Comics
ADVANCE REVIEW: Deadpool #1
Written by Daniel Way
Art by Paco Medina
I’m normally pretty critical on Daniel Way in that I can’t remember ever liking anything he’s ever done. Seriously. I read his Venom, his Wolverine, all kinds of stuff. And I hated all of it. So now here he is writing Deadpool, and I love Deadpool, so conflict of interests, know what I’m sayin? How can this writer that I think is a complete hack possibly do a good job with one of my favorite characters?
Damned if I know how he did it, but damn it, he did it! Maybe where Way has been failing all of this time is that his personal touch for writing, the way he likes to handle characters, is that none of the characters he’s worked with have fit that. Deadpool does. Wade’s voice is clear and familiar, and his antics as zany as ever. The entire issue is comedic gold.
It opens up with a Skrull ship attacking a baseball game (the Braves if you look at the fans), only for them to detect that the mascot is heavily armed (he’s got automatics strapped to his back!). The place evacuates pretty quick, and the Skrulls in charge seem to have no clue who he is. The ground troops do though, as they go as far as to beg him for autographs.
Well, okay, they don’t do that, but Wade thinks that they do! In his newly schizophrenic narration boxes, Wade spends the issue discussing everything with himself in a method that just got funnier as the book went along, instead of growing tired or boring. He spends the issue talking to himself inside of his head, and later revealing that the two voices inside of his head aren’t even the voice performing all of the actions of the issue. It’s a third voice! And it’s still funny!
They even have to release a Super Skrull just to try and fight him. Of course, this is Wade, do you really think one Super Skrull is going to be enough to bring him down? Or do you think he’s going to improv some completely over the top method of victory? Come on, this is an easy one.
Daniel Way needs to do violent humor as his new specialty. He’s golden at it, I mean, come on! Wade sings “She put the lime in the coconut” while lowing all kinds of things up, who else could pull that off? Huh? Anybody? That’s right. Nobody but Wade. And Way takes advantage of it. This is his knack, and easily the best book I’ve seen him write in years. It’s fun mindless humor that makes you just devour it page by page, and it leaves you wanting more. Not more in the way other ultra-violent books (X-Force) do, where you want more just because you feel like you didn’t get a full issue for your three bucks, no, this one makes you want to see what happens next. There’s a great little cliffhanger that promises hilarity in the next issue, and I for one don’t want to miss it.
Paco Medina hits a home run here, pun intended. It’s like he was born to draw this book. He does an amazing job balancing out the writing of the book. That sentence may confuse you, but hear me out. The trick to Deadpool is that the writing should be funny, but the art shouldn’t convey the humor. The art needs to get across just how menacing and dangerous Wade is. Even when he’s making bad puns, he should still look like a bad ass. When he’s wearing a mascot uniform and clubbing Skrulls? You shouldn’t laughing at how he’s killing them, just what he’s saying or thinking. Medina gets that, and draws accordingly. We’re treated to a Deadpool that we can take the actions of seriously while still smiling and laughing, and it works incredibly well.
It’s by no means the same Deadpool as Joe Kelly, Gail Simone, and Fabian Nicieza haven given us, but how many other writers nail it quite like they do? And I mean nail any character like they do. Those are big shoes to fill, but Way is already making a mark. One issue and I’ve already got high expectations.
And come on, it’s Deadpool. You know you want it.
8/10
Last 5 posts by Grey Scherl
- The Gold Standard #19 - December 24th, 2008
- The Gold Standard #18 - December 17th, 2008
- The Gold Standard #17 - December 9th, 2008
- Avengers Power Review #3 - November 28th, 2008
- The Gold Standard #16 - November 25th, 2008
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“Daniel Way needs to do violent humor as his new specialty.”
I always thought that he would have been good on a Punisher book if Marvel decided to go back to the tone that the Marvel Knights run had. For an example of his treatment of the character, check out “Bullseye: Greatest Hits” and “Punisher vs. Bullseye”. It’s very Ennis-like, and it also helps that he’s working with Steve Dillon, Ennis’s Punisher collaborator. Maybe THAT’S why the vibe is sort of the same.
Another Way/Dillon collaboration worth checking out is “Supreme Power: Nighthawk”.
Your description of Medina’s art on this issue reminded me of something I remember the Zucker/Abrams team saying about sight gags in their movies. They mentioned how if someone’s doing something funny in the background while 2 characters are talking or something, the conversation they’re having CAN’T be funny or remotely interesting, because it takes away from the joke that you’re supposed to be paying attention to. I guess that’s sort of along the lines of what you were saying, like how the art, while good, isn’t canceling out the writing. While the general look of the book is pretty funny, it isn’t making you want to skip over the words, which is where the real jokes are.
It’s not hard to beat Fabian’s rendition of Deadpool. Especially since he butchered the character in Cable & Deadpool. Joe Kelly’s can’t be beat of course, and Simone’s was just fun. Way does have a lot of good writer’s to compete against (I can’t believe you left out Priest’s run!), but it’s hard to tell from the first issue alone where he’s gonna go. I’m iffy about Pool-O-Vision, but it could be interesting if handled right.
I’m just now reading the Deadpool arc from Way’s Wolverine: Origins, and it seems like a pretty good test run on the character so far. I was a huge fan of the Kelly era, as that was the first time that you REALLY saw Deadpool as a solo character away from the X-books, that he could stand alone and support his own title.
Deadpool #11 (I think it was 11) may be one of the finest comics ever, as Deadpool is thrown back in time, into an old issue of Amazing Spider-Man, where he spends the issue impersonating Peter Parker. The Great Lakes Avengers guest star as well.