I hate Deadpool. I just do. He’s like a 13-year old’s idea of a cool, funny character. Which, given the average reader age in the era he comes from, shouldn’t be too surprising, I guess, but that was 20 years ago as this is published. Rob Liefeld’s lasting contribution to pop culture, the sword wielding mercenary Wade Wilson, Deadpool, not to be confused with DC villain, the sword wielding mercenary Slade Wilson, Deathstroke, was a barely sketched product of the same Weapon X program that created Wolverine until he was turned into almost a totally new character by artist Ed McGuinness and writer… Joe Kelly! Yes, Deadpool’s “child’s idea of edgy,” infantile sense of humor comes from the same man who thinks it’s hilarious to have a racist character in the supporting cast of ASM. And so, here they are, together again, coming to ASM, to quote the actual comedian Bill Hicks, like a turd falling into my drink. This issue opens with easily the title’s most convoluted recap page to date:
Joe Kelly ain’t the only one who can make bad jokes around here, but at least Steve Wacker’s constant goofiness never involves racial slurs or insulting people with mental illness, I guess. Joe Kelly is joined this issue by Eric Canete and Andres Mossa. Canete does extremely stylized pages, extremely exaggerated figures and unusual panel construction. He will grow to be a better and better artist and then just kinda bail out of comics midway through a 4-issue series at Image. I never quite understood what happened there. We open on Deadpool, surrounded by what I assume are meant to be prostitutes dressed as various female Marvel characters (Brought to you by the people who spent 60 years going “Why don’t girls read comics? We just don’t know!”), and apparently receiving a phone call from President Obama hiring him to kill Norman Osborn. I mean, I don’t know, it’s Deadpool, we only hear his side of the phone call and who knows if it’s supposed to just be funny or something?
So the first 4 pages of this book weren’t about anything except “hilarious” jokes and sexism, got it. I hate Deadpool.
Remember the admittedly pretty silly but nonetheless canon notion that Madame Web would die if disconnected from her machines? Also, didn’t she de-age dramatically about 10 years before this, now that I think about it, in that Spider-Woman series I didn’t read? Comics. Well, it’s page 7, so I guess it’s time to finally check in with Peter Parker. He’s here for 2 pages of “hilarious” stuff about how he hates Wednesdays over a montage of bad things happening to him on a Wednesday. Great, we’re down to Garfield humor.
I mean, take all that in. That is wild stuff, top to bottom. Pushing things to near abstraction. You can see him coming in the wake of the Humberto Ramos knockoff wave, but he will quickly refine and improve his ambitious style into something totally his own. Anyway, while I am frequently ornery and unashamed to tell it like it is when I am not having a good time, I try to be honest, and so I must say, the gag of “Lady Stilt Man” actually amuses me.
There follows several pages of interminable “jokes” over them fighting, with Deadpool’s internal monologue clearly meant to read like a parody of Kraven’s. Spider-Man tries to meet him joke-for-joke as well as hit-for-hit, and I’m just feeling really glad this comic is almost over and also this isn’t a multi-part story.
That’s ol’ Previously Unmentioned Kraven Child #3 roughing up… I guess Mattie Franklin? The recap page references a few spider-people, I don’t know.
And entire 2 pages of “yo mama” jokes and the occasional racist caricature follows. I do not want it on my blog. Then Deadpool is informed his job is over and asks Spider-Man if he wants to get a beer.
Well, that issue is over, so I got that going for me. The Gauntlet! I don’t reeeeeally know what the Gauntlet is. I know 4 things:
- It’s the big push for all this Kravinoff background noise, finally.
- It involves almost all Spider-Man’s most famous enemies.
- It does things to the Lizard that truly suck.
- It lasts 4,000 years.
Seriously, being on the comics internet, I was always vaguely aware of the big events that happened in Spider-Man even though I wasn’t reading it, and it seemed like this storyline went on forever. Our next ASM block is 36 issues and nothing but the Gauntlet. Three years’ worth of comics! But, of course, it’s spread out over between 3 and 5 ASMs a month, the new volume of Web of Spider-Man, and even an ancillary miniseries, so it only lasts 9 months. All that’s in the future, though. For the rest of this block, it’s nothing but detours. 3 guest appearances, 2 entire spin-off miniseries, a one-shot and yet another annual. That’s right, 2 annuals in one block.