Sunday, February 02, 2020

Sunday Splash Page #99

"The Case of the Untrimmed Eyebrows", in Cable/Deadpool #13, by Fabian Nicieza (writer), Patrick Zircher (penciler), M3TH (inker), Gotham (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)

As hard as it might be to believe now, there was a time when Cable was a bigger draw than Deadpool, thus he got top billing in their dynamic duo. They start out at cross-purposes, both after the same prize, and wind up tied together through the magic of comic book science. Cable can't actually get rid of Deadpool, so they end up working together, and just like in all those movies, love blooms.

Well, not exactly, but by their standards, close enough. Wade supports Cable in his plan to try and improve the world, and helps bring him out of his coma. Cable gives Nate a place to stay, up to a point, and tries to help with the memory issues his constantly regenerating brain causes. Cable gives Wade someone to believe in - since Wade certainly isn't going to believe in himself - and Deadpool gets Cable to loosen up a bit. Cable has that tendency to stand a distance, observing humanity as like a giant Rubik's Cube. Little harder when one guy is standing next to you, muttering random shit constantly, and poking you like hyperactive five-year old.

Nicieza writes a lot of exposition and techno-babble at times, which when combined with Wade's non-stop chatter can fill up a page in a hurry. He trots out some of his pet characters - Gareb (Commcast), Shen Kuei (the Cat, who almost everyone treats as like the coolest guy evah) - but he only uses Apocalypse once, which is a heck of an achievement for a Cable book, I'd say. His Deadpool is very much the constant dated references type of humor, which is going to vary in its effectiveness depending on the reader. It mostly works for me, so infer from that what you will.

Mark Brooks drew the first few issues, then Patrick Zircher took over for most of the next two years. He's the one who drew the short straw and had to draw Wade wearing Jean Grey's old Marvel Girl costume (the green one with the short skirt she wore the first time she died). On the plus side, that probably ruined all of Cyclops' happy memories of Jean in that outfit.

Of course, Cable has a nasty habit of tricking people into doing things he wants, rather than simply asking them to do them, which ends up causing some problems for he and Wade. Which we'll look at next week. . .

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