The name’s Poo – Steaming Pile of Poo aka Secret Agent Deadpoo(l)!
So a James Bond-type dies in a fire, Deadpool takes his identity and everyone assumes Wade’s the Bond-type, he’s just badly burned from the fire – oh hi-larious (if you don’t know, under the mask, Deadpool looks like a burn victim).
Skottie “Baby Covers” Young takes over Deadpool and a new writer means it’s time for a new number one! Any good? Nah. So the usual for ol’ Wade!
After a particularly nasty blowout south of the border down Mexico way, Deadpool is hauled in front of a US Senate committee where he’s questioned about similar shenanigans he may or may not have been involved in during Reagan’s years. But is Wade telling the truth or just another bunch of tall porky chimichangas…?
Deadpool wants to die so he puts a $20 million bounty on his own head. You mean like in the Daniel Way run when Deadpool also had a deathwish? Yup - even Hit Monkey makes a (pointless) cameo! Despicable Deadpool? More like Derivative Deadpool! But no, Despicable is definitely apt - this book is so bad!
Christopher Hastings and Bong Dazo’s Deadpool tie-in to Fear Itself proves the rule that event spinoffs are usually better than the event itself!
Deadpool comes up with a convoluted get-rich-quick scheme that takes advantage of the nonsense going on in Fear Itself. He steals an ordinary hammer, glues on some cheap plastic jewellery, tricks a brain-dead Z-list villain – in this case, the Walrus – to terrorise a one-horse town, then gets paid by the scared townsfolk to beat up the hammer-wielding doofus. Except this is a Deadpool plan so, of course, things get FUBAR’d up almost immediately!
Deadpool and Howard the Duck find themselves temporarily fused after a Cronenberg-esque teleporter malfunction (of course). Deadpool the Duck must figure out how to un-fuse and save their buddy Rocket from space rabies!
Daniel Way closes out his epic Deadpool run with this final bumper 14-issue volume (usually that’s about three books’ worth of comics!). Unfortunately it’s a case of quantity over quality. Deadpool’s had enough and wants to die once and for all. He discovers a serum that’ll disable his healing factor, make him mortal and allow him to die - but will he go through with it? This is answered immediately with a resounding NO as he goes on a few more pointless adventures and that’s it.
Marvel meets Agatha Christie in Deadpool: Too Soon? A group of Marvel characters are invited to a secluded country mansion and then one of them is murdered. It’s up to Wade to do his best Miss Marple impression and find out whodunit!
Deadpool v Gambit is like the comics version of what I imagine a Tyler Perry/Madea movie to be: so unfunny the word “comedy” shouldn’t be allowed within 100 feet of it, and punishment more than entertainment.
I always wondered what happened to the body parts inevitably chopped off of Deadpool - do they just die and rot while his original body regrows them or does an entire body regrow from those pieces? Well, turns out if you get enough pieces together, they congeal into a whole new Deadpool: Evil Deadpool!
Man, you set off just a few nukes in a battle with the Hulk over the American heartland and people start calling you irresponsible and crazy! That’s what happened to Deadpool as he’s carted off across the pond to a British nuthouse. Why? His shrink’s in love with him. Hmm, maybe she should be one of the inmates!
After Deadpool encounters Macho Gomez, supposedly the galaxy’s greatest mercenary, he blasts off into space to prove to the universe there’s no-one more badass at merc-ing than him. How? By marrying a space hippo and picking a fight with a drug-addicted moon of course!
Deadpool, Volume 6: I Rule, You Suck is an improvement over the last book, thankfully, but it’s still not up to the high quality of the earlier books of Daniel Way’s run.
Aw man, what happened to Daniel Way’s Deadpool? This fifth volume stinks!
Deadpool hears someone in Vegas trashing him and decides to prove them wrong by being a hero (and because this is set during Marvel’s short-lived “Heroic Age” nonsense). This involves a convoluted plan to knock over a casino with two super-minor Marvel characters: Weasel, who now has a giant robot armour and is working security at said casino, and Grizzly, a douchebag in a bear suit.
After literally blowing his brains out from boredom, Deadpool decides to spend his vast wealth on living out his fantasies - it’s a pirate’s life for Wade! And what good is money without friends? To the West Coast, to visit his old buds the X-Men on Utopia!
David Lapham actually writes a pretty good Deadpool, as in the character. He’s got the voice down cold and doesn’t overdo the wackiness or force the comedy, which is what some writers tend to do with Wade. The story side of things though is unfortunately not as strong.
Deadpool wants Spider-Man to help him assassinate Peter Parker – oh Deadpool you silly goose!
Joe Kelly and Ed McGuinness reunite after nearly 20 years since their first Deadpool comic together in ’97 with Spider-Man/Deadpool. Unfortunately it’s not nearly as fun as I’d hoped.
Deadpool and his Mercs for Money - Stingray, Terror, Foolkiller, Slapstick, Solo, and Masacre (the Spanish Deadpool!) – find themselves in possession of a supposedly future-predicting robot. Do they use it to learn how to avoid mistakes in the present or help people prepare for the future? Nope, they tries to make bank by selling it to the highest bidding supervillain!
Set during Dark Reign after Secret Invasion, Deadpool knows something about Norman Osborn that he doesn’t want others to know so Norman sends the Thunderbolts out to kill Deadpool. But they don’t have to look far as he’s after Norman himself for owing him cash - time for a good old-fashioned supervillain smackdown!
There’s a scene in this where Deadpool’s got an arrow in his head and he’s staggering towards the reader saying “DUUUUHHHRRR” that made me laugh so much, if the rest of the book had sucked, it’d still have been worth reading. But actually there’s a lot here to enjoy so it’s one highlight among many!
