By The Story: As Michael makes his way in hell, Deadpool teams-up with the Superior Spider-Man to take out the next person on Vetis list.
The Review: On the review of the latest issue of Deadpool, I had said that the duo of Posehn and Duggan had made something quite unusual for a comic featuring the Merc with a mouth. Indeed, they had toned down the humor significantly in order to make their plot progress in a faster pace as they explored the titular character a bit further than usual. It was unexpected, yet it did lead to a quality comic.
Here, though, their approach is the exact opposite, as the humor takes precedence to the plot in this issue featuring a team-up of some sort to Spider-Ock. While we do get some tidbits of progression in the story, the focus is clearly on the jokes even with all the action set up here. However, does that make this issue a bad comic? The answer here would be tantamount to a pure yes or a pure no, as it does a lot of things rather well, yet stumbles a bit in certain areas. If there’s a thing it does rather well, it’s the humorous aspect of the story and the dialogue. Although we have seen plenty of team-up/battles with Deadpool and Spider-Man, here it is thrown in a new light as it is Spider-Ock who’s playing the part. Surprisingly, both Posehn and Duggan do get the voice of the character close to spot-on, with his more elaborate vocabulary and his approach to things like crime-fighting. His more serious attitude does serve as a pretty good foil for the more sarcastic and downright mocking attitude of our favourite merc, who keeps on making fun of the Spider-Man mythos.
Their team-up is actually the meat of the issue, which is both great, yet a little bit disappointing. While it does give us some great humor and some good action, it does slows down the plot with Michael, Vetis, Preston and the whole situation to a halt as Deadpool tries to kill someone else on the list. It’s not a bad team-up by any means, as there much to like here, like the bit with Taskmaster or every moment with Deadpool mocking Lady Stilt Man and Trapster. There are still some pages dedicated to Michael and his situation, which are still interesting, yet they don’t advance the plot much.
Although the plot doesn’t get many pages, we do get some pretty fun banter and action out of this, with the action being actually pretty interesting to see. I have seen a lot of comic accentuation the funny side of the equation by showing Deadpool being beaten down to a pulp by ridiculous opponents, but I have to say I find this version of things much better and much closer to the character as defined by Joe Kelly. Here, we see the crazier and more action-savvy character that was an actual menace, yet also a screwball at the same time, creating a sense of unpredictability around both the character and the actions as shown in the comic and its plot, which does give a good reading experience.
What also contribute to the experience is Mike Hawtorne, who still gives us some great pages and panels filled with the more chaotic elements that await us in the adventures of the regenerate degenerate. His action scenes are brimmed with energy, which does show through the poses and the many elements added to the background in each panels. Thanks to the panels never being minimalistic and filled with a plethora of carefully chosen details, we do get a sensation of movements and craziness that can be seen during the scenes with Spider-Ock.
Val Staples is also to be congratulated for the art here as well, as he does wonder with the setting and with his color work. The sundown effect used during the fight scenes does give us some visual diversity in this issue, which does heighten the effect a tad, without detracting from the artist and the script, adding to it instead.
The Conclusion: While the focus on humor and action does slow down the plot considerably, there is still a lot of fun to be had with this issue as Posehn and Duggan makes fun of the Spider-Man mythos and to some other characters as well.
