Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth #2
You are warned, here be spoilers.
I love Deadpool. Lovelovelove. There isn’t another comics character half as fun as he right now. Clearly someone in Marvel Editorial agrees with me, as Deadpool’s got two ongoing series right now, and has just had two miniseries come and go.
While the unadorned Deadpool has spent most of its still-young run telling stories that closely relate to the various uberplots in the Marvel U (before veering off to have Deadpool become a pirate), the two issues we’ve had so far of Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth have been completely off the deep end. Issue #1 had Deadpool getting air-dropped into the Savage Land – sans parachute – to meet up with an A.I.M. operative and retrieve a package. The operative turned out to be a blonde Lara Croft ripoff, and the package turned out to be Deadpool’s extradimensional counterpart’s zombified head.
This issue doesn’t introduce much new in the way of wackiness, but it doesn’t let up either – the issue-recap on the first page is narrated by the head. We get to see Deadpool beating a man with his (Deadpool’s) own severed arm, and writer Victor Gischler doesn’t pass up the chance to have our quasi-hero fight a Tyrannosaurus.
And so it goes. There’s a story under there, but any Deadpool title is most valuable and most entertaining in its catalogue of Crazy Stuff That Happens. Deadpool fights character development tooth and nail, and invites us to root for him.
The artwork is an odd mixture – characters have the proportions and mild distortions that are the hallmarks of wacky comedy comics, and yet it’s incredibly detailed, with a certain amount of over-muscling on the characters, and as much nuance in the colouring as any other title. It’s a good fit.
The act of opening an issue of a Deadpool title should induce giddiness, and Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth #2 easily maintains that magic.