Deadpool is back starring in his own Marvel NOW! series, guns blazing, mouth yammering, filling the pages with riotous action and adolescent humour. He is, in short, a much needed character in the superhero genre that can seem somewhat embarrassed of those excesses, despite it being rooted into comics - and of course they are called comic, remember. Plus, what better time to start reading Deadpool comics than the same time his own video game is released, especially when theyre as good as Brian Posehn, Gerry Duggan and Tony Moores Deadpool Vol 1: Dead Presidents? A quick intro if youre not familiar with the character - Wade Wilson was Canadian special forces when he volunteered for an experiment that left him with a Wolverine-like healing factor making him nigh-on unkillable (though it left him with a godawful case of eczema). Match that with mad martial arts/guns/sword skills, and youve got Deadpool, the worlds deadliest mercenary. Hes also schizophrenic with multiple voices inhabiting his head making him endlessly chatter and giving him the nickname the Merc with a Mouth. In this first volume, a necromancer called Mike, sickened with the state of his beloved US of A, decides to resurrect all of the dead former Presidents of the United States to bring the country together. Except the spell goes wrong and all of the dead presidents - who now have evil super-magic powers - decide to destroy the United States, kill everyone and restart the country anew. Killing beloved national icons is a pretty heinous job even if they are zombified monsters so who better than to bring in an insane Canadian for the job? Enter Deadpool. A lot of people write Deadpool off as a superhero who never really does anything heroic and whose stories revolve too much around excessive, gory violence and lowbrow jokes often of the flatulent and excrement variety. And its true, a lot of his books have these elements - as does this one - but its as if simply having them as part of your story immediately eliminates it from being considered well written and beautifully drawn - as this book also is.
Case in point - Deadpool and humour. There is a way that a Deadpool story can fail in that the jokes arent funny. The mere inclusion of fart jokes and puns and double entendres does not immediately make the book hilarious, and there are some Deadpool books that are evidence of this (cough David Lapham cough). If Deadpool isnt funny, it doesnt make the book terrible but seeing as how big a part of the character humour is, its a huge boon to the story if Deadpool is genuinely funny. Thankfully, in an inspired move, Marvel hired a comedian to write this series in Brian Posehn, a brilliant standup comic whos written for some of the best comedy TV shows of the last 20 years like Mr. Show, Reno 911! and The Sarah Silverman Program and who brings his comedic sensibilities to Deadpool. Posehn and co-writer Gerry Duggan (who brings his own Deadpool tailored talents to the series) portray the presidents as ridiculously fun bad guys like homicidal FDR in his wheelchair or jelly-bean poppin, space obsessed Reagan. Taft is morbidly obese and travels in a flying bathtub! The setup is ripe with entertaining opportunities to play up presidents reputations, like when Lincoln sneaks up behind Deadpool and shoots him in the back of the head, or when Deadpool dresses up as Marilyn and goes after JFK! Unrelated to the presidential humour is a very minor moment when Deadpool is negotiating his fee with SHIELD, whore outraged that hes demanding $2 million to kill the dead presidents and Deadpool, fingers gingerly touching together like a child being told off, says and I get my money in a pillowcase with a big dollar sign on it!. His expression of slightly embarrassed excitement at this prospect just makes me love the character more. Full credit to Tony Moore for making that scene work so damn well! This book is just filled with inventive, imaginative, and funny scenes. A lot of people who dislike Deadpool as a character (also known as morons) fail to see the brilliance of the character and/or are totally humourless. Yes hes telling jokes constantly, yes hes constantly killing and maiming, but that this character even exists and is promoted heavily by Marvel, a company thatre best known for wholesome characters like Spider-man and Captain America, is fantastic. Theyre not ashamed of Deadpools idiosyncrasies even if his fellow supes are - like in the first issue, Deadpool and Thor defeat a marauding Godzilla-like creature before Thor hastily exits, sternly warning Deadpool never to speak of their team-up again. Even Doctor Strange, the other superhero team-up in this book, is wary of Deadpool despite being a less popular character! It makes me like Marvel more if only for having a series like Deadpool thats tonally different from their many other books, a quality that is desperately missing from their rival, DC, whose comics have the same dour, ultra-serious atmosphere across the line to their comics detriment.
Tony Moores artwork is fan-bloody-tastic throughout, drawing action and gore superbly, giving full vent to his imagination as he takes Deadpool around America (and also off-world) dispatching the presidents in more and more enjoyable ways. He is a brilliant artist who takes the Deadpool ideology of not holding back and going full throttle and just goes for it in this book - the results are a delight to us readers. An added bonus is Geof Darrows gorgeous covers. If you know who Darrow is, youll know what I mean, and if you dont, then prepare to fall in love with this guys work. Deadpool stories have a kind of formula to them - lots of violence, lots of jokes - but knowing this doesnt mean that writing a good Deadpool book is easy. It can fail if given to lesser writers. But Posehn and Duggan have written a great Deadpool book because theyre great writers - and theyre damn funny too! Coupled with Moores wonderful art and you have one of the best Marvel NOW! series going. Seriously guys, Deadpool is a hoot! Its a great, fun read too - check out Dead Presidents today!
Deadpool, Volume 1: Dead Presidents by Brian Posehn, Gerry Duggan and Tony Moore is out now