What I Bought 1/26/2016 - Part 2

You will be shocked, shocked! to learn things are not going well for Deadpool, in the present, or in the year 2099. So, more common ground between the two of us?

Deadpool #5 and 6, by Gerry Duggan (writer), Mike Hawthorne (penciler, #5), Scott Koblish (artist, #6), Terry pallot (inker, #5), Guru-eFX (colorist, #5), Nick Filardi (colorist, #6), Joe Sabino (letterer) - I'm reasonably sure that trap would work on the Rhino. Maybe the Trapster.

So Wade actually brings Eleanor to his townhouse/complex/HQ and waits for Madcap to try and kill her. At which point, Quicksilver whisks her to safety, so Wade's still a better father than Magneto. Probably Reed Richards, too. Wade tries to fight Madcap, who apparently looks hideous under his mask now (I didn't even know that was a mask), and blames it on his time spent in Wade's mind. Wade does have a big plant to hack Madcap into pieces, then throw him in some plastic box Stingray built, but it fails miserably, as Madcap incinerates himself with some alien weapon Deadpool keeps on him as a possible tool to kill himself {Edit: Whoops! It was to kill the demon Vetis if he came back. Sorry}. Everyone seems fairly certain Madcap will reform at some point, and Wade's left wondering about all the cryptic references to arson Madcap made, as well as the other things he did while impersonating Deadpool.

The other issue jumps to 2099, where the new Deadpool is Wade and Shiklah's daughter, who hates her dad and keeps him chained in an apartment watching C-SPAN, and wants to know where her mother is. Also she has an army of Bobs, and there's someone hunting her down. My guess is Preston, still in an LMD body, but it could be Shiklah.

Let's get issue 6 out of the way first. These pastiche issues are always hit or miss with me. I didn't love the Kirby one, but loved the "stop time-travelin' Hitler from killing Nick Fury" one, and the one where he teams up with the Heroes for Hire to fight The White Man. But this just did not work. I would say I'm too fond of the era being mocked, but outside of Spider-Man 2099, I don't really give a rat's ass about the 2099 books. But the art on the action sequences is a confusing mess, and if that was a deliberate choice (which I figure it was, because I know Koblish can do better), it was a bad one. Don't make your damn action sequences hard to follow just because the art of the period you're mocking was bad. All the small panels, and let's have the Bobs initially as weird, glowy outlines to get us wondering what they are in the midst of all it.

And maybe it bugs me a little because while the past issues of this type have taken place in the, well, past, this one's in the future. The former work as a way to introduce some character or problem that is about to pop up and give Deadpool issues, but with the latter, we find out these things that should probably be shocking or sad, but it's just kind of a thud. Oh, Wade and Shiklah had a daughter, and she hates her dad. OK. Ellie died and that made Wade go crazy. Sure. Maybe it's the fact none of that is terribly surprising to me. Of course things are going to end badly for Deadpool. That's how things always go for him, it's just he's currently doing better than he ever has before, so he has further to fall.

Rolling back to issue 5, The question I have is whether Madcap picked up some part of Wade's personality and took it with him when they separated previously? That's why Wade's been able to keep it together and not screw up everything he's got going so far, because the destructive, crazed and violent part of him got absorbed by this other, even crazier, even more unkillable guy? Or this could just be a lesson for Wade. For much of his life, he's been largely indifferent to the suffering of others, justifying that because of what he experienced at the hands of the Weapon X program. Wade passed it on, essentially, and even if he's grown beyond that now (mostly), that doesn't erase what he did in the past. So here's a prime example. Someone who, like Wade, was caught in a situation outside his control (being stuck in Deadpool's brain), and Wade may very well have tortured the guy, rather than doing his best to tolerate him. And now he has to deal with the consequences.

He's also having to deal with being a public figure right now, and we can see that wearing on him. He's in a situation where someone pulls off his mask, lots of people see his face, and no one is screaming or puking. They want pictures with him! But it means he has to play to the cameras. He's used to putting on masks, the humor hiding the pain and all that, but this is different. He has fears, and anger, and he can't do anything with it, because there's too many people watching, and they all want a piece of him. And he has to keep giving it to them.

I'm surprised that the Mercs for Money also speak in yellow dialogue balloons when they were their Deadpool outfits. I thought that was supposed to represent a specific timbre of Wade's voice. Unless he's even mass-produced and farmed that out.

Also, I really, really hope that Madcap's comment about having been up to lots of stuff while dressed as Deadpool isn't Duggan signaling he's going to use that to retcon out Deadpool appearances he doesn't like. Don't be like Jim Starlin when it comes to Thanos, Mr. Duggan.