Deadpool #4 Review
Deadpool #4 review by Hugo Bravo
Written by Daniel Way
Art by Paco Medina and Carlo Barberi
Take Spider-Man's wisecracks, Wolverine's healing ability, and Deathstroke the Terminator's killing skills (and almost his real name), and you get Wade Wilson, better known as Deadpool, one of Marvel's most pooular anti-heroes. Even though I was never a huge fan of his previous series with Cable, I can appreciate the character for being a refreshing, humor-action oriented alternative to the heroes of the Marvel Universe. The typical Deadpool book is filled with zany jokes about the state of Marvel, slapstick, pop culture references, a lot of breaking the fourth wall, and of course, his beloved little yellow text balloons.
The latest adventure of the Merc with a Mouth left him in a pretty sorry state. After collecting Skrull bio-data to use against the green shape-shifters, Deadpool sent the data to Nick Fury in the hopes of a hefty pay, only for it to be intercepted by Thunderbolts leader Norman Osborne. Broke and without his assortment of ammo, he finds the mercenary business in a deep recession, due to everyone focusing their resources on fighting off those pesky Skrulls. When Deadpool realizes his most prized possession is his beanbag chair made of plastic explosives, he accepts he needs to take whatever job he can get. Unfortunately, the only job available is from a figure of Wilson's past, a white-haired, former merc, current millionaire named Zeke. Zeke's young, sexy wife has been turned into a zombie by her plastic surgeon Dr. Druek Lovosno, who may possibly be a zombie himself. These new kind of zombies actually can stay young and beautiful as long as they continue to eat flesh, making them an odd mix of zombie and vampire. Or zampire, as Deadpool excitedly refers to them. Zeke wants Deadpool to go to Eastern Europe and kill the surgeon, so his wife can be brought back to him and a cure for her can be found.
The plot stays purposely light to keep from distracting from a good Deadpool book's main selling point, how many times it can make you crack a smile at the lunacy of it all. Humor in comic books can be extremely difficult to write, but Daniel Way succeeds for most of his gags. Some visual jokes, like a labeled water bottle, work very well. Others, like a commentary on medical forms, aren't as funny. For the most part, the premise is clever in itself. There's a bit of hilarious irony in Deadpool, the owner of possibly the most deformed face in the Marvel Universe, being sent to take down a plastic surgeon.
Paco Medina and Carlo Barberi share the artwork for this issue, with Medina doing the second half and not quite as sharp as Barberi's first. The complaint is minor though. To Medina's credit, Deadpool is unmasked for a good part of his half, and he does a good, if minimalist, job with Wilson's deformed facial features, though it's not quite as wonderfully grotesque as Ed McGuiness made him early on in his previous series.
No longer just a comedic sidekick to Cable, Deadpool is free to be the star of his show once again. And like him, his book is never aims too high, just killing enough people to keep it exciting and cracking enough jokes to get by.
Rating: 6
