Review: Deadpool Classic, Vol. 3

Writers: Joe Kelly, Stan Lee
Artists: Ed McGuinness, Shannon Denton, Pete Woods, Walter McDaniel, and John Romita Sr.
Collects: Deadpool #9-17 (1997-98) and Amazing Spider-Man #47 (1967)
Published: Marvel, 2009; $29.99

It’s taken three volumes now, but I think my patience with the Deadpool Classic series is finally starting to wear a little thin. The main reason for my frustration is that while writer Joe Kelly clearly has an idea of where he wants to take the story, he doesn’t seem to know how to properly get there. This book takes us up through the 17th issue of Deadpool’s ongoing series – a point by which I think it’s reasonable to have expected the main plot to have progressed a lot more than it actually has. Unfortunately, the nine issues collected here do little aside from meander as Kelly seemingly goes out of his way to portray Deadpool as a genuinely unlikeable human being.

Picking up on one of the main plot threads from the previous volume, Deadpool Classic, Vol. 3 concerns itself mostly with the main character’s struggle to determine whether he’s ultimately a hero or a villain. While the folks at intergalactic law firm Landau, Luckman & Lake maintain that he’s some sort of “chosen one” meant to restore balance to the universe and whatnot, Deadpool’s actions consistently speak to the contrary. This was the case in Vol. 2 as well, but at least in that book I got the sense that Deadpool legitimately wanted to become one of the “good guys.” Here, he talks a lot about wanting to change for Siryn, the woman he loves (who only appears in one issue, sadly – I think she’s a great character), but doesn’t seem to be motivated by much else – least of all, his conscience. In fact, he spends so much time being self-centered and actively resisting LL&L’s attempts to help him be a hero that I had a hard time believing he really wants to change at all.

Overall, I think I get what Kelly is trying to do. He’s trying to bring Deadpool to such a low point that the only way for him to go is up – thus justifying his eventual shift from anti-hero to hero. (Of course, at the rate the story is going right now, I can’t imagine that shift taking place for at least another two volumes, and even then I don’t expect for it to last long.) The thing is, Deadpool was already brought to a sufficient low by his fight with Typhoid Mary at the end of Vol. 2 – the fact that he acts like a jerk for most of this volume doesn’t get him any lower, it just forces us to wallow along with Deadpool in a weird state of limbo created by the character’s alternating feelings of denial and self-pity.

In other words, Kelly isn’t actually developing the character or his situation at all here; instead, he brings Deadpool to his lowest point and then spends nine issues rubbing the reader’s face in it. The worst part comes when Deadpool locks up Blind Al and Weasel, his only friends, in a torture chamber for absolutely no reason. (Even more troubling is that when Deadpool finally offers an apology four issues later, Kelly apparently means for the reader to accept it.) Kelly still (annoyingly) doesn’t reveal the exact nature of Deadpool’s relationship with Al, an old woman he’s been keeping prisoner since the series’ first issue. I think we’re supposed to be amused at the bizarre Stockholm syndrome thing going on between the two, but at this point it’s really just creeping me out.

And maybe it’s just that I’ve read too much Deadpool lately, but the character’s sense of humor (at least, the way Joe Kelly writes it) has become just plain annoying to me. It’s extremely repetitive, for one thing – I counted at least three jokes involving the word “duodenum” in this volume alone, and just as many involving people having their butts “kicked so hard they can taste their breakfast.” I imagine I would have had a much easier time enjoying the dialogue if not for seeing the same verbal tics repeated over and over.

The one highlight of this book is a double-sized issue in which Deadpool travels back in time and uses an image inducer to impersonate Peter Parker throughout the events of the classic Amazing Spider-Man #47 (which is reprinted in its entirety here as well). Artist Pete Woods does a good job of imitating John Romita’s style for the scenes taking place in the past, and of inserting Deadpool into a number of actual Romita-drawn panels taken from the original comic. Plus, the framing story features the Great Lakes Avengers (who call themselves the Lightning Rods here, after the Thunderbolts), a group that never fails to amuse me.

Aside from Woods, the art in this book is handled by a variety of artists. Ed McGuinness only draws the first issue, but he’s followed by Shannon Denton, whose style is very similar. The final four issues are drawn by Walter McDaniel, whose style is more realistic and less manga-influenced than either McGuinness’s or Denton’s; I had never come across his work before, but it’s very similar to what Bryan Hitch was up to in the late ’90s. All of the artists featured are a decent fit for the book, even if none of them are mind-blowingly great.

Despite the time-travel issue and the artwork, though, this book failed to impress me on the whole. The series has slipped into a formula that, while not intrinsically bad, has grown pretty tiresome as a result of its being dragged out for so long. I’m not writing the series off entirely, since I think it could reclaim some of its former glory if it gets out of its current rut and Deadpool finally embraces his “destiny” to become a hero. Still, it’s got a pretty steep mountain to climb to make me forget this disappointing volume.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Review: Deadpool Classic, Vol. 2

Writer: Joe Kelly
Artists: Ed McGuinness, Kevin Lau, Aaron Lopresti, Bernard Chang, Shannon Denton, and John Fang
Collects: Deadpool #2-8 and #-1, and Daredevil/Deadpool Annual 1997
Published: Marvel, 2009; $29.99

Now this is more like it. While the first trade in the Deadpool Classic series was an odd hodgepodge of some of the title character’s earliest appearances, the second one, thankfully, is a much more cohesive package. It begins where the first volume left off, with the second issue of Deadpool’s 1997 ongoing series – and while I still think not including the first issue in this book is a cheap ploy on Marvel’s part to sucker readers into spending more money on these trades than they reasonably should, it’s hard to fault the actual stories for what’s clearly a boneheaded decision on Marvel’s part.

The issues collected in Deadpool Classic, Vol. 2 are all written by Joe Kelly, whose Deadpool run I had heard a great deal about but never encountered personally until I read this book. Many people consider his work with the character to be better than anyone else’s by far, and even having only read these early issues, I’m inclined to agree. Tonally, Kelly strikes the perfect chord: Deadpool’s dialogue and the situations he finds himself in are often funny, but at the same time Kelly presents the character (and the reader) with moral dilemmas that one simply won’t find in the majority of superhero comics. My favorite moments in this book came when Deadpool’s sense of humor fell completely away and we were able to see something of the man behind the mask – a deeply disturbed man whose actions and worldview heart-wrenchingly reveal to us the real depths of human existence.

In the book’s first story arc, we learn from Killbrew, the scientist who essentially “created” Deadpool (and who I could have sworn was referred to as “Killebrew” in the first trade), that Deadpool is dying. The search for a cure leads our main character to team up with on-again/off-again love interest Siryn, come face-to-face for the first time with future rivals T-Ray and Taskmaster, tear things up in a surprisingly brutal fight with the Hulk, and even work reluctantly with Killbrew, the one man he despises above all else. Seeing as Deadpool is still around today, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that he doesn’t actually die in this story, although Kelly does take the opportunity to permanently weaken the character – in the years since his initial appearance, he had grown to be ridiculously powerful and virtually un-killable.

Rather than a life-and-death struggle, then, Deadpool is faced with one of those poignant existential dilemmas I mentioned above: does Killbrew really deserve to die, and even if he does, is Deadpool the man who should kill him? Siryn, acting as the proverbial angel on his shoulder, doesn’t think so – but then again, can she ever truly understand someone like Deadpool? The ending to this story is one of the best endings I’ve read in a superhero comic in quite a while, as it really makes the reader think about who the main character is and why he does the things he does. It also sets the record straight (well, straighter) on Deadpool’s relationship with Siryn, who quickly grew on me as a character over the course of these issues. She doesn’t feature much in the trade’s second half, unfortunately, but I definitely hope to see more of her in future volumes.

The first story arc is followed by a “Minus One” issue starring Zoe Culloden, a woman last seen at the end of the first Deadpool Classic trade, who has been monitoring the mercenary Wade Wilson as a potential recruit for some sort of mysterious program. The story takes place long before Wade ever became Deadpool, and in fact we barely even see him at all; Kelly focuses instead on the character’s then-girlfriend, who Zoe befriends in an effort to learn more about him. It’s an adequate story, and I’m sure its events will play an important role as the series goes on, but its serious tone feels a little removed from the quirky nature of most of the rest of the book.

The book’s second big story arc has Deadpool taking on two new jobs: one being to break a woman out of a mental asylum, and the other being to kill her. Making things even more confusing, the two jobs were ordered by the same person – the mental patient herself, who turns out to be Typhoid Mary. All of this leads directly into the extra-sized Daredevil/Deadpool Annual 1997, which ends up being little more than an excuse to throw those two characters into the same comic while retconning some details from Frank Miller’s Man Without Fear miniseries, in order to tie the origins of Daredevil and Typhoid Mary more closely together.

I wasn’t too hot on these issues, to be honest. It’s not that they’re poorly written or anything, they just didn’t draw me in like the first few issues did. Typhoid Mary just isn’t one of my favorite villains – I’m much more interested in characters like Magneto and Dr. Doom, who are often misguided but firmly believe that their actions will ultimately benefit the world in some way. Straightforward psychopaths like Mary (and, to a lesser extent, Bullseye) who simply kill people for the sake of killing just aren’t as compelling to me, since there’s no bigger moral, social, or political issue at stake in their actions.

But while the final part of Deadpool Classic, Vol. 2 isn’t much to write home about, the trade’s strong first half more than makes up for it. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the story that begins in the final issue of the first Deadpool Classic trade and continues into the first four issues of this collection is one of the best Deadpool stories I’ve ever read. If you even think you might be a Deadpool fan, this is a book well worth reading.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Review: Deadpool Classic, Vol. 1

Writers: Fabian Nicieza, Rob Liefeld, Mark Waid, Joe Kelly
Artists: Rob Liefeld, Joe Madureira, Ian Churchill, Lee Weeks, Ken Lashley, Ed McGuinness
Collects: New Mutants #98, Deadpool: The Circle Chase #1-4, Deadpool (1994) #1-4, Deadpool (1997) #1
Published: Marvel, 2008; $29.99
For whatever reason, Deadpool has come pretty much out of nowhere over the last few years to become one of Marvel’s biggest-selling characters. He’s always had a devoted following, to be sure, but the current Deadpool craze is fairly unprecedented, with the character currently appearing in almost as many comics per month as the likes of Spider-Man and Wolverine. I’m not sure yet where I weigh in on the matter – I find the character interesting, although perhaps not enough to read him in half a dozen comics every month – but either way, in light of Deadpool’s current popularity it seems only fitting to take a look back at where it all began, which is what Marvel’s Deadpool Classic trade series has set out to do.

Deadpool Classic, Vol. 1 begins, fittingly enough, with the character’s first appearance in New Mutants #98 (first published February 1991). As with most things written and/or drawn by Rob Liefeld, to call this issue “subpar” would be a tremendous compliment. Deadpool, in this first incarnation, is vintage Liefeld – a completely unremarkable character with big guns and a whole mess of bulky, impractical “gear” who briefly shows up to attack Cable and his mutant protégés. His role isn’t significant to the series’ ongoing plot at all, but rather a means of biding time while Liefeld and scripter Fabian Nicieza develop a boring subplot featuring Gideon (another Liefeld creation which, along with most of what happened at Marvel in the early 1990s, is best forgotten).

The book jumps a few years ahead from this point to Deadpool: The Circle Chase, a four-issue miniseries from 1993 which revolves around a number of criminals all on a hunt for the will of Mr. Tolliver (an illegal weapons merchant, actually Cable’s son in disguise, who was for some reason or another assumed dead at this point). At times it reads sort of like a “who’s who” of the characters in Marvel’s early-‘90s D-list, which isn’t a plus considering I wasn’t particularly fond of the direction in which even the A-listers were headed at the time. This isn’t helped by the presence of Juggernaut and Black Tom, a duo that quite frankly bores me to tears and who I don’t think I’ve ever been able to take completely seriously.

But unlike in his initial appearance, Deadpool finally starts to show some personality in The Circle Chase, and for that alone I don’t think the series is a total wash. Although he acts like a jerk for most of the time, we’re treated at the end, in his interactions with ex-girlfriend Copycat, to a rare glimpse at the character’s compassionate side. Add to that a fairly competent job on the artwork (for the ‘90s, at least) by Joe Madureira, and I’d rate The Circle Chase as being slightly above average overall, although just barely.

It’s followed in this collection by another Deadpool miniseries from 1994 (called just Deadpool this time, although it was retroactively subtitled Sins of the Past when it was collected in 1997), written by Mark Waid and drawn mostly by Ian Churchill. Juggernaut and Black Tom rear their ugly heads again, unfortunately, but for whatever reason I didn’t mind them as much in this story. Perhaps it’s because Waid is a much better writer than Fabian Nicieza, who wrote both New Mutants #98 and The Circle Chase, but I think it’s also because the second series’ main emphasis is on the ongoing relationship between Deadpool and Siryn (member of X-Force, daughter of Banshee, and niece of Black Tom). Deadpool is infatuated with her from the moment they meet, and Waid creates legitimate tension between them as she first resists his advances and later begins to warm up to him.

Churchill’s art is characterized by his penchant for drawing far more lines than could ever be considered practical, but surprisingly enough, I enjoyed it in this series. Linework aside, his figures are well-proportioned (other than Juggernaut, obviously, who looks just as massively over-the-top as he should) and he does some interesting things in terms of panel composition. Lee Weeks does a nice-looking flashback sequence in the second issue, and Ken Lashley takes over for Churchill for a few pages in issues three and four. In the latter, curiously, Lashley draws five pages right in the middle of an action sequence – these are some of the only pages in the series to show Deadpool unmasked, and my guess is that someone in editorial felt Churchill’s version of Deadpool’s face (seen briefly in the first issue) was a bit too grotesque to be revisited. I’m curious as to whether Churchill ever drew these pages before it was decided that Lashley would do the final versions; if so, I think they would be really interesting to see.

Deadpool made a number of appearances in the pages of X-Force before and after his two miniseries, none of which are collected here. I’m not sure whether that’s a good or bad thing – I’ve never read them, and I suspect they weren’t very good – but a page or two explaining the events that take place in those issues would have been appreciated. As it is, I’m left slightly confused by the collection’s final story, the premiere issue of Deadpool’s first ongoing series from 1997. Published three years after the Mark Waid miniseries, it makes vague references to developments in the Deadpool/Siryn relationship that took place during the time between – something I would have preferred to read about rather than the issue’s actual story, which involves Deadpool fighting Sasquatch in the wastes of Antarctica. It’s not bad, I guess, but it’s obvious that Marvel only included it in this collection to entice readers to buy the second volume of Deadpool Classic, which continues with the second issue of Deadpool’s ongoing series.

Although there are some good stories in this book, the disparity of quality throughout, as well as the exclusion of a number of stories that probably should have been included (or at least explained), makes it difficult for me to recommend it wholeheartedly at the price Marvel is asking. Ideally, the first volume in a series called “Deadpool Classic” would bring readers totally up to speed on the character’s early history, but instead it leaves bothersome gaps that readers will have to fill by other means (either by tracking down the issues or waiting to see if they’ll be collected separately) to get the full picture. If you’re a fan of Deadpool and you really want to see how he got his start, then give this a shot, I suppose – just don’t expect the same level of polish the character’s numerous titles receive today.

Rating: 3 out of 5