Deadpool 8, Deadpool Killustrated 4

Deadpool 8
Duggan and Posehn (w) and Hawthorne (a) and Staples (c)

We return to present day in Deadpool, with Agent Preston living inside of Deadpool's head now (or, as she posits once, being a guilty memory living itself out through Deadpool). He brings her to her house to allow her to see her son briefly before being chased out by her husband. She manages to tell her son that she's in Deadpool's head but makes him promise not to tell his father. They leave and come across Vetis, the shady record executive demon who enlisted Deadpool's help in trying to make Iron Man drunk in issue seven only to be outwitted by Deadpool and sent to Mephisto's punishment. It turns out that Vetis was behind Michael raising all the dead presidents and now is trying to earn his way back out of Mephisto's wrath by trying to deliver more souls. He wraps Deadpool into it by saying that he's still in jeopardy after agreeing to a "satisfaction guaranteed" clause in the contract and leaving Vetis not satisfied. To wipe that smear off of his record, he has to kill five people who traded their souls for some power or another. The first is Corrado Coloruno, a bank robber who traded his soul for invulnerability. Deadpool covers his head in cement, ending him by forcing him to stop breathing (the deal had been that as long as he drew breath he'd be invulnerable). In the meantime, Ben Franklin and Michael had met with Deadpool/Agent Preston to discuss how to get her into a new body. They've decided that one of the bodies Deadpool kills will probably suffice if Michael can muster the magic. She chooses against Corrado, so we'll see where next issue puts us.
The in-jokes were way down this issue, which definitely strengthened the feel of the issue overall. I will say, though, that I got to a point while reading this comic and was like "geez, where is this issue going, it must be almost done already" just to find out I was only on page ten. Very slow going to start. It sped up a bit with the re-introduction of Vetis and the attack on Corrado, but the first ten pages dragged and didn't give us much it felt like we really needed (such as Preston and her son and husband). It's weird that the second arc, like the first arc, will feature Deadpool killing hard-to-kill entities at the behest of someone he doesn't fully trust and doesn't really trust in him. Will Vetis also die and end up in Deadpool's head? Only time will tell. But he's a demon, so I imagine he probably won't? Look, it just feels a bit one-track is all. We'll see if I'm wrong. I hope I am, because the last two issues have at least been better than the first arc. Still not totally impressed, but glad it's going slowly in the right direction.

Deadpool Killustrated 4
Bunn (w) and Lolli and Parsons (a) and Gandini (c)

The Deadpool Killustrated mini-series comes to an end as the fictional universes start caving in on themselves. Deadpool has killed so many literary icons (including the witches of Macbeth, the Poe figure in "The Raven," Dorian Gray, and Gregor Samsa) that it's starting to really have an effect on the landscape. Sherlock Holmes is starting to forget pieces of the case as his forefathers and his world are being erased. Finally he and his team catch up to Deadpool, who himself is starting to lose coherency (more so) as his own predecessors are exterminated. Beowulf and Watson team up to kill the Frankenpool and Mulan severs Deadpool's arm with his time travel device, forcing him to run for HG Wells' time machine (which Holmes' team has been traveling in). Holmes catches up with him and they fight through a void. Holmes eventually pushes Deadpool out into the nothingness, but not before Deadpool makes his point that the ideaverse won't heal properly now that he's planted the seed of heroes dying. After Deadpool falls, wondering what will happen to him, Holmes tries desperately to remember all the literary heroes Deadpool killed, to try to keep them alive and "set the bone properly," as they say. Whether or not it works is up for debate and will possibly be the question with the next teased series, Deadpool Kills Deadpool.
I was pleasantly surprised by this series from the outset, enjoying it far more than things like Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe or others in that line. The idea of the ideaverse was pretty interesting and I loved the glimpses of heroes flashing in front of Deadpool as he killed each new victim. It's a clever little homage to the vast library of fiction that created all our heroes and to the very idea that our heroes are created by a long history of heroes. I'm not totally sure what to make of this ending, as Deadpool floats off into some ill-defined nothingness waiting to disappear. Maybe the next series will start with him discovering that he hasn't disappeared and that Sherlock set the bone properly enough to restore some heroes and now his biggest adversary is himself. Not in a figurative sense, like something within him, like his other selves from other universes. I've no idea. I'm still not totally convinced that the Deadpool Kills Deadpool series is a real thing that will happen. I guess we'll all just find out.