What I Bought 3/19/2020

Both of the comic stores in town were open last week. One wasn't letting people inside, but you could call ahead. The other one was still letting people walk in. Anyway, I rolled the dice and entered a building with other human beings in it, and here's a comic.

Deadpool #4, by Kelly Thompson (writer), Chris Bachalo (penciler), Wayne Faucher, Al Vey, Livesay, Jamie Mendoze, Tim Townsend, Derek Fridolfs (inkers), David Curiel (color artist), Irene Strychalski (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - I think the Homeowner's Association will have some problems with that lawn display.

Wade fights Kraven. Wade loses an arm. Fight continues. Wade's knights show up to get involved - again. Fight continues. Wade maneuvers Kraven near the water. Kraven gets eaten by the giant tentacle monster. Wade has funeral for murdered bird chancellor guy, considers abdicating throne. Elsa talks him out of it. Kraven turns up not dead, somehow.

There's also a two-page story, drawn by Strychalski, where Wade tries to cheer up Jeff the Land Shark by dressing as Gwenpool. Yikes.

Not the most thrilling start to this run. I guess it's important that Deadpool make the decision to be king, since he basically fell ass-end into the job by killing the previous king via 40 grenades. But the fight against Kraven, which spanned 2.5 issues, was not terribly interesting. Maybe more time spent on Kraven killing Wade's citizens and Wade trying to catch the killer would have worked better. I don't buy Kraven, especially not a Kraven that's actually just his dumb kid, as being this big a threat to Deadpool.

Situation is not helped by the fact I still can't really figure out what Bachalo's shooting for with his layouts and whatnot, although it's not as noticeable in this issue as the previous two. The part where he captures all the parts of Kohlaab in a net, and then someone starts shooting arrows. The net panel is big, then the two where one arrow flies past and the next hits him in the chest are off to the side, maybe a quarter as large. It seems like conveying information is not a major concern for him. I don't know what it is he likes about those small panels almost entirely filled by a character.