What I Bought 11/20/2019 - Part 2

It's nice to find out, every once in a while, that other people's opinions on pop culture stuff can still provoke an indignant reaction in me. The kind where I have to restrain that urge to type something aggressively stupid and confrontational. Not because I want to type that stuff, but it's kinda nice to know I still give enough of a shit to get riled about dumb stuff.

Gwenpool Strikes Back #4, by Leah Williams and Chris Hastings (writers), David Baldeon (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Don't worry folks, she's just swinging around some fireworks. Wait, that's kind of dangerous.

Gwen, out of any better ideas to beat the Hulk (who is acting more like a mix of childlike classic Hulk and the creepy one Al Ewing is writing, but whatever), decides to recruit other versions of herself from other books she's shone up in. Like that Civil War II tie-in issue of Rocket Raccoon and Groot. While those Gwens keep Hulk occupied by giving him more things to smash, this book's Gwen goes and steals Thor's severed arm from Malekith(?), then wears it over her arm, so she can swipe Mjolnir when Thor chucks it at Kamala (which, overkill there Thor) and hit Hulk in his gamma-irradiated junk with it.

See, when Jeph Loeb did this kind of shit with Red Hulk, it was annoying. Because he played it straight about how this showed how awesome this new character was. Such a big threat. Since Leah Williams is writing as Gwen herself trying to prove she's an awesome character and big deal so she can continue to exist, I can roll with it. Also, it's just so ridiculous that I can laugh at it. In a good way, rather than, "Holy shit, this is terrible writing. Who would pay this person for this?"

Credit to David Baldeon for doing a good impression of the artists from those other books, which also helps to distinguish the Gwens. At least I assume it was a good impression. Other than Unbelievable Gwenpool, I've never read any of the comics these characters are from. But I can confirm he does a good Gurihiru impression! And since that's the best version, that's really all that matters. They're also all different heights, which plays into one gag about Gwen trying to combine with one of the others. Little disappointed she didn't try the Fusion Dance there. That would only work for two Gwens, but you could have three fused Gwens then!

Kind of surprised when Hulk made his "You courted chaos. I'm consenting." line, none of the Gwens had anything to say to that.

Deadpool #1, by Kelly Thompson (writer), Chris Bachalo (penciler), Wayne Faucher, Tim Townsend, Al Vey, Jamie Mendoza, Livesay, and Victor Olazaba (inkers), David Curiel (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Holy shit, 6 inkers?! I assume Bachalo is already behind schedule then, and will be on the book for 3 issues, tops.

Wade is alone and depressed, again. Monsters have decided to make themselves a kingdom on Staten Island, and a mysterious guy hires Wade to kill their king. Which he does, with some assistance/interference from Elsa Bloodstone. However, this makes Wade the new king. Which is much less fun than he thought it would be. He can't even get free ice cream! Then Gwen shows up to leave her land shark with him, because she's afraid he'll cease to exist if he's in her book and she gets axed. I thought her land shark was just a backpack. It's alive?! Then Kraven shows up and kills Wade's Lord Chamberlain. Didn't take long for Kraven to revert to type. Again.

Well, I don't see how Wade running a monster kingdom is going to go any better than when he was married to a lady running a monster kingdom. Probably go worse, if Wade's making the policy decisions. But the Blaylock fellow seems like a problem, and Elsa's in contact with someone, and Wade is, as mentioned above, lonely and depressed. Which means he'll do stupid things to try and have some companionship.

Bachalo draws some interesting monsters, although he hardly ever draws the former king's entire body. Which mostly works. What we see of him tends to take up most of whatever panel he's in, which helps to play up his size even in smaller panels. And there are some pages where I'm confused about why they went with the layout they did. The first panel of the page where Wade's arguing with the monster that keeps attacking the ferries, is set at a distance, so that the monster is a bunch of barely differentiated tentacles, and Wade's just a red splotch. I guess to focus the eye on the damaged ferry in the foreground, but considering it's a grey and black object, the eye ends up drawn to Wade or his extremely large voice balloon in the white space next to the panel.

I do really like the crown Bachalo gave him, which looks like Wade stole it from King Koopa. Or King Deedee. Or maybe that evil crocodile guy from Donkey Kong Country. Hmm, I'm starting to think Nintendo might be opposed to monarchies. Either way, Wade wears it at a jaunty angle, and I love it.

Also, we're apparently back to Deadpool not wanting to take his mask off around people. He lifts it to nose level a couple of times, but otherwise, it stays all the way on. He'd gotten more comfortable about it during the Duggan run, or even Cable/Deadpool, but I guess he backslid.