Apr 10 2014

Deadpool 27

Today, Spencer and Patrick are discussing Deadpool 27, originally released April 9th, 2014.

Spencer: We all have that one friend whom we love dearly, but who’s clearly a huge jerk. What’s fascinating about having a friend like this is what happens when they fall in love and/or get married. It’s a strange thing to experience; there’s joy at seeing your friend happy, but there’s also a bizarre feeling of unease and dread. Can this last? Is it for the best? Should you warn their boyfriend/girlfriend about what they’re getting themselves into? (Pro-tip: Don’t do this). As sad as it is to say, there’s this odd feeling that maybe the whole thing is just a very bad idea. This is the situation Deadpool’s friends find themselves facing in Deadpool 27. Yes, Wade Wilson is getting married, and it’s exactly as strange as it sounds. Continue reading →

Apr 2 2014

Deadpool 26

Today, Drew and Shelby are discussing Deadpool 26, originally released March 26th, 2014

Drew: Third-person omniscient perspective is perhaps the most common in all of storytelling, but it’s also the weirdest. That kind of birds-eye-view of a situation we’re otherwise not involved in is utterly unnatural, yet we almost never question it when we read it. Who is it that’s telling us this story? Why are they telling it? Sometimes these questions are addressed in-narrative, but more often than not, we’re meant to accept that our narrator is not a character at all, but some mysterious force that reveals this story to us just for the sake of it. This can get even more complicated in visual media, like comics and film, where the visual narrator can exist independent of the voiceover narration. Deadpool 26 takes gleeful advantage of that complexity, creating a comic that very explicitly feels like a comic, effectively challenging all of our notions as to what exactly that means.

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Mar 17 2014

Deadpool 25

Today, Patrick and Greg are discussing Deadpool 25, originally released March 12th, 2014

Patrick: In high school, I did theatre. Like a lot. Acting, directing, writing, set building, lighting, sound, Vice President of the Drama Club — I was a damned theatre rat. It was great, I loved it and built my whole life and identity around it. But I was also kind of a jerk in high school. At the height of my jerkishness, the director of our theatre program told me that she used to think I was funny, until she realized I was just mean. Which is a harsh thing for a teacher to say to a child, but I’m sure I was asking for it. I was socially destructive, and alienated all of my friends in that world. It was the nuclear option: I had hurt too many people to stay in that circle. So I bailed — on my hometown, on theatre, on all of those people that used to be my friends. Was I acting out of self-preservation or was I protecting my friends from further exposure to my toxic attitude? Deadpool 25.NOW shows Wade’s world melting down around him in the most predictable way, as the Merc with the Mouth is unable to find peace in resolution. He too bails, and whether its a selfless or selfish act is heartbreakingly ambiguous. Continue reading →

Feb 13 2014

Deadpool 23

Today, Drew and Patrick are discussing Deadpool 23, originally released February 12th, 2014.

Drew: I like to think that I’m an open-minded guy when it comes to art, but I’m actually proud of the fact that I’ve never seen any of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer’s films. Frankly, the commercials alone embarrass me enough to scare me off. That’s not an embarrassment of prudishness — I can make dick jokes until the cows come home — but of intelligence: the grasping, desperately hackneyed pop culture references those movies are built on bring me closer to tears than laughter. Unfortunately, that brand of humor has dominated parody films over the past two decades, leaving only a few exceptions — like Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy — that even attempt to respect either the genre it’s sending up or the audience’s intelligence. Deadpool’s tendency to break the fourth wall has long made him the most likely source of parody in the Marvel universe, and that parody lived up the its potential for depth in the recent “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” arc. Unfortunately, this arc finds ‘pooly once again aiming for yuks in the cheapest ways possible. Continue reading →

Jan 13 2014

Deadpool 22

Today, Greg and Drew are discussing Deadpool 22, originally released January 8th, 2014.

Greg: I was first introduced to the Austin Powers franchise as a kid, and immediately gravitated towards the big, broad aspects of the comedy. The accent, the teeth, the catchphrases, the physical set pieces — this is the kind of stuff that absolutely slayed 9-year-old Greg (who am I kidding, this scene will always work for me). On a recent rewatch, however, I noticed one joke that whooshed right over my head. The name of Powers’ secret agent boss is Basil Exposition, and his purpose in the film is to, well, spout exposition, the bits of narrative business necessary to understand what is technically happening in a plot. It’s a fun bit of satirical lampshade hanging, yet it nevertheless serves its actual purpose — get all the boring stuff out of the way to leave plenty of room for fun. Deadpool 22 has the unfortunate task of dealing with this, yet executes it rather gracefully.
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Dec 20 2013

Deadpool 21

Today, Spencer and Scott are discussing Deadpool 21, originally released December 18th, 2013.

Spencer: Is Deadpool simply comic relief—a comic book Daffy Duck—or is he a deep, dark character, using jokes to mask his pain? We’ve had heated debates about this in our comment sections in the past, but the truth is that Deadpool is both, yet Deadpool is also neither; he exists on a spectrum that can slide anywhere between those two points. In their Deadpool run thus far Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan have explored both extremes, but now—after Wade’s all time low in “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”—we find a Deadpool who has become much more tragic, yet still retains much of his typical humor. I’ve taken to calling him “Grumpy Old Man Deadpool.” Continue reading →

Dec 6 2013

Deadpool 20

Today, Patrick and Greg are discussing Deadpool 20, originally released December 4th, 2013.

Patrick: There’s no single person or institution that’s introduced me to more media than The Simpsons. I didn’t know that it was happening at the time, but my 10 year old mind was being educated in the works of Alfred Hitchcock, Rod Serling, Francis Ford Copola, Stanley Kubric, Martin Scorsesse, Tennessee Williams, and on and on. But the film that seems to have cropped up the most was Citizen Kane. I can’t possibly convey what my first experience of watching Citizen Kane was like: by that point in my life, I’d seen the same scenes and camera angles and transitions and themes and characters reconstituted a hundred different ways on The Simpsons. It was invigorating and shocking to see everything in its original context, granting new meaning to my favorite old Simpsons episodes, but also imbuing Citizen Kane with a kind of pre-loaded meaning. Deadpool has never shied away from referential humor, but writers Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn and artist Scott Koblish narrow their focus in the third inventory issue, and convinces us that Jack Kirby’s work is the Citizen Kane of comic books. Continue reading →

Nov 14 2013

Deadpool 19

Today, Drew and Patrick are discussing Deadpool 19, originally released November 13th, 2013.

Drew: What do we expect when we read Deadpool? When I picked up my first issue just over a year ago, I was looking for a famously goofy character written by famously funny writers, and thought that issue delivered everything a Deadpool comic should. Then we published our first discussion, and started one of the longest, most in-depth comment threads we’ve ever had, all about how this version of Deadpool is missing the point entirely. It’s a strange contradiction, but comics are full of them. Is Batman a brooding spirit of vengeance or a campy man-about-town? Is Wolverine a violent savage or an impatient schoolmarm? Or, more to the subject at hand, is Wade Wilson an irreverent, fourth-wall-breaking yukster, or a tragic figure of the highest order? With the conclusion of their “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” arc, writers Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan make the strong case for “both.” Continue reading →

Oct 10 2013

Deadpool 18

Today, Drew and Scott are discussing Deadpool 18, originally released October 9th, 2013.

Drew: Color theory has always had an interesting relationship with superhero comics. To make the heroes stand out on the printed page, they were put in bright, primary colors. That practicality had a counterpart in the way the characters were written — with equally clear ideals (think “truth, justice, and the American way”). Those ideals (like the colors) can be mixed in ever more complex ways, covering all of the possible hues, but as any colorist can tell you: hue is only one dimension of color theory. Another is saturation, or the opacity of a color. Deadpool, with its knack for fourth-wall breaking, has long had a lot of play with this kind of figurative saturation, as Wade regularly peels the curtain back to comment on the absurdities of the world he inhabits. Desaturating Wade has always revealed a bright, zany world — even when disembowling presidents, the tone was always incredibly upbeat — but as writers Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn move further into their “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” arc, they’ve revealed an increasing interest in the third dimension of color theory: value, or darkness. The result is a surprisingly rich comic, made up of all of the colors of the real world. Continue reading →

Sep 30 2013

Deadpool 17

Today, Scott and Patrick are discussing Deadpool 17, originally released September 25th, 2013.

Scott: “Ok, so you’ve got Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan, right, and they’re writing about Deadpool.” (“Oh man, this sounds funny!”) “And Deadpool is teaming up with Wolverine and Captain America.” (“Whoa, this is gonna be classic!”) “Oh, and there are a bunch of Korean X-men look-alikes running around.” (“I don’t even know what that means, but you probably don’t even need a plot at this point, this sounds like the craziest issue ever!”) So what happens when you take all elements for great laughs and hi-jinks, and try to make it dark? Posehn and Duggan have pushed Deadpool into grim territory in recent issues, and they’ve been some of the series’ best. They seem intent on recasting Deadpool in a more serious tone. But sometimes, when all the elements are there, there’s nothing a writer can do to prevent a rollicking good time.