Top of the Pile 11/07/12

Deadpool #1
Written by Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn
Art by Tony Moore
Cover by Geoff Darrow

Marvel is renumbering their books. We had Uncanny Avengers a couple months ago and more books are coming out each week with their Marvel Now! promotion. I had collected the previous volume of Deadpool since it started some 40 issues or so ago and really enjoyed their crazy stories. But now with a new creative team, we start fresh with a new #1.

First off, the cover by Geoff Darrow made me chuckle. With his hyper detailed bullet shelled picture, Deadpool seems to be shooting Godzilla who is vomiting up cats. Whatever. It’s just absurd, which is what Deadpool personifies.

As for the story, it starts off when Harry S. Truman is resurrected and then decapitated by Captain America. Some villain named the Necromancer is going around raising dead US Presidents. SHIELD, trying to end this hires Deadpool to take care of it quietly.

Written by Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn, the story is clever and filled with horrible puns. It’s kind of like reading an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. But unfortunately, some of the inside jokes might be too much. I kind of gotten used to the previous Deadpool where he had two inner voices (and sometimes more) arguing with his dialog bubbles.

I kind of dig the art by Tony Moore. It’s rough and visceral. And with the resurrected Presidents, it has a Zombiesque feel and Deadpool doesn’t look much better. But the action flows and there is no problems following the story. That, in my opinion, makes for a really good comic artist.

One this issue, I noticed more of the AR symbol indicating that it uses the augmented reality. The cover image pulled up a kookie background video of Deadpool giving his history and such. Inside, we get to see some videos of the writers explaining the book. All pretty normal. But the best AR page was at the back of the book where there were a couple dozen resurrected presidents and the video went and identified each of them. I knew about two thirds of them.

Would I add this to a public library collection? Sure. So far after a single issue, it seems pretty cool. It has the “parental advisory” on the cover so it would not go into the children’s area. But I could justify it being in the YA collection with some contorted justifications.