Deadpool 12, Fury MAX 13, Scarlet Spider 18

Deadpool 12
Posehn and Duggan (w) and Hawthorne, Gorder, and Lucas (a) and Staples (c)

The Vetis storyline comes to a close as Deadpool is forced to fight the demon who is supercharged with the souls that Deadpool has retrieved for him. The fight is certainly a losing one for Deadpool, who is severely outmatched but Michael appears from Hell at just the right time, now dressed in all white and looking a bit more refined than crazy. Michael begins casting spells to help Deadpool but he'll need more time to be able to destroy Vetis. Mephisto shows up and berates Vetis, who slices the demon's head off pretty quickly. Michael gives Deadpool the chance to kill Vetis by stabbing him in the chest, which Deadpool promptly does, freeing all the souls that he'd taken, including, apparently, Ben's. Mephisto, pleased with how the day has turned out, offers Preston and Deadpool a deal; he'll give her her body back if she'll just ask for his help. She thinks it over but ultimately decides that they can find a way that doesn't involve the devil. Deadpool gets a vote too and goes the same way. Mephisto leaves, saying the deal is still on the table. Michael and Deadpool snipe at each other for a bit as Michael is angry that Deadpool killed him and left him in Hell for years (time moves slower there, is the description, but it might mean faster and look, I don't know, you get it though, right?) and Deadpool is angry that Michael doesn't understand it was the only way and that look, it's all worked out. Ben goes to help Michael, who storms out of Deadpool's head (this is where the negotiation between Mephisto took place) while Preston stays to comfort Deadpool, swearing that she'll help him, now that his mental block is down and he might start remembering horrible things again.

Like I'd said, this arc is way better than the first one though the idea kind of rings the same (Deadpool has to go all over the place killing superpowered beings while a bigger evil boss-battle waits for him at the end). The writing still isn't blowing me away and a lot of the jokes feel forced and unnecessary. There are far fewer quips and annoying jokes than in the first arc, which is a welcome relief. I understand that Deadpool kind of asks for this sort of writing but it often comes off as overkill. Hopefully as we move forward with his memories kind of coming back through his mental block, we'll start seeing a slightly deeper Deadpool. The shallow Deadpool is fine for team-ups or one-shots but a series needs to bring more depth to him than this one has. They've given themselves a way to open that up a bit, which would certainly help the series.

Fury MAX 13
Ennis (w) and Parlov (a) and Loughridge (c)

It's 1999 and George Hatherly, Fury's friend, is dying. Shirley goes to visit him in the hospital and ends up complaining to him about her life. They're both old now and neither of them has the Infinity Formula that Fury has so they look it (actually, I just found out that this series is on a separate Earth than the 616, one that correlates to Punisher MAX and so on, a world without superheroes and so forth. Probably should have known all along but it didn't really matter. However, that makes this a different Fury and one who may not have that formula; he just may still look better than anyone else his age). Shirley complains that Pug has a mistress living with them and bemoans the fact that she had to marry Pug, but that he was still a better choice than Fury would have been. Hatherly admits that he always thought she was lovely, which kind of sends her over the edge, knowing that there was a good man out there for her that presented a third and altogether more attractive road than either of her other thoughts. Fury attends Hatherly's funeral but is ignored by almost everyone there, angry that he didn't ever visit Hatherly in the hospital. Hatherly's granddaughter approaches him, knows who he is and understands, through Hatherly, why Fury never went to visit. She tells him that George had told her a little about what they'd done and had gotten sad talking about it, said that they'd started off with the best intentions but that everything had gone wrong and it was all pointless. She wants to know what the intentions were or why they felt they needed them. The comic detours away from the answer for a moment, giving us instead an encounter between Fury and former enemy combatant Letrong Giap from Vietnam. The two talk beside the Vietnam Memorial, walking through the sights of DC. It's a rather lovely talk about war and about what soldiers believe and how they're treated. He eventually wishes Fury well, shaking hands with him as they depart. We see into Shirley's home where she's just dropped a glass bottle of vodka. Pug's mistress comes in, gets a drink, and leaves, leaving Shirley behind to drink from another bottle of vodka. The scene turns very dark in ways I don't really want to describe for younger readers but ends with Shirley killing both the mistress and Pug before she calls Fury, a little delirious, and kills herself. Fury eventually makes it to Shirley's home and finds the cops clearing everything up. We see him recording again, years later, and decrying the fact that he just can't seem to die. He wanted war, the girl, and the victory and he only chose one. We cut back to his answer to George's granddaughter which involves the first meeting between Fury and Hatherly, where Hatherly genuinely believed that he was signing up for the job because he owed a debt to the past and a responsibility to the future, symbolized by the American flag which shows blood on the bandaged wounds of brave men and all the stars in the sky. The series ends with a portrait shot of Fury, alone in a dark room with a microphone and a gun on the table next to him.

Really heartbreaking ending. It goes nicely along with everything else this series has done and gives a cold, hard look at a very dark man. Nick Fury is one of the most interesting characters in any Marvel Universe, when done right. He's the guy who has plans within plans, wheels within wheels, and so on. He's never totally in a corner because he's always planned for that corner and has an idea of how to get out of it. This series shows the times his plans only led to darker corners and deeper holes. It would be depressing for any character but it seems more so for Fury. Add to that the questions that we saw recently in Greg Rucka's Punisher: War Zone series that had Thor telling Punisher that his war had left him behind and that he knows what it feels like to be a warrior without a war. That's very much Fury, who continues to find his own wars in this and leaves everything else behind, no matter the cost. It's depressing and it's heartbreaking and it's kind of wonderful.

Scarlet Spider 18
Yost (w) and Barberi and Wong w/Garza (a) and Lokus (c)

Kaine has just killed Wolverine and one of the Assassin's Guild's spies has seen it happen. He's seen Wolverine's heart stop and the X-Men surround Kaine and Wolverine. Belladonna calls the spy home just in time for him to miss Beast restarting Wolverine's heart as he heals. Wolverine agrees to help Kaine take down the Guild and understands his reasons. Aracely had gone into young Jean Grey's head and told her that Kaine needed to kill Wolverine for the Assassin's Guild outside. Jean psychically reported this to Wolverine and Wolverine accepted. Now the two, leaving Aracely at the school, have taken off for the Guild. Aracely is talking non-stop to the mutants and asking all sorts of questions. Hank is running tests on her and has determined that she has another entity living inside her body. Meanwhile, Kaine and Wolverine enter the Assassin's Guild, stealthily killing a few guards inside before they're found out and descended upon. The fight becomes much harder but they continue to push forward, eventually finding Belladonna, who screams that the Red Death is coming because of these events and she's eventually, an inch away from being killed by Kaine, proven correct as the Red Death, a very powerful woman, appears, killing some of Belladonna's henchmen quickly and aiming at Kaine and Wolverine.

This is one of the only team-ups we've gotten between Kaine and someone who actually knows Spider-Man, which is really fun to read. You suddenly get a better sense of how he interacts with people. Sure he's still the brooding anti-hero, cynical and jaded, but he's also a Peter Parker clone. He still has the same sort of humor and love for battle-quipping as Peter but it's decidedly darker material. Teamed with Wolverine, it's all pretty fun. Both of them, by the time the issue concludes, have (mostly jokingly) offered to kill the other to stop the fight. Kaine tells Wolverine that his plan, as things reach their most tense, is to leave while they're busy killing Wolverine. There's a lot of stuff like that in this book and it's entirely enjoyable, even as the story ramps up in tension for the characters. Another solid issue, well-written and well-drawn.