Sunday Splash Page #100

"Cheaper Than Divorce Court", in Cable/Deadpool #33, by Fabian Nicieza (writer), Reilly Brown (penciler), Jeremy Freeman (inker), Gotham (colorist), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

Who doesn't enjoy seeing Cable get shot every once in a while? Be honest.

I actually started buying Cable/Deadpool during its Civil War tie-ins. The one and only time that trash fire got me to buy a comic. I had some space on the pull list since I'd hit my limit with Bendis' New Avengers and Adam Beechen's Robin the week before. 

This is when Cable's tendency to manipulate Wade finally hits the fan. Wade makes decisions Cable doesn't approve of - and even knowing why he's making them and why it's important to him - trips him up repeatedly. Humiliates him, actually. Which, rather than getting Deadpool to turn to Cable for help (because Nate couldn't just offer), gets Wade making more poor decisions. I'm not sure how Cable thought literally pantsing Deadpool on worldwide TV, then telekinetically launching him into another country would convince Wade to turn to him for help.

Then Mike Carey took Cable away to be part of his X-Men run (the one where some dumbass decided Mystique and Sabretooth were good people to have on the team). Then Carey destroyed Cable's floating island nation, with old time traveling metal arm guy seemingly going with it. 

At which point, Nicieza and Brown did the best they could, turning it into a rotating Deadpool team-up book. This is the point when Bob, Agent of HYDRA is introduced. Weasel pops up more often, Sandi, Outlaw, and Agent X become more frequent supporting characters. You do what you have to when it's supposed to be a buddy comedy book, and one of the buddies gets yoinked out from under you.

The low point of that stretch for me was Nicieza did a couple of stories involving T-Ray, who I don't care about one way or the other, because Joe Kelly's Deadpool run just doesn't matter that much to. Deadpool is Wade Wilson. Anything else is needlessly muddying the waters. Did people learn nothing useful from the Clone Saga?!

The book takes on a sillier tone minus Cable and his "save the future" gravitas. Bob presents a much different person for Wade to react to, since Bob's two settings are "confusion" and "terrified". There are a couple of issues of time travel hijinks, some matters of the soul with Dr. Strange and Brother Voodoo, a big fight with Wolverine that has several pages of Deadpool's severed head being kicked around while Bob tries to corral it.

Brown's art works for that. His Deadpool isn't nearly as muscular as Zircher or Brooks', to say nothing of Ed McGuinness'. He can still draw people scowling, can still draw violence, but his art seems to fit sillier moments like Wade being flung three blocks by a dinosaur covered in a symbiont.There's a looseness to the pencils that allows for more comic exaggeration.