Category Despicable Deadpool

May 10 2018

Despicable Deadpool 300: Discussion

by Drew Baumgartner & Patrick Ehlers

Despicable Deadpool 300

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

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Drew: Five years into this run, pointing out that Deadpool is a Sad Clown would be lazy analysis — not only has that point been well established, but the series itself has managed to explore it so thoroughly, reducing the character’s emotional journey to a two-word summary couldn’t possibly do it justice. And yet, I couldn’t think of a more appropriate way to begin this piece than embedding Smokey Robinson’s “Tears of a Clown,” not because of a shallow similarity between the content of these two works, but because of some profound similarities in how they treat that content. The lyrics describe a narrator who puts on a good face in spite of his profound sadness, but the music doesn’t betray that sadness for a second — it sounds like any other Motown hit (though that bouncy bassoon that maybe hints that this song is about a clown). By this point in the story, Wade Wilson has completely dropped that fascade of silliness, but just like the instruments in “Tears of a Clown,” the series itself maintains that clownish exterior. Continue reading →

Apr 26 2018

The Inevitable in Despicable Deadpool 299

by Patrick Ehlers

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

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“Always do this. Tell the audience what you’re going to do. Do it. And then tell them it has been done.”

Stan Laurel via Jerry Lewis via Conan O’Brien on Jay Leno’s The Tonight Show

Conan went on to explain, “If anyone knows what the hell he’s talking about, please tell me, because it’s been ringing in my head for years.” It’s a strange piece of advice, especially to be passed down through a line of comedians. Comedy is based on the unexpected, right? But there’s another kind of humor that comes from obviously broadcasting what’s about to happen and then delivering on it. It’s a kind of dramatic irony — the audience knows what’s going to happen only because of their superpower of being an audience. Despicable Deadpool plays into the dramatic irony of the title “The Marvel Universe Kills Deadpool,” and quietly asserts that the creative team intends to deliver on everything it’s been setting up for the last three issues. Continue reading →

Apr 13 2018

Expressive Lettering Fills in the Gaps in Despicable Deadpool 298

by Patrick Ehlers

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

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“All that people care about is the look. There’s figures on this: 70% of what people react to is the look, 20% is how you sound, and only 10% is what you say.”

-Eddie Izzard, Dressed to Kill

Here’s something that’s true about comics: it’s a medium full of speaking characters that we will never actually hear speaking. By Izzard’s math, that means there’s a full fifth of a character’s essence we’re never really going to get through images and words on the page. As Deadpool pulls out all the stops to finally achieve suicide-by-mercenary, so too does the creative team pull out all the stops to express the height of his desperation. All the usual gears are spinning perfectly: Gerry Duggan’s writing is as simultaneously tight and chaotic as ever, and Mike Hawthorne’s impeccable layouts convey an almost grueling understanding of the setting of this issue-long brawl. But I want to focus on that elusive final 20% — “how you sound” — with Joe Sabino’s excellent lettering in this issue. Continue reading →

Mar 30 2018

How Camera Angles Raise Stakes in Despicable Deadpool 297

by Patrick Ehlers

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

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Superheroes have an insane amount of mobility. Whether they’re fwipping around on spider webs, or flying through the air, or just brooding on a gargoyle on top of a skyscraper, there’s always a sense that the whole city is laid out before them. Artists can achieve this effect with dynamic camera angles, revealing the city below, and hopefully inducing a touch of vertigo in their readers. Despicable Deadpool 297 shows just how effectively Mike Hawthorne can use those same techniques to sell a change of setting and raise the stakes in Wade’s non-stop-slay-a-thon Continue reading →

Mar 19 2018

Culminating Repercussions in Despicable Deadpool 296

by Drew Baumgartner

Deadpool 296

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Are reverence and irreverence mutually exclusive? Linguistically, we might understand these words as opposites, but practically, we recognize that they coexist all around us. This is especially true in standup comedy, a field that both finds humor in what we take seriously and takes what we find funny very seriously. It’s no coincidence, then, that Gerry Duggan’s Deadpool run has had such a rich mix of reverence and irreverence, adopting some of the “sad clown” stylings of his comedic friends and collaborators, lending an otherwise goofy character real pathos. Indeed, one of the most distinctive features of Duggan’s work with this character was in crafting a tragic (but nonetheless joke-filled) backstory that could lend itself to reverence. With issue 296, Despicable Deadpool aims to cash in on much of that reverence, drawing on everything from Duggan’s earliest work with the character to some of his most recent. Continue reading →

Mar 1 2018

Disposable Supporting Characters in Despicable Deadpool 295

by Michael DeLaney

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

In the world of popular fiction, there’s a very low risk of the main characters — or the most recognizable ones — dying. We know that our protagonists are safe in any given story, so there’s a higher likelihood that any supporting cast member will meet their end. As entertaining and touching as Despicable Deadpool 295 is, I can’t help but feel that it’s just another story where the characters we like stay safe while the nameless ones die off. Continue reading →

Feb 19 2018

Music and Misery in Despicable Deadpool 294

by Michael DeLaney

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Despicable Deadpool 294 takes a break from Wade’s indentured murder-itude to Stryfe for a Madcap-themed interlude. Madcap has returned to enact terrible vengeance on his former mental roommate Deadpool. But in the wake of Secret Empire, Madcap realizes that Wade Wilson has already ruined his life himself. Continue reading →

Feb 2 2018

It’s Important to Use Your Words and Not Your Fists in Despicable Deadpool 293

by Taylor Anderson

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

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At work, my coworkers and I had a professional development meeting where we learned how to handle conflict with each other. It was basically a class on how to be a decent human being and how to express your feelings without terribly offending someone else. While the class seemed a bit puerile, I have to admit that it is important for people to be able to handle their conflict well, otherwise minor problems can become big ones. Given that superheroes deal with conflict almost by definition, you would think they would be able to handle it well and without the need of professional development classes. As Despicable Deadpool 293 illustrates, however, there is nothing further from the case. Continue reading →

Jan 11 2018

There’s No Justice in the Justice System in Despicable Deadpool 292

by Taylor Anderson

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

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If you’ve ever listened to the podcast Serial or watched the Netflix series the Making a Murderer, you are more than aware of the failings of the American justice system. In the case of these two series, innocent people were sent to jail for dubious reasons, but that is far from being the only reason why the justice system should be looked at with a wary eye. There are too many points to raise about this issue here, but suffice it to say, the justice system lacks…well, justice. Not only is this true in our world, but also in the world of Marvel comics, as Deadpool learns when he pays a visit to his old nemesis, Stevil Rogers. Continue reading →

Dec 29 2017

Spoofy Action in Despicable Deadpool 291

by Taylor Anderson

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

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If you haven’t seen Edgar Wright’s supremely funny Hot Fuzz, I heartily recommend renting it and making tonight a viewing party. The movie is predictably funny because Simon Pegg is a comic genius, true, but what always makes me laugh is the way Wright directs action scenes. He clearly has an ironic fondness for silly action movies (think Michael Bey) and that is made clear in the way he so cleverly spoofs typical action movie tropes. My favorite of these is when Simon Pegg and Nick Frost leap into a room guns-blazing and seem to be falling and shooting for an endless amount of time. This scene so well captures and lovingly makes fun of action movies in a clever way that is also present in Despicable Deadpool 291.  Continue reading →