Deadpool: [To butter our toes with
marmalade and do a clog dance?]
Clever Adolescent Panda: To get started filing
taxes for next year and buying Christmas gifts?
No, it’s time to look at Secret
Wars tie-in mini-series! Look at it this way, it’s not as messy, and attracts
fewer insects than the marmalade dance, and less boring than what the panda
said.
Deadpool: [Great plan! I can't wait to hear what you think of Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars!]
I didn't buy that. I did buy the one where you're dead, though!
CAP: Oooh, I love that one.
Yeah, stories where Wade's reduced to a hapless bystander are the best.
Deadpool: [You guys are jerks.]
Marvel Zombies #2, by Simon Spurrier (writer), Kev Walker
(artist), Guru-eFX (color artists), Clayton Cowles (letterer and production?) –
Lashley’s cover reminds me of an old Sgt. Rock cover. Rock entering a bombed
out town with a squad of child soldiers (Unit 44 comes to mind for some
reason), Rock proclaiming the town all clear. Of course, there are actually
Nazis lurking in the upstairs of some abandoned building. I’m pretty sure no
person on a Joe Kubert cover that has proclaimed things safe has ever been
right. Which certainly ought to keep one on their toes.
Elsa and the mysterious kid continue their trek south, away
from the mass of zombies and towards the unknown. They’re being followed,
presumably by the person owning the hand that was holding Elsa’s knife last issue.
I had assumed it was Red Nightcrawler, but no, and whoever it is survives Elsa
rolling a MODOK zombie down at him, plus said MODOK exploding, plus a mountain
falling on him, so that’s bad news. Here’s good news, the Shield has an Angel
in its ranks, and he was scouting and spotted them. He can only carry one of
them, so it’s time to say goodbye to the kid, but he lends Elsa his tracker and
promises resupply soon.
Except the tracker is actually a baseball. Angel was
actually Mystique, zombiefied, but intelligent, because she’s been feeding
regularly on a captured Deadpool’s brains. I would think eating Deadpool’s
brains would make one dumber, not smarter, but maybe it’s just the regular,
endlessly regenerating food supply that’s the key. If they keep eating they
don’t rot, so they can think? Not clear on the rules for zombies in the Marvel
U. I’m very excited at the prospect of seeing Elsa kill a Mystique in an
impressive manner next issue. Mystique is always such a horrible being, and she
always gets away with it. Seeing her get explosive comeuppance will do me a
world of good.
Place your bets: Is the mysterious being following Elsa a) a
different version of her, or b) a different version of her father? With all her
flashbacks to her miserable childhood, plus her explaining that sometimes you
more than one version of the same person due to the strange nature of the
patchwork world they inhabit (she describes it as a ‘tolietsplash’ of a world,
which is an excellent phrase), it would seem the most likely reveal. I’m
betting on it being Ulysses, a version turned undead, but still hunting and
killing monsters. Possibly denying himself flesh, if he also holds to the
“wanting is the opiate of the weak” philosophy Elsa’s did. He probably wants
her piece of the Bloodstone to add to his power. I said Elsa killing a Mystique
would be good for me. Elsa killing a version of her asshole father might be
good for her. I wonder if she’d welcome the chance to be rid of the bloodstone.
She clearly believes it poisoned her dad, and she doesn’t wear it when she
doesn’t absolutely have to. Perhaps she’d just as soon take her chances with
her own skills, minus the magic poison rock?
I like it when Walker uses the range of vision through the
binoculars as panel borders. Simple touch, but a good one. He still switches
from orderly panels with thin borders during quiet scenes, to lopsided, tilted
panels with thicker, jagged borders during actions scenes. But he doesn’t lose
the flow on the page, and it kind of gives this sense of things happening too
fast, so you kind of catching glimpses. You see the kid get grabbed, then catch
sight of Elsa throwing a Carnage head, bits and pieces through the confusion of
the moment. Or I’m talking out my ass. Whichever. At the point when Elsa and
the kid are going to part ways, there’s one panel where Elsa leans down to talk
to the child at the same level, and it’s the moment where she’s kinder than she
has been at any point up to then. No yelling or cursing, almost doesn’t blame
the kid for wasting 4 of her 6 bullets. Up to then, she’s either spoken to the
child with her back turned, or when looking down at the kid and speaking in
anger. How her father speaks to her in every flashback, in other words. So the
shift, even for one panel, was a good touch.
Mrs. Deadpool and the Howling Commandos #2, by Gerry Duggan
(writer), Salva Espin (artist), Val Staples (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) –
I don’t get the appeal of the Funko figures. They just look weird to me.
Shiklah and her merry band of bodyguards/overseers have
reached the River Styx, but the boatman won’t ferry them across because they
aren’t dead. So he attacks them with zombies instead and it turns out
Frankenstein’s monster is afraid of zombies. Yes, the shuffling assemblage of
corpses is scared of walking corpses. Go figure. And he’s scared enough he
knows fear, and all who know fear burn at the touch of, yeah, you know how it
goes. I did laugh at that part. Once zombies are being chucked into his boat,
Charon changes his mind and agrees to take them across, only to get his head
punched off by Franky. They steal the boat, reach the other side, Shiklah
unceremoniously dumps her stupid brothers’ ashes on the ground, and tells the
Commandos to scram. Her plan to use the Medusa head again is thwarted because
the Living Mummy’s a skilled pickpocket. Again, go figure. Then Werewolf by
Night tells her they’d also like to defeat Dracula, and she should give the
weapon to them. Her counteroffer is they can tag along, but she’s the boss, and
Jack doesn’t object once she liplocks with him. Much to Ghost Deadpool’s
consternation.
I think I was expecting more focus on the challenges they’d
face trying to recover the other half of the scepter, which thus far, hasn’t
really been the case. I was probably expecting a more serious story than I got,
though why I thought this would be serious is beyond me. I did laugh pretty
hard when Shiklah went for Medusa and pulled out a melon with bananas tied to
it. That’s going the extra mile with the deception. Then Shiklah smushed it,
and now what will Marcus the Minotaur do if his blood sugar gets low? Somehow I
feel like the symbiont he’s wearing ought to be able to compensate for that,
but I don’t know what diabetes is like for a minotaur. That I still say is a
centaur. He has 4 horse legs, with a sort of human upper body attached.
Minotaurs are two-legged animal people, things, usually bulls, right? The
credits page even describes him as a centaur, but the splash page in the first
issue said minotaur. I am so confused!
I’m also confused trying to figure out what happens to
Shilklah’s clothes when she changes into that bigger form on the cover. They
don’t tear, ala the Hulk, they just kind of vanish and reappear when she shrinks
back down. “Magic” is probably the simplest answer.
Deadpool: [No contemplating my wife
with her clothes off!]
Wade, I’m not trying to – look, shouldn’t you be more
concerned about Jack Russell?
Deadpool: [You’re right! I’m off!]
You want to take that one, or should I?
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