Secret Agent Deadpool

“Deadpool” miniseries have been so prolific over the past few years…  Hey, wait a minute! We’ve been here fairly recently.  “Secret Agent Deadpool” manages to clear my threshold for buying a deadpool miniseries by coming from “The Adventures of Doctor McNinja” writer/artist and “Gwenpool” writer Christopher Hastings and artist Salva Espin.  Its hook is pretty straightforward and still pretty nutty for a Deadpool miniseries:  After his latest gig, which involved rescuing a little horse named Cloppers, is ruined by a guy with half a statue for a face, the Merc With a Mouth finds himself in need of some quick cash.  So he accepts a contract to kill a scumbag secret agent by the name of Jace Burns who works for the Risk Management Agency. Unfortunately Jace turns out to be a little more competent than Deadpool was expecting and what was supposed to be a simple hit turns into a casino-destroying conflagration.  Which turns out to be something of a mixed blessing for the Regeneratin’ Degenerate, because when his Always-Looks-Like-a-Burn-Victim body is pulled from the rubble the people at the RMA think that their man Jace has survived.

So we get a “What if Deadpool was James Bond in the Marvel Universe?” story that’s about as wacky as you’d expect.  It’s got an all-new secret criminal organization, a pill that turns into a jetski, the introduction of Paradox Space which contains the Protolith, Deadpool regenerating petrified limbs, and even a pseudo-cameo from the One Above All.  I thought it was a fun romp with Hastings making the disparate plot elements come together surprisingly well by the end and Espin providing some suitably lively art. My main reservation, and this is probably more specific to me than you, is that things never got quite as crazy as I’ve come to expect from the writer of “Doctor McNinja.”  I realize that Hastings has to work within the limits of the Marvel Universe, but he’s writing Deadpool of all characters. That should’ve been a license for him to take the story to crazytown and beyond! Still, this is likely going to be something that bothers me more than it does most other readers, who should still find the story to be as entertaining as it is strange.