Deadpool 5, X-Factor 252

Deadpool 5
Posehn and Duggan (w) and Moore (a) and Staples (c)

I think I said pretty much everything I needed to say about my feelings on this title last time but it all still holds true. Let me say, too, that it wouldn't be impossible for this book to win me over. It would be impossible for the first five issues to retroactively win me over, but I'm rooting for this book to be good. Why wouldn't I? I like Deadpool as a character and I'm going to keep reading this book so I'd really prefer it be readable. But right now, I will readily say that it is the worst book Marvel is putting out at current.

I'll be honest, I don't really have a ton to add to this review. I said it all last time and everything is the same. Yes, Deadpool went off and fought different presidents. Yes, some things happened in the plot, including the death of an important character. But really, I don't care about the character because the book hasn't made me care about any of these characters. It's hard to care about characters when they're just a pile of pop culture references and insults. Every issue feels the same and I cannot really care about it. That's a tough thing when you write a Deadpool-centric comic. Deadpool is a kind of crazy character who is supposed to be openly funny and morally ambiguous and a little out of his mind. Not only is that a challenging character to write, it's a hard way to frame a story. You can't do big world-ending stories like with some characters because no one would buy it. The scale is toned down in a Deadpool book. So you have to focus on threats to Deadpool or threats that people have hired Deadpool to deal with. It's a hard line to walk with both story and character and I think Posehn and Duggan are not near that line. This is a fundamentally depressing run on the book just because, if it's done right, it's a pretty different book. Not just different from what Posehn and Duggan are putting out, different from most of Marvel. There aren't a lot of mercenary-based books, especially not featuring mercenaries who are as conflicted as Deadpool but who hide conflicts in their humor. So we're missing out on a solid book and we're given, in return, this really unfunny book that's trying so hard to be funny in the most Family Guy manner possible.

X-Factor 252
David (w) and Kirk and Leisten (a) and Milla (c)

So the rules of the "ruler of hell" contest are a little more complicated than anyone predicted. Tier is able to actually "kill" the hell-gods (which doesn't really kill them, just seemingly takes them out of the competition). This new twist puts the other hell-gods on edge after Tier disembowels Pluto. Mephisto turns on the other hell-gods, attacking them before abruptly leaving for his hell. Meanwhile, the fight against Pluto before Tier joined in left X-Factor wounded and disoriented. Jamie and Jezebel are missing, Shatterstar's arms are broken, and everyone else has had their pride a little bit on the low side. After they watch Tier single-handedly destroy Pluto, they try to regroup and Shatterstar teleports them out of there. Madrox is still missing and only his new wife Layla seems to care a whole bunch in the immediate aftermath of the battle. The issue ends with Mephisto waking Jezebel back in their hell and announcing that, while he's gone, she has a new babysitter, a demon-headed Madrox.

I'll be honest, I've no idea where this is heading but BOY do I hope Madrox comes out okay. I don't know if you guys realize this, but I like Madrox. He's a good dude. There are a couple of important plot points in this issue, most of which are summarized above. It does still feel like this was more of a stepping stone issue than a huge reveal kind of issue. We know more about the rules of the competition but we have no real progress to the end. Still, the book is paced well and it's easy to read. I wonder how many issues David had in the bank before his stroke (which it sounds like he's recovering positively from, but was still a stroke, so I imagine he'll need a good deal of time to recover) and if this run will be interrupted at all or if David will present notes to another writer or something along those lines. I also don't know if David writes full-script or Marvel method. If he writes Marvel method, he could potentially give the script outlines to Kirk and then help to tag it all together later. Of course, I'm speculating these things with practically no information on how is recovery is going and how much he'll need to do. Likely he'll need time fully off to recoup one way or another, I'd just wonder how he'd take that. This has been his book for a very long time and David is an old comics pro (fun fact, if you're interested in writing comics, his book on the subject is very interesting and well done. It's also nice if you're just interested in comics and how they're built) so I'd wonder if he'd pass the buck on to someone else while he recovered, at least in the middle of an important arc. And of course, THIS speculation comes with absolutely no personal knowledge of Peter David. Oh well. All interesting questions, at least to me. Remember, you can learn more about his stroke and recovery and what you can do to help, if so inclined, here.