Deadpool #14 – Review

Gerry Duggan, Brian Posehn (Writers), Scott Koblish (Artist), Val Staples (Colorist)

The Story: The White Man comes back from to this era to enact revenge against Power Man, Iron Fist and Deadpool. Chaos ensues.

The Review: It’s always fun to see a writer try to come up with strange ideas, seeing them try to follow it up as their stories goes on. Innovation is hard to come by as well as clean fun sometimes as a lot (though not all) of writers goes for the easy road when it comes to conflict or setting up threats.

However, while it’s nice to see new things, those can fail just as much as older and more familiar ones if not handled right. Unfortunately for this comic, the White Man and pretty much everything that entails that characters soon becomes rather boring, verging on the annoying at times.

What makes the issue disappointing isn’t mainly the villain, but rather the fact that it tries too hard at some points and not enough in others. The way Duggan and Posehn tries to show the difference between the 70’s and today through the characters, the comic itself and how the comic is written is admirable, yet it never do enough with the concept. It’s funny to see the difference with how people see media nowadays and how communication methods changed through the years, yet the characters themselves merely mention it with close to no humour or focus on that simple fact.

Deadpool #14 – Review

By Daniel Way (Writer), Shawn Crystal (Pencils), John Lucas (Inks), and Lee Loughridge (Colors)

Some Thoughts Before The Review: Piratepool brought the funny last issue. I’m assuming that he’ll do the same in Deadpool #14.

The Story: Deadpool, his parrot (Hydra Bob), and his “blind pirate wench” face off against the pirate known as Wackbeard.

What’s Good: In Deadpool #14, as he did in the first Piratepool issue of Deadpool, Daniel Way finds a way to strike a nice balance between the clever and the obvious as far as the whole pirate thing goes. On the one side, you have stuff like Wackbeard mentioning just how much of Deadpool’s pirate obsession is the result of watching too many movies. On the other side, you have jokes about using a plunger for a peg leg. The back and forth between the two types of humor makes the latest issue of Deadpool an enjoyable read that really takes advantage of the whole pirate theme. Another thing that Way scores points for is the way he manages to bring Deadpool’s ridiculousness full circle in a way that makes the conclusion of the pirate arc a bit more satisfying than you might imagine.

The artwork by Shawn Crystal, while a bit rough (which I’ll get to), gives Way’s story an indie look that’s rather fitting. I mean, let’s face it, Deadpool rarely feels like the fairly high profile book that it’s become anyways. From Hydra Bob the (impressively expressive) parrot to Wackbeard and his crew, Crystal’s work captures the spirit of what makes Deadpool so much fun.

What’s Not So Good: While Crystal’s work does justice to Way’s script, I’m still a bit hung up on how much I miss the slick, polished work of Paco Medina and his crew. Since Crystal started handling Deadpool, the series went from being one of the best looking to one that just looks somewhere between decent and good. That said, I won’t mind if Crystal sticks around because his style definitely has a certain charm that works.

Conclusion: Deadpool #14 delivers pretty much everything someone could ask for in a comic about the Merc with a Mouth. It’s funny, it’s a bit silly, it’s action scenes are pretty cool (and suitably violent), and it tells a story that could only really work with Deadpool as the lead character.

Grade: B

-Kyle Posluszny