By Daniel Way (writer), Carlo Barberi (pencils), Walden Wong (inks), Marte Gracia (colors), VC’s Joe Sabino (letters)
The Story: The Secret Avengers (the real ones) elect Deadpool their unofficial leader as they close in on Dr. Bong (HAH), and work to thwart his dastardly scheme! Later, ‘Pool is placed in a classic clone story setup, as he must decide which identical Steve Rogers is the real Steve Rogers—not an easy task, especially when the little voices in your head just won’t shut up.
What’s Good: I love Daniel Way. I love him so much. While he has proven his ability to examine Deadpool’s tortured and clinically insane psyche, he is at his best when all that is thrown out the window and the Merc With a Mouth is used as a repository for great one liners, and batshit-insane stunts (with a large helping of campy cheesiness on the side, naturally.) That’s exactly what he delivers in this issue. Although I do miss the darker, deadlier side of ‘Pool, my number one goal when reading a comic is to be entertained, and this issue entertained me on a ‘pure, unadulterated fun’ level more than anything else I read this week.
In addition to providing some very humorous interaction without my favorite Merc, I feel now, looking back over the storyline as a whole, that bringing in the Secret Avengers was an excellent choice. Not only does it make sense from their perspective—taking down an underground weapons ring seems like the kind of mission they would be assigned to do—it allows decent advancement of the ‘Deadpool wants to be a hero’ arc, and provides him some wonderful straight men to bounce his insanity off of. Great incorporation of guest stars, and very well executed.
What’s Not So Good: It’s petty, but I really feel like Way blew the final, penultimate joke of the issue (small spoilers ahead) by explaining where and how Deadpool picked up those fireworks after he set them off. The correct form for a joke is setup–>punchline, not punchline–>setup/explanation. If you have to explain the joke after the fact, it’s not nearly as funny. The proper thing to do here would have been to call back the fireworks foreshadowing in the issue itself, and then allow that wonderful payoff panel to be the final image of the book. Something like that would have been far more effective than tacking on the extra panels that suck all the energy and humor out of the gag.
Conclusion: This ain’t Shakespeare (or even Kill Shakespeare) by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a lot of fun. If you’re looking for a breezy and amusing read this week, this is your comic.
I mean, it’s got Dr. Bong in it! Doctor. Freaking. BONG! What is not to love?
Grade: B-
-SoldierHawk
Grade
Conclusion