Monday, July 21, 2014

Deadpool v3: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly TPB

Well color me impressed. After two fairly lackluster stories in this volume of Deadpool, Gerry Dugan and Brian Posehn really up their game in volume three. They play on some of the classic Weapon X and Deadpool tropes of missing memories, confused pasts, and anguish that reaches into the present.

In this volume, we’ve seen strange secret agents kidnap DP for mysterious purposes. It turns out that rogue geneticist Butler is working for the North Koreans. He’s been kidnapping DP and learning from his super powered healing factor for years. It seems that not only is North Korea asking for Butler to create his own mutants, but Butler himself has a sister (?) that he is trying to save from cancer, just as Wade Wilson was saved all those years ago.

The story is good, but not excellent as it opens. Butler kidnaps DP, gives him a bit of a fantasy world to sleep in while the current research happens, but ‘Pool breaks out and starts to wreak havoc. He meets up with some disfigured “artificial” mutants; poor folks who have been tortured and threatened into compliance. Deadpool finds a couple more Weapon X’ers, and the three of them start getting some sweet vengeance.

Dugan and Posehn have always had a nice voice for Wade Wilson, but man, do they nail Wolverine and Cap. Cap is a strategic leader, always saying the right thing, even getting good effort and some degree of loyalty from Deadpool. Wolverine is a killer, like DP, but he understands Cap’s position too. When Deadpool questions some of Cap’s decisions, Wolvie has the perfect answer. Cap doesn’t hang around for killing because he’s needed elsewhere, but Cap is under no illusions of what kind of people Wolvie and DP really are. It’s a great scene, one of the many that really impressed me. I’d like to see these guys do more with the greater Marvel U.

Scott Koblish wasn’t always this good either, right? Heck, maybe I’m thinking of something else, because a quick Google search only shows solid work. I’m impressed by the art in this trade too. The main characters all look great, especially the disfigured, tragic X-Men copies. The art makes me care for these guys after only a page or two; the emotion is so clear on their faces, I’m invested immediately.


This is the best Deadpool story in Marvel now, and really, a fun story overall. It messes around with Wade’s already confusing past, but that doesn’t keep it from being a GOOD comic. 

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