Friday, June 10, 2022

Random Back Issues #86 - Deadpool #296

I will never stop laughing at Deadpool making Captain America look bad in front of children.

Set after Secret Empire, everyone is after Deadpool for working with HYDRA Cap (who Wade refers to as "Stevil Rogers"), and killing Phil Coulson. His daughter Eleanor hates him, Rogue kicked his ass, and what's worse, Stryfe called in his favor.

During Civil War II tie-ins, Stryfe gave Wade the cure to a bio-weapon Madcap exposed Eleanor and Agent Preston's family to. In exchange, Deadpool had to kill five people for Stryfe. He'd just finished that at the end of last issue and here comes Captain America. Little late to the party, Sentinel of Liberty.

Deadpool swithces between trolling Cap and flinging accusations at him. That Cap only brought Wade in when he lost his super-soldier serum and needed someone to fight for him. Wolverine was dead, Deadpool was a convenient patsy. Cap counters joining the Avengers gave Wade structure, and he wouldn't have asked Wade to kill Coulson. Of course, Wade can rightly argue that a Steve Rogers did, indeed, order him to kill Coulson, and also asks if Cap would insist Black Widow be arrested if she'd been the one who did it?

Given the amount of questionable shit Natasha's gotten up to over the years, this would seem a fair point. Maybe Cap figures Natasha gets punished enough by having all her stories involve old enemies out for revenge.

While handcuffing Wade, Cap remarks he was surprised Deadpool didn't kill Stevil when he broke into his prison cell. 'Pool's counter (along with that headbutt) is Stevil being dead benefits Cap. Now he has to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. Deadpool's meta-sense clearly failed him as I'm pretty sure Stevil got shoved down the memory hole as fast as possible.

Deadpool suggests Stevil is the one who really represents America. He probably watches NASCAR and American Idol, so Sally Floyd would no doubt agree. Cap has been pretty calm up so far, but that pisses him off enough to slam Wade into the pavement hard enough to crack it. Then he gets goaded into pinning 'Pool to the ground with his own sword. In front of a bunch of horrified schoolkids.

Wade leads Cap into the sewers, along the way tricking Cap into punching some poor road crew worker by putting his mask on the guy. Again, the public is horrified, but Captain America won't give up! He will beat up as many municipal works employees as it takes to stop Deadpool! The chase ends at an abandoned subway station, the current location of Agent Preston's damaged and deactivated (both by Deadpool) body. Wade says she's the only one he'll surrender to, and insists Captain America fix her. When Cap protests SHIELD is disbanded, Wade screams, 'You're Captain Freaking America! Make An American Fix Her!' Might be better to outsource the job, but Cap probably can't take any more bad press after this escapade. No doubt Marvelverse Fox News was a big fan of HYDRA Cap and is already clamoring for his release from prison. 

To cover his escape, Wade has explosives on all the support columns, which would cause the office building above them to collapse, killing a lot of people. Captain America, not finished underestimating Deadpool, assumes he's bluffing. Wrong, but Wade only sets off one as proof and leaves. Duggan's run has 4 more issues to go, with the next 3 spent on Deadpool trying to get the super-criminal underworld to kill him, before Duggan presses the reset button on his own run in issue #300.

[3rd longbox, 200th comic. Deadpool (vol. 4) #296, by Gerry Duggan (writer), Matteo Lollo (artist), Ruth Redmond (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer)]

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