Um, Hey There!

It's been a while, hasn't it? Things have been crazy for me, and I've been slacky on my posting. I'm going to at least try to get a couple of posts in a week, now that things are slowing down a little.

Since today is Wednesday, I'm going to continue with my last Deadpool post and talk about Chapter 2 of Daredevil/Deadpool Annual '97.

If you don't remember where we last left off, Deadpool & Daredevil had teamed up to hunt down Typhoid Mary, each with their own reasons. Daredevil wanted to bring her in and get her the help she needed, and Deadpool wanted to find her because she owed him money. In the last page of the book, after they had briefly separated to find her, Daredevil came to 'Pool's rescue after Mary stabbed him. And that brings us to Chapter 2.

This section opens with Deadpool & Daredevil monitoring the Viper Club. Turns out that Mary is gunning for the mob, and they've all holed up inside together, which brings us to one of the best moments I've seen today: a Tick reference from Deadpool:

(Isn't that awesome?)

The story then cuts to a restaurant in the Village where the two sidekicks, Foggy Nelson & Weasel, are pigging out on pizza. Weasel starts asking Foggy whether Daredevil makes him clean his weapons or hack into CIA computers, but it turns out that Foggy and old Horn Head just hang out together. No forced labor here; they're just buds. That depresses Weasel, and he asks if Daredevil could use another pal. Poor guy. . .

Back to the boys. DD & DP crash in through the skylight and begin to take on all the gangsters there. DD finds his senses overwhelmed by the sheer number of people, and old Wade starts to shoot all the baddies, but Daredevil stops him and tells him not to kill anyone. Of course, Wade doesn't like that and whines about it a bit, but saves Daredevil's life in the meanwhile.

Upstairs, the mob bosses are relishing in the mayhem below via a wall of televisions. However, their entertainment is to be short lived. Mary shows up to enact her vendetta against them.

Back downstairs, the boys have taken care of the mob and are taking part in a little witty banter.

Daredevil rushes upstairs to deal with Mary, but she has anticipated him and hits him hard by yelling, "Hello, baby!" into a microphone. The amplification from the club's huge speakers take down Daredevil & overwhelm his senses, leaving him open for Mary's attack. She manages to get in quite a few hits before Daredevil begins rallying, but just as he's planning a punch to take her down, Deadpool grabs his fist and prevents him from following through.

We get another break from the drama by cutting back to Foggy & Weasel. This page is just too cute not to share, so here it is:

And we switch focus once more. Deadpool knocks Daredevil down with a hard fist to the jaw, and then poses with Mary in what shouldn't be one of the hottest comic panels I've ever seen, but it is:

(Unf!)

Mary takes Deadpool's advice to heart and starts wailing in on Daredevil, but amidst all her attacks, she reveals a bit of vital backstory. It seems that when Deadpool knocked her out of a window in a past meeting, the fall released a concealed memory of Mary's, a memory involving Daredevil:

She tries to blame her splitting into multiple personalities on Daredevil, but Matt just won't take it. He's lived with massive guilt all these years, thinking he killed the girl he accidentally knocked out of the window, and now he's released of that. He tells Mary that he refuses to accept responsibility for the person she became, and she tries to skewer him with her kitana in response.

They battle back and forth with Daredevil lecturing her all the while (and while I understand where he's coming from, I really kind of think he's being a bit heavy handed in his approach):

Deadpool scoops Mary up in his arms and tells Daredevil that this his goal all the while, to get the two of them together, to make Mary confront her demons head-on to cause a breakthrough. Daredevil tells Deadpool that he's not about to let him walk out with her, and Wade replies with one of the most heartbreaking speeches I've ever seen in his book:

Daredevil has a little bit of soul searching while he stands on the roof, watching the police & ambulances deal with the mess in the club. He feels that he's finally found some peace since he now knows that he's not a killer.

And it wouldn't be a Deadpool book if it didn't end with a little levity. Foggy wakes up the next morning to find that Weasel has skedaddled, leaving only a note on the TV which says that he had a great time and that Foggy's poker tab is paid in full. Foggy can't figure out what he lost until he notices that Deuce, his dog (and former guide dog for Matt), is missing.

Cut to Deadpool recapping events for Blind Al. All in all, he thinks his little escapade with Typhoid Mary was a good thing, that he made a little progress with her, and he decides that the "quasi-heroic stuff isn't an exact science, you know. . . but it's a good thing." (cue the awwws from the peanut gallery). Al wants to know where the present Wade promised her is, and he hands it over:

It was nice to revisit this book. I don't remember caring for it much when I got it when it first came out, but I enjoyed it much more this time. And an interesting little tidbit is the title of the issue, "Whomsoever Fights Monsters. . .". It's a nice little variation on the classic quote, "Those who fight monsters should take care that in the process, they do not become monsters." I really think that quote kind of sums up Wade at this point in his life. He's trying hard to do a little good, and he's not afraid to go into that dark abyss, but he's standing on the tip of the sword. One little push could send him either way. As much as I love the jocular Deadpool, I do wish we'd get a little more of the conflicted Deadpool we see in this issue. What can I say? I dig the angst.

I'm not sure if my next post will be tomorrow or a couple of days from now, but I'm thinking of something to cover. I might do a post that dips a little bit into the mind of Alan Moore, something that touches on the wickedest, trippiest and grossest scenes from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen & Lost Girls. We'll see. That will definitely be a post eventually, though.

"Power to the people! Right on. Dig it."

Ah, Deadpool. Is there anything you can't make funny? Yep, today's title comes from the Merc with a Mouth, and it's from today's book, Daredevil/Deadpool Annual '97, written by Joe Kelly with art by Bernard Chang & Jon Holdredge. Since this book is broken up into two chapters, I'm going to cover each chapter in a separate post, so here we go with Chapter 1.

Rather than try to sum up the backstory of Deadpool, Daredevil & Typhoid Mary, I'm just going to post the ever-so-helpful "Previously In. . ." page.


So, the book opens with three levels of panels. The top level is Deadpool and Blind Al, the middle layer is a bunch of underworld leaders, and the bottom panel is a doctor at an insane asylum. Through the three sections, we learn that Typhoid Mary has broken out of the insane asylum and that two of her personalities have been healed, leaving only the crazy Mary one. Daredevil comes to the asylum looking for information on her as he's trying to bring her back to the asylum. The underworld bosses are laughing about her escape and her recent kills until they realize, hey, they could be next on her list! And, so that leaves us with the 'pool panels. Blind Al is trying to talk him out of going after Mary, but he doesn't listen. He does leave Al with a little present before he goes.



The next couple of pages are Daredevil reminiscing about Mary while he investigates her latest kills, her psych and his staff. From there, we cut into one of the funniest Deadpool scenes ever:



And we cut perspectives yet again. This time, we get a page of Typhoid Mary in all her insane glory. She's working on the judge who put her into the insane asylum while pontificating on madness and destiny before she finally kills him at the end of the scene.

The next day, a strangely loud and overbearing (and familiarly wisecracking) delivery boy is attempting to deliver a bundle of balloons to Foggy Nelson, Matt Murdock's (the alter-ego of Daredevil) law partner. He makes a huge fuss, even elbows a security guard in the gut, until finally Foggy appears.


(I love how his little smiley face buttons change.)

During all the hullabaloo, Matt finally shows up, and his heightened senses immediately tells him something's not right. The delivery boy, dragging Foggy behind him, passes by Matt, and via his abilities, he sees it's Deadpool using a holographic projector to change his image. Deadpool leaps out of a window with Foggy, but he uses a rope to reach the top of the building. He was expecting his buddy Weasel to be waiting for him, but he gets a little surprise instead in the form of Daredevil.

Daredevil warns Wade that Mary is a very dangerous woman, which he does realize, but he also tells DD that she wasn't born that way, that she was manufactured into the monster she is and that the monsters have to stick together. Daredevil decides to allow Deadpool to follow him as he captures Mary, but he warns DP not to interfere when they find her.

Meanwhile, the two sidekicks (Foggy & Weasel) make an accord and decide to go out and get some food while they wait for the guys to finish.

Back to the guys.

Deadpool goes searching for Mary up in the arboretum (calling out to her like Pepe Le Pew), and it soon proves to be a big mistake. Mary quickly finds him and holds him at sword-point.

Downstairs, Daredevil finds the dead body of the judge, and his inner warnings go off when he hears water running from a tap. Mary turned it on to help obscure her discussion with and advances on Deadpool (and boy does she ever make advances!). Wade tries to resist and argues with Mary. Turns out he let her out to take out Daredevil, but he does not like how she's been killing civilians along the say. She promises not to take out any more civilians, but she leaves Wade with "a little something to help you remember your lines. . ."

*dramatic musical sting* Gasp! What will happen now? Will Wade manage to heal his wound? Will Mary live to kill again? Will Daredevil get the stick out of his ass and stop being so damn depressing? Tune in next week for Part 2!

"Snikt me! Snikt me! SNIKT ME!!!"

Yep, it's that time again! It's Wednesday, so that means that it's Wacky Wade Wednesday, the day where we celebrate all things Deadpool.

Today's post will be a little short on the length (I'm fighting with angry sinuses), but it will be full on the funny! First off, I'm gonna take you an excursion through Deadpool #0. This issue was a special, free issue that came with Wizard Magazine in 1998, and it contains some of the most incredible, hilarious Deadpool moments ever.

As the book opens, Wade is busy suspending a guy over his own Doberman dogs, drizzling BBQ sauce down the guy's face. Wade has come on a mission for his boss; he's come to retrieve the MacGuffin files (love that reference!), and the guy quickly gives in and tells Wade that they're in the bedroom safe.

Unfortunately for our maniac, the files have been stolen by Vamp-Animus. But what the heck? Deadpool killed Vamp-Animus the year before, so how could he still be alive?

Wade hijacks a cab and follows VA to his lair, where he is working for Arnim Zola. Zola has a big old exposition segment where he reveals his ultimate plans. He has perfected cloning to the point where he can create life from one strand of DNA in hours, and he plans on creating what he calls "Corpse Corps" to be his footmen.

Zola sics Vamp-Animus on Wade, but he kills him again with one shot, so Zola unleashes his dread army of dead losers.

The next few pages are absolute gold, and I wish I could share every single one of them with you. Wade is really in his element, and he just rips through all of the clones, dispatching them with ease and with a witty quip.

He seems to have eliminated most of the clones, and Wade finds two beds covered with sheets. What he finds there is one of the most frightening images Marvel have ever given us:

(That's Spider-Man's Aunt May & Uncle Ben, for those not in the know) Wade continues his maniacal fun, and it doesn't take long before he's killed every single clone in the building and has Zola pinned to the ground, Wade's giant gun aimed at his face. Being a coward, Zola makes a deal with Deadpool to save his life. Deadpool's a little apprehensive at first, but he's reeeaaaally happy with the deal he ends up with:

And now, just a couple of little items to end this romp, all from the pages of 1998's Baby's First Deadpool Book. To start things off, here's a little lesson in etiquette from Captain America & Deadpool!
And, last but not least, a few lessons in our ABCs.

And that's gonna wrap things up for today. Tomorrow's a freebie day, so I'm not sure yet what will be covered. I'm thinking about starting a walk-through of the DC miniseries Kingdom Come. If I don't go with that, I think I'll cover issue #1 of Astro City.

"You look familiar, did I spin you like a beanie propeller and leave you in a motel room in Dubuque?"

Today's title comes from the special guest of today's post, Deadpool! Yep, you asked for him, you got him (and I would have had a regular post about him anyway)!

Instead of just covering an issue of his series, I'm going to take a different tact with old Wade. First, I'm going to talk a bit about his past, and then I'm going to show some of my favorite Deadpool moments & give some of my favorite quotes.

The Past

(much thanks to this post on Wikipedia, which helped refresh my memory on Deadpool & helped me learn a few facts I didn't know)

Deadpool first appeared in 1991's New Mutants #98, and he was created by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza. This is probably the only good thing Liefeld has done in his time. I'm really not a very big fan of him or his art, as you'll probably learn as we go along in this blog.

Deadpool was originally pretty much the Marvel universe's answer to DC's Deathstroke; his name is even a reference or a parody to Deathstroke's (Wade Wilson vs. Slade Wilson). Although he did crack wise some in his early appearances, he didn't become the wacky fellow we know today until the mid-90s; I feel that his second miniseries is the one that really solidified his character.

So, who is Deadpool? Well, known as the Merc with a Mouth, he's an assassin for hire who's known for his snappy wordplay. He is a member of the Weapon X program (best known for giving Wolverine his adamantium skeleton), and he owes his healing factor to them. Wade Wilson was dying of cancer when he chose to take part in the Weapon X program, believing they would cure his cancer; instead, he got the healing factor, and, unfortunately, tumors from his cancer all over his body. Good news is his healing factor keeps the tumors contained & the cancer from killing him; bad news is it's left him looking not unlike Freddy Krueger when his mask is removed.

Wade is also a little bit insane; there has been a lot of speculation on whether he was prior to the Weapon X treatments or if it came as a side effect of them, and I personally side with the latter. Now, as far as I know, they've never shown much of Wade prior to becoming Deadpool, so I'm not sure where I got that feeling from, but given the way the Weapon X treatments affected him and the way they sent the cancer tumors spreading through the rest of his body, it makes sense to me that possibly the tumors would have messed with his brain.

So, Deadpool lurked around various areas of the mutant and general Marvel universe before he wound up with his own title in 1997. My absolute favorite character from that book (aside from Wade, natch) was Blind Al. She was this crotchety old lady (think Aunt May crossed with Bea Arthur crossed with old Mama Fratelli from The Goonies) who was actually Deadpool's prisoner but wound up being kind of a mom to him. I'll be showing a little bit of her in a while, don't worry.

From there, he was paired up with Cable of all people. See, it's ironic because Deadpool's first hit waaaay back in New Mutants was supposed to be Cable & his team. Actually, this worked out pretty damn well; much better than I would have supposed, any way. They had kind of an Odd Couple bromance going on, and I really miss their interplay. I got into the book shortly before it was cancelled (seems to be the way things happen for me).

And that pretty much catches us up to the now. Deadpool is once again starring in his own solo title, written by Daniel Way, and he's also got a miniseries going on and soon, he's going to be getting his own team-up title, if what I've heard is accurate. I would love to see Wade paired up with Spider-Man (for reals, this time!) or maybe She-Hulk or Hercules (I've seen that this last one is actually going to happen, yay!).

Wade has always broken the fourth-wall and has been portrayed as realizing he's just in a comic, but now, he's kind of got a weird thing going. See, his thought boxes have always been portrayed as yellow boxes, but now he's also got a second internal voice, a more irrational one (not like the first one was terribly rational, but there you are), that is in white boxes. Some have speculated that this is his interpretation of Cable talking him through life, but I'm just not sure about that. Honestly, I'm not sure how to take the white boxes at all, but they make me laugh, and that's all I really care about in a Deadpool book.

Great Deadpool Quotes

(I apologize that I don't have the issue numbers for these.)

Weasel: What did you do with Agent X? (looks out the window) Oh, you spelled "Hi Weasel" with his intestines.

Deadpool: I knew you'd peek.

Deadpool: Speaking of games, you ever play Street Fighter?

Shadowcat: As if.

Deadpool: (uppercuts Kitty) SHORYUKEN!

Cable: Wade... only thing that can help me is your blood. Only thing that can help you is mine Deadpool: We're not gonna haveta kiss or anythin'... are we?

Deadpool: Well if it isn't Nathan Christopher Dayspring Askani'son Summers... or are you just calling yourself Priscilla now?

Deadpool: Hey. Naked Avengers painted on the side of the pool. This guy's a loser but he's my kind of loser. Where's Sue Richards...? Duh, Invisible.

Cable: It's a secondary hard drive that acts like a virus, which acts like a server.

Deadpool: Gesundheit.

A great example of Wade breaking the fourth wall:

Deadpool: I am not going back to any more alternate worlds! I mean, Days of Future Past was a classic and all, but it's really all been done to death now...

Sabretooth: Scream for me.

Deadpool: Okay how about this: OMG FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DONT KILL ME PLEASSSE!!
Sabretooth: Quiet!

Deadpool: I can say it with a girly tone if you want.

Deadpool: "Pwangg?" Trees don't go "Pwangg--" Llamas don't go "Pwangg--" Nothing found in nature goes "Pwangg", which means -- we're officially hip deep in the smelly stuff.

Deadpool: I've been besmirched! This besmirchment will not stand!

Deadpool: It's an angel of God. My glorious Bea Arthur--

Favorite Deadpool Moments

Ahh, the moment I've been waiting for! The chance to show you some of my favorite Wade moments, the stuff that made me laugh the hardest or hurt the most for him (yeah, there's at least one of those coming; I'm a sucker for the angst).

First, a couple of scans from Deadpool #11. In this issue, Wade & Blind Al get sent back through time, back into the time of Peter Parker/Spider-Man's teenage years. Wade ends up impersonating Peter & Blind Al, Aunt May.

This scan is from early in the issue, when Wade ends up with a little girl ripping him a new one:

From later in the issue when Blind Al tells Wade they have to be careful or they'll mess up the timeline:

And one more from this issue. Wade decides to use his image transformer to impersonate Peter Parker. Who should he chance running into?

Okay, now for a few more serious ones. These all came from issue 4 of the second Deadpool mini-series.

First, two scans that I think you all will see why I freaked out when I found them today:



These next two scans are why I've always shipped Deadpool & Siryn (then again, maybe the fact that her name is Theresa has something to do with it, lol):

*sniffle* I warned you guys there would be a little sappy stuff in here! Wish more writers would attempt the serious side of Wade from time to time.

Okay, back to the funny. This is from Deadpool #18, during a story arc where Cable gets deaged to an infant:
Baby Cable is so cute!

And, finally, some recent scans. First, from Deadpool #11. A little backstory on this: so, during the recent Skrull invasion, Deadpool was hired by Nick Fury to steal some Skrull data, but Norman Osborn (Green Goblin) intercepted the info, which caused him to be able to kill the Skrull Queen. Deadpool never got paid, which, of course, really pissed Wade off. He tried to take on Osborn's Thunderbolts and succeeded, stealing Osborn's credit cards as repayment. Ante upped once again. Osborn sent Bullseye/Hawkeye to kill Deadpool, and Wade ended up with an arrow in his head, courtesy of Bullseye, which leads into issues 11 & 12.

After his internal monologue uses haiku to warn him of Bullseye's impending attack:


Deadpool manages to defeat Bullseye by wearing a meat suit (yes, it's as wacky as it sounds, no, I'm not going to show you because you must see it for yourself!), and after a quick stint in the hospital, Bullseye returns to hunt Wade again. This time, he brought a rocket launcher:


And on that awesome note, I'll end our first Deadpool post. Hope you guys got as much of a kick out of it as I did putting it together. Return tomorrow for superheros & pirates (no, it's not what you think it is, sorry).