven’t heard of Deadpool before.
- I get the usage of SHIELD, but part of me thinks that this book would be better already if Wade was just out doing this job on his own without being hired. Him working for other people is always strange as it means that you’ve got a group like SHIELD that, while they’ve worked with him before, once again have to discover that he is their best option, despite that nobody would have considered him before he showed up. Been there, done that.
Final thoughts:
After reading Daniel Way’s Deadpool for the first couple of years, it is rather refreshing to come out of an issue of Deadpool and actually know what happened. Way’s run was just so all over the place and slapsticky that it never left any sort of impression. This book is far from perfect, but at least I understood what was happening and remembered it after the fact.
Comedians writing comedy. Who would have thought that was a good combination? It just seems so…obvious. The jokes are obviously the writers trying to make the readers laugh, instead of just trying to make themselves laugh…which is a common issue with Deadpool humor. A lot of writers are just trying to pop themselves, which can sit completely flat with fans who don’t share their humor.
Timely political humor! Nice!
I’m spoiled by Uncanny X-Force and Rick Remender writing an amazing version of Deadpool. No other take on the character really has worked for me since Rick first started up. This version is a pretty big jump away from the one that has been dealing with all sort of moral issues over in that book, which is a personal gripe, but still a gripe.
With the way this issue went, I wish I hadn’t known going in that the first arc was Deadpool vs Undead Presidents. A lot of the oomph and humor was lost in just seeing things coming, as Marvel really did tell us essentially everything that happened in this issue during the previews for the run.
As far as fresh starts and accessible jumping on points go, you really couldn’t do much better than this issue. So in that regard, this issue is a complete success. I don’t feel like I need to have read the previous run, hell, any of the previous runs, it’s just a pick up and go ahead read.
It’s just really average, but I also already know I’m coming back next issue. So really, this book has legs, and there is potential, it’s just a matter of whether or not the writers can reach it. Here’s hoping!
Overall: 6/10
