Deadpool by Duggan and Posehn vols. 1 & 2
Deadpool’s sudden popularity over the last few years has always been a bit of a mystery to me. While the character has been around since the early 90’s and been in his own (and one shared with Cable) ongoing series since the late 90’s, he was at one point headlining three different ongoing series, has since got his own videogame, and there’s regular talk of him getting his own movie at some point as well. However, I can understand the appeal of the crazy fourth-wall-breaking merc-with-a-mouth thanks to “Cable & Deadpool” and his role as comic relief/amoral conscience in “Uncanny X-Force.” Based on these things, I figured I’d give his latest series a shot… Ah, who am I kidding. In all honesty, these were really just some impulse buys I made while browsing the half-off bins at WonderCon. For what I paid, I guess I got my money’s worth.
The first volume is titled “Dead Presidents” as it involves all of America’s being brought back to life by a misguided former agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. in an attempt to get the country back on track. Problem is that the resurrection process didn’t bring back the presidents’ humanity and now they’re out to save the United States by destroying it so they can rebuild it in their image. Though taking on these former Commanders in Chief shouldn’t be a problem for a team like the Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D. wants to avoid the public-relations firestorm that threatens to flare up when Captain America decapitates zombie Harry Truman. Enter Deadpool: Not only is he just mentally imbalanced enough to take on a job like this for cash, he’s also got the ghost of Benjamin Franklin backing him up. What can possibly go wrong?
For starters, writers Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan had the bright idea that the title character should fight his way through ALL of the country’s dead presidents. Though the basic idea behind this storyline is perfectly suited for Deadpool, the action gets dragged on for way too long at six issues. It doesn’t help matters that a lot of these presidents just get a token appearance before they’re offed, making you feel like the writers were just checking them off of a list. You can tell that they’re having fun riffing on the famous traits of certain presidents like Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy, Ford and Reagan but there’s not nearly enough creativity on display for everyone. There’s also the fact that the narrative itself plays out in a predictably straightforward fashion with some drama near the end that feels distinctly at odds with what has come before. By the end of the story, Deadpool’s killing mission starts to feel more like a slog than anything else.
However, I’m not saying that there’s no fun to be had from this storyline. Even if the wisecracking that Posehn and Duggan have the main character do eventually feels forced, we get plenty of great lines out of it. Then you’ve got the presidents that the writers do feel inclined to riff on, the results are pretty good. Particularly when Deadpool goes after Reagan on a space station, through a bunch of violent space monkeys, and slices open the zombie only to find out that he’s still been eating jellybeans even though he’s dead. The supporting cast is also well-used with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Preston making a good straight-woman for the insanity of the main plot (and serving as a catalyst for future stories at the end), Mike the necromancer making for a sympathetic fool even though he’s the reason this whole mess got started, and Ben Franklin’s ghost showing us why he has always been the most fun of our Founding Fathers. Though there’s more stuff to enjoy than what I mentioned here, there’s ultimately not enough of it to sustain the narrative for these six issues.
Fortunately all of them look good thanks to artist Tony Moore. Best known as the original artist on “The Walking Dead,” he does a fantastic job of playing up the zombie mayhem here to great comedic effect. It’s a ridiculous story and Moore treats it accordingly with some fantastic expressions of pain, disgust and demonic glee spread throughout the cast and real goofiness in the fight scenes. There will be a few moments that will make you want to scrub your brain afterward — such as seeing Deadpool dress up like Marilyn Monroe — though I think that Moore deserves congratulations delivering work that really nails the essence of the story.
He doesn’t stick around, as the next volume features art from Scott Koblish and Mike Hawthorne. Though they’re not quite as good as Moore, both provide good art in service of a story that’s better than the one we got in the first volume. Koblish kicks things off in a style that serves as a pastiche of Marvel’s house style from the 80’s as Deadpool gets involved in a demonic plot to get Tony Stark drinking again. While I’m old enough to appreciate how Koblish and color artist Val Staples capture the look of the era, Posehn and Duggan also get in some great jokes about the likes of Spider-Man, Power Pack and Iron Man as well. The story itself also displays real cleverness in the way that Deadpool outsmarts the demon, Vetis, orchestrating the whole affair and sets up the next storyline in the process.
Said storyline involves Vetis finding his way out of Hell and forcing Deadpool to do his bidding by killing four other individuals that he’s made a deal with so he can gather the power he’s been secreting away. This leads the character into some morally dubious territory as he has to find creative ways to kill these magically-enhanced individuals who, even if they’re dicks, aren’t exactly bad people. Though this may make the laughs come a little harder, especially when he takes matters into his own hands in finding a way for his partner-in-soul-retrieval Michael to get an audience with Mephisto, it does make for a more interesting story once all of the mercenary’s schemes are exposed at the end. We also get hints regarding future storylines involving the (apparently) repeated theft of Deadpool’s organs and just what he’s forced himself to forget in the closed-off portion of his mind. Where the first storyline had a good idea pursued to the point of wretched excess, “Soul Hunter” shows that Posehn and Duggan can actually tell a real story with some interesting twists and turns.
As for the art, Hawthorne isn’t bad but it’s not as distinctive as Moore’s or Koblish’s. He’s clearly in tune with the writers in terms of their comedic sensibilities, and the man is good with the dramatic parts too. However, his art doesn’t have the detail or style to sell either of those things as well as the previous artists. Even if it doesn’t do much to elevate the overall quality of the story, Hawthorne’s work is still serviceable and conveys the story clearly.
Between these two volumes, I don’t think I missed all that much by not picking them up when they came out. Even if “Soul Hunter” represented an improvement over “Dead Presidents,” it didn’t offer me really anything that I hadn’t seen before. It did convince me that Posehn and Duggan do have a good handle on the character and have a story to tell that may transcend the title’s sophomoric tendencies. I will say that I’m interested in seeing how that pans out. So we’ll see if I can find vol. 3 in the half-off bins at Comic-Con when July rolls around.