"Safe Word, Safe Word!", in Deadpool (vol. 1) #66, Gail Simone (writer), Alvin Lee, Rob Ross, Eric Vedder, A-Zero and LTRZ (art team), Dave Sharpe (letterer)
Welcome to the Deadpool neighborhood of the Sunday Splash Page town. We'll be here the next couple of months.
I didn't really become a fan of Deadpool until his "bromance with Cable" years. As far as his first volume, I read the first 8 issues of Joe Kelly's run a decade ago, and I think I bought the two-part Punisher guest appearance Jimmy Palmiotti wrote when it came out, because Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's "Welcome Bank, Frank" story had gotten me hyped for the Punisher? Maybe that's why. As likely a reason as any, considering we're talking about me here.
Anyway, none of that stuff is still in my collection. What is, is the five-issue run by Gail Simone and the Udon art team that concluded the volume. Where Deadpool has his mercenary business, with Sandi handling his administrative duties and a man with cognitive issues named Ratbag as his other employee. Taskmaster is also hanging around. Wade unwittingly takes credit for a career-making kill pulled off by an assassin named Black Swan, who puts a mind-whammy on Deadpool that will gradually erase his brain.
I know, how could Wade tell? That was kind of unimpressive as a revenge scheme, given I read this after years of Nicieza giving him constantly shifting amnesia, and Duggan revealing Wade was pumped full of memory-erasing drugs for years. Fucking with Deadpool's brain is like trying to make a toxic waste dump worse. What's the point?
Wade confronts Black Swan, although his goal is not what you might expect. He ends up dead, which they did like 10 issues earlier in his book, but hell, Wade dies a lot. It just never sticks. Shortly after that, Simone and the Udon team were working on Agent X, starring a mysterious amnesiac with scars and a healing factor.
It's only 5 issues, but Simone's brief stint on Deadpool establishes Sandi and Taskmaster as supporting characters, and at least introduced Outlaw, although she only briefly appears here and doesn't really become a recurring character until Agent X. Ratbag, fortunately for him, did not join the pantheon of Hapless Comedy Sidekicks Wade's had over the years (Weasel, Bob, maybe Michael the Necromancer and Agent Adsit.) It gives us Deadpool on a moped, Deadpool using Pym Particles to defeat the Rhino (Rhino would repay the favor in Cable/Deadpool), and Deadpool acting as a bodyguard for Dazzler.
A lot of memorable stuff for so few issues.
4 comments:
I first encountered Deadpool with #31-33 of his first series. I was just getting back into comics then after a few years away and I was buying random single issues and bundles with no idea what I was doing. I had no idea who Deadpool was at the time, and so of course I decided to pick up the last issues of Kelly's run in which he's wrapping up three years of plot threads and revealing Deadpool's secret origin. Great choice.
I also have one of the issues of that miniseries during the Deadpool Glut where they did covers based on classic books. I have the Moby Dick one. Again, not sure why that one in particular.
And I have one where Deadpool tries to fill in for Wolverine -- who is dead -- and fights She-Hulk, because if he's Wolverine then he has to fight a Hulk. It's possible that's in fact an issue of She-Hulk now that I think of it.
I remember that Deadpool fighting Moby Dick cover. That one about Deadpool impersonating Wolverine sounds familiar. And She-Hulk's definitely a smarter choice to fight, if you gotta fight a Hulk. Unless she sues you after she beats the crap out of you.
I have definitely picked less-than-stellar issues to start buying a series. The first issue of the Duggan/Posehn run on Deadpool I bought was a one that was supposed to be a "lost" inventory issue from some non-existent earlier series Deadpool had in the 1960s. Scott Koblish did this Kirby homage/pastiche and Wade gets dumped in Wakanda by Cable, then fights Odin's sentient Asgardian poop or something.
I may be remembering that wrong, but Asgard was definitely involved, because Koblish drew a lot of crazy hats. The next one they did, where Deadpool and Cable save post-WWII, pre-SHIELD Nick Fury from time-traveling Hitler was a lot better.
It turns out it's Wolverines, the series about all the Wolverine relatives, clones, and knock-offs in the aftermath of Wolverine's death. Why Deadpool is the protagonist in this issue (#13) when he's not one of the regular cast, I don't know.
Nor do I have any idea why I picked up this one issue, because I had no interest in Wolverine back then.
As it happens, She-Hulk has no interest in fighting Deadpool-Wolverine until he says that he picked her because he thought Banner would be too tough, so she throws him out a window. Then he calls her "greenskin" so she beats him up. Then a bunch of other heroes turn up to fight him but he accidentally stabs himself in the head with his fake claws.
It's a weird issue.
Cripes, Wolverines, that's right. From the stretch when Marvel killed Logan off, then immediately saturated the market with 15 books about all the other Wolverine-like characters (although I heard good things about the series Tom Taylor wrote with X-23 taking over as Wolverine.)
I assume they did a Deadpool issue because sometimes writers just want to write goofy shit, and 'Pool does have a kind of complicated connection to Logan. (I think Wade's healing factor is derived from Logan's, they grafted Logan's DNA onto Wade's, maybe?)
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