SuperSearnold - Comic Book Reviews

Greetings from your friendly neighborhood Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld].  Welcome to my comic book review blog - thanks for tuning in.  Today’s date is Saturday, September 13th, 2008.

Today’s Issue:
Marvel Comic’s brand new Deadpool #1 - written by Daniel Way (Incredible Hulk, Wolverine: Origins) with art by Paco Medina (New X-Men, New Warriors).  This title continues the adventures of Deadpool after the end of the recent Cable & Deadpool series.  Deadpool has fairly consistently been featured in his own series since around 1993, being the star of many mini-series as well as a few titles that ran for 12, 50, and as many as 69 issues.  I mention this because it seems odd to me that Deadpool - clearly a character popular enough to warrant his own series - keeps getting his titles cancelled or relaunched.  I myself am a huge Deadpool fan and hope this new series has a long-lived life ahead of it.

Premise:
Let me start by explaining who Deadpool is because - while I love him - I know he is a slightly more obscure Marvel character.  The one-liner often used to describe him is “The Merc with a Mouth.”  He’s a wise-cracking gun-toting mercenary whose comics are riddled with action and humor.  He also has a healing factor which makes him as impossible to kill as Wolverine - and equally as bad-ass.  Deadpool was created by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza way back in New Mutants #98 as a villian hired to assassinate Cable.  Deadpool’s moral ambiguity (sure he kills people for money - but he always struggles to do the right thing) is one of the reasons I’m so fond of him.  His mid-battle wise cracks which rival even those of Spider-Man are another.  He’s also more than a little bit crazy, which adds a nice element of unpredicability to his comics.
In this new series, Deadpool’s moral ambiguity takes another twist as it appears he will be fighting on the side of the Skrulls in the Secret Invasion.  His craziness also takes a new twist as this issue seems to imply that Deadpool is actually insane - he has internal dialogues with multiple versions of himself, and we find out that he occasionally sees things that aren’t real.

The Awesome Parts:
Well there sure is a lot of fighting and killing - as is pretty standard in a Deadpool comic.  And there sure is a lot of comedy - also a Deadpool standard.  The two always create an excellent juxtiposition - and Daniel Way has done a great job of capturing the feel of a Deadpool comic.  Marvel continues to do a good job of making sure you don’t need to know anything about Secret Invasion in order to understand this issue.  You don’t even need to know who the Skrulls are to follow the action.  You don’t even need to know who Deadpool is, because Deadpool #1 contains a backup story which reveals his entire history - making this issue a great jumping on place for anyone wanting to become familiar with the basics of the character without reading about 200 comic books.  I hope it allows people who pick up this title for the Secret Invasion tie-in to fall in love with Deadpool.

Not-So-Awesome Parts:
If you aren’t into the whole killing thing then I imagine this title is not for you.  Senseless violence (albiet all against Skrulls in this particular issue) is a standard Deadpool trait.  He is, after all, a mercenary.  I continue to not be a fan of the trend to raise comic book prices to $3.99 - even with the extra history of Deadpool, I’m just so used to paying $2.99.  I’m also used to GRADUAL increases in prices: 10 cents to 12 cents to 25 cents, 2 dollars to 2.25 to 2.99 - and now all of a sudden we seem to be jumping up a whole dollar.  While that’s not THAT big of a deal for a single issue, when you’re buying 50 titles a month it sure adds up.

My Recommendation:
I absolutely recommend Deadpool #1 to most comic book readers.  Most comic book readers tend to enjoy intense action accompanied by some tension relieving humor.  And certainly if you are a Deadpool fan, this issue will not disappoint.  As I mentioned before, even if you don’t know anything about Deadpool or the Secret Invasion, Deadpool #1 is a great jumping on place.  However, if violence is not your forte, then Deadpool is certainly not for you. 

That’s all for Deadpool #1.  As always, thanks for reading - see you next time.
-Searnold