The immediate reaction in reading this issue – almost directly after reading the final chapter of Magnum Opus – was one of relief. Not for coming back to uncluttered, more focused, Deadpool goodness, but the return of a straight Norman Osborn, and through him a more palatable, and more importantly familiar Dark Reign- and thus Marvel landscape. For me, Magnum Opus had a tendency to inflict an effect only the merc was immune to, a somewhat burlesque representation of everything around him. He was familiar to me, but everything around him seemed incongruent to the tone we’d seen before. Deadpool lives in caricature, so when he is our anchor in marvel ‘reality’ it feels odd, and I find myself more appreciative of him when he is the anomaly.
I don’t want to bag Magnum Opus because overall I legitimately enjoyed it, and at its heights (which was all Deadpool) it was among the most fun comic book reading I’ve experienced in some time. From the very beginning of this issue however, we got the tone that I expected more of from that crossover. It seems more relevant, not just reprieve, as Osborn takes his Deadpool problem off of his – in his own words – ‘F’ list and into the hands of his ‘A’ list. The Avengers. Specifically, he gives the job to Hawkeye (Bullesye). I’m unsure if events that I read in Dark Reign: Hawkeye or within Dark Avengers have been looked into further in issues or titles I haven‘t yet read, but when the choice was made I wondered if Norman considered this is a no-lose situation. Bullseye is (characteristically) erratic and hasn’t exactly come off as having an inclination to walk the Dark Reign line unwaveringly. I want to think this ( of Osborn’s choice) as it’s the only rationale that stops me from wondering why Osborn doesn’t just send the Sentry after Deadpool, and just get it over with in a few minutes (I know, I know, it’s just so bothersome!). The main event at its most base, comic-fan primal level, simply has a lot of cool factor attached to it. Why? We have to ask ourselves this question: How much do we unapologetically love Deadpool? We watch him shoot – in the face – a guy we either probably know, was, or am. I didn’t even give it much thought until the review process, but almost any other character who has his own book would have heard out the victim’s case and found an alternative. Deadpool constantly lives up to his name, yet we still somehow are always somewhat surprised. It’s never a no, no, no– it’s an exultant “No he didn’t!” The entire scene is to reestablish, or remind us that along with being the cool merc with the mouth, Deadpool is stone cold. We know this about Bullseye already, as he’s a character who would have very little difficulty in existing in our own world, and from the very beginning – via Miller – it is that easy transition of the possibility of a real world Bullseye that gives the character an aura of real danger around him, even when in hos won world we he find him in rooms with people like the aforementioned Sentry or a Venom (and why he so natural in a more real world depiction in a recent issue of Marvels: Eye of the Camera*. The reality of Bullseye versus the absurdism of Deadpool – both psychotic – is that blend (again) I thought we’d see in a Magnum Opus with former being supplied by the Thunderbolts. It’s well done here as Way and Medina are able to make an ultra violent experience and altercation share the quality of a very Looney Tunish arrow-in-the-head gag.
You know how people often use laugh-out-loud funny to describe something they read or watch? It’s generally an intended overstatement to express a point, but there were instances in this issue that elicited true guffaws not so easily restrained into a more respectable chuckle and smile. Don’t we love those moments? Not at all implying the classic Moore and Bolland comic of the name, but the random thought of “Killing Joke’” came to mind as the two traded blows and barbs.
Of course all of the antics is mere dressing. The beauty of this series is that once again Way is able to pay-off what is a simple ‘versus” issue into what it used to mean: Ass-kicking fun. In a medium where deaths are famously have no permanency, a rumble between two killers doesn’t quite have the natural tension as one would think is necessary for a successful story. With Deadpool, however, it’s not about pressure or pins and needles. No false drama. Deadpool shares the same beauty of simplicity that a mortal kombat ha. No matter how it ends: fatality, animality, brutality, babality, and yes even friendship were all fun. The ‘what’ isn‘t so relevant, it was the the act of experiencing it that brought joy.
Deadpool remains a monthly dose of that glory we used to feel when we heard “Finish Him”. He’s that monthly joke that never gets old.
No matter how many respawns.
*a fantastic series. Don’t sleep just because Ross isn’t involved. Anacleto is putting it down
- Jay Tomio
Jan-ken-pon is the time traveling, force-walking, multiverse crossing column of Jay Tomio, owner of 1/3 of everything you see currently on screen, and the editor of Heliotrope. Some call him the Bodhisattva.
