If things hold true with this week's books, all the Marvel comics I was planning to get this month will be out by today. And absolutely nothing else I was looking for will have shown up. Little strange, but it gives us books to review, so I guess it could be worse.
Wong introduces two plotlines. In one, Deadpool has been offered a spot in some exclusive assassin's club called the Atelier, which I guess will get him really high-paying jobs. The money from which he would just waste on cheap tacos, but whatever. It would be a lot of tacos. However, he has to pass a test first: kill Dr. Octopus in 48 hours. Finally, some comeuppance for Octavius stealing Spider-Man's body!
After wasting 24 hours planning and swooning in front of the conspiracy board from that one Always Sunny in Philadelphia meme (that is very clearly what Coccolo is referencing) over the point of contact person the Atelier provided, Wade goes and gets himself captured, which brings us to plotline #2 (where the comic actually started). Some lady calling herself the Harrower wants to use a little bit of the, sigh, Carnage symbiote to create a new form of life to displace humans as the dominant lifeform. Ain't you been paying attention lady, that's what Krakoas for. Mutant supremacy!
Anyway, the symbiote keeps killing everything she bonds, sorry "biofuses" it with, but she figures Deadpool's healing factor will keep him alive long enough for it to grow and mature. Wade escapes to try and complete his hit in the 2 hours he has left. Octavius somehow did not notice Wade getting eviscerated on the roof of his hideout the night before, and is entirely surprised when Deadpool crashes through his skylight. Deadpool is very surprised when two arms burst out of his chest cavity (Octavius is merely intrigued. You'd think after the whole King in Black thing people would be more concerned about symbiotes.)
Deadpool joining an exclusive assassin's guild isn't a bad hook. Coccolo came up with some decent designs, some variety to the group. Play with his morality a bit, where he draws lines, use it for conflict with the other members as a way to flesh them out. There's potential there, although it's extremely hard for me to believe Marvel's going to let Alyssa Wong kill Doc Ock in a Deadpool comic. And if not, and Wade only has two hours to the deadline, that potential hook is gonna fall apart real fast.
The Harrower isn't a bad antagonist. Another person who sees Deadpool not as a person, but a resource she can exploit with no concern for his well-being. Exactly the sort of person the audience enjoys watching Deadpool brutally kill. That said, I'm sick of symbiotes. The cynical part of me thinks Wade hosting a symbiote in some constant struggle between it trying to eat his body, and his healing factor trying to kill it, is going to be the actual thread that runs through the book for a while. I hope not. Fingers crossed his body expels the symbiote like some bad sushi!
Coccolo's art feels a bit photo-referenced. His Deadpool definitely seems to be trying to look like movie Deadpool, and Harrower has a certain fashion model look to her that reminds me of Greg Land. Maybe it's the hair, which seems like it would get in her way. Not as plastic as Land's art, Coccolo's better at facial expressions, especially her evil grin. But there's something that feels uncanny valley about her.
Anyway, not a totally discouraging first issue, but also not a totally encouraging first issue, either.
Kim introduces the team by having them stop a big cargo ship from crashing into a crowded riverfront area. She changed one character's name, which the previous codename was "Auntie Ante," so I can't argue with the decision, but "Lady Bright" just makes me think of Storm calling to the "bright lady". Lateral move, at best. Then the team has to investigate someone stealing a gem from one of their storage units and walks into an ambush.
However, the story seems more focused on Taegugki, who is the Superman-level guy on the team. He's seeing visions of his dead mother figure, warning him to stop hiding secrets. Then we get a flashback to him as a baby, surviving an attack on his village by a Chinese soldier during the Korean War. The lady carrying him got crushed by a falling wall, which missed him, and then another lady found him while looking for her brother, and gave him her brother's name. Lee doesn't draw him looking 70, so I'm guessing he doesn't age like most of us.
Not sure what Kim has planned there. Is Tae-Won an alien, is he the embodiment of Korea (and would that mean there's a North Korean equivalent, or other half of his soul or something?) She does seem to be indicating there's something between him and Lady Bright, or maybe it only goes one way. Tae-Won is kind of in a daze most of this issue, so it's hard to tell.
Lee's art has a similar feel to C.F. Villa's, but there's a lot of artists at Marvel these days that seem to be in that vein. Mostly clean lines, not a lot of extra cross-hatching or anything, expressive within a certain range, straightforward panel layouts. He includes some details when the team is waiting to be debriefed to hint at certain characteristics. The pop star with ice powers takes videos of herself eating some kind of fruity gel thing in a squeeze package. The demigod always booze on hand, The General prefers couches to chairs, probably because he's very large. Little things, but combined with Kim having the team make references to things we haven't seen, but they all recognize, it helps create a sense of them as a group of individuals with shared backstory.
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