This isn't a new post exactly, but one that went up a few days ago on read/RANT!, where I've been posting occasionally. It's about one of the better Deadpool Team-Up issues.
Deadpool Team-Up has always been very hit or miss, which isn't really surprising due to the way that the series is made. As opposed to most series which have a single writer and a single artist for multiple issues at a time (or at the very least, a single writer, which is much more important to the story than the artist), each issue of Deadpool Team-Up is done by a different writer and a different artist. Sure, the same artist has done multiple issues, but not in a row, and the same holds for writers. That means you can't judge any issue by the previous one, so if you disliked the previous issue, that doesn't have any bearing on whether or not you'll like this one.
This issue was great, though. Iron Fist isn't my favorite character, or on the top of any list of my favorites, but he still is a character I enjoy reading about. Not enough to get a comic just because it has him in it, but enough that I'll enjoy comics with him in it. Okay, the story. The story is that Deadpool has been hired to take out this ancient warlord who has come back again. Iron Fist is there to shove him back into whatever jail-ish place he was in (partly because his death only means he is reborn again). They decide to team up to get to him, but both have very different ideas about what to do when they get there.
One of the things I love about the issue is that they reference one of my biggest pet peeves from other people about Deadpool. Deadpool has gotten very big in the comic community, so much so that he's everywhere (or at least was), and was very overexposed. Fortunately, the overexposure is starting to fade, and the people at Marvel are limiting his exposure again. Still, the average person has no idea who he is. Then again, the average person doesn't know most super heroes or villains, so that's understandable. Unfortunately, a lot of people look at him and they think about the character they know who he most looks like, Spider-Man. Now, if they knew anything about Spider-Man, and paid attention for more than one second, it'd be easy to see it isn't Spider-Man. Deadpool has no blue on his costume, he has no web design or a spider on the front. Deadpool has a belt, a bunch of pouches and just carries a lot on him, including swords, guns and knives, things Spider-Man doesn't use. Spider-Man's eyes are a white shape (that can change, but stays similar) with a small black outline around it where as Deadpool's eyes are white, shaped like the slits in a domino mask, surrounded by large black ovals or diamonds (or in between). So, while Spider-Man and Deadpool both wear red masks with white eye holes surrounded by black, anything more than a casual glance will tell you they are very dissimilar.
What this issue does is reference that multiple times, where the bad guys keep thinking he's Spider-Man. At the very beginning, they have him surrounded on a cliff, then say to kill the intruder, who appears to be Spider-Man. Deadpool takes offense to it and shows he isn't by using moves Spidey wouldn't, like a reverse boot to the head, a spinning backwards mitten strike and being overwhelmed by goons, all very non-Spider-Man like. Then, to get into the bad guy hideout below, Deadpool leaps off a cliff, straight through the ceiling and a couple floors, causing guards to ask if a man dressed in red killed himself by falling out of the sky. The other agrees and says that he thinks it was Spider-Man, which Deadpool gets angry at again. I love how Shane McCarthy (the writer) took my pet peeve and turned it into something hilarious.
Also what makes it great are the references, some that most people reading should get, one that only Naruto fans will understand and the humor is there in spades. Deadpool references the movie Cliffhanger, Wizard of Oz, how he sometimes has problems with his little yellow boxes, Peter Pan, and is just funny. Iron Fist tries to deal with it like someone who knows Deadpool, just ignoring it when possible and being confused at other times.
In general, this is just a really good issue. Deadpool Team-Up may be a very erratic series, but the good issues are really good, and this is one of them. It's funny and is a good enough one-shot story.
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