Nova 14, Night of the Living Deadpool 4

Nova 14
Duggan (w) and Baldeon and Pallot (a) and Sotomayor (c)

Nova and Beta Ray Bill have teamed up and they're headed after Skaarn. Sam remembers that Skaarn said he was going "nowhere" which Bill translates as "Knowhere," an old Celestial head that now serves as a neutral ground to many travelers. Skaarn IS there, meeting with a sketchy alien from whom he's trying to buy (or, as eventually happens, steal) a weapon called War Bringers. Bill sees him as he kills the alien and takes the remote he wanted anyway but Skaarn stops Bill mid-attack by radioing to his ship to tell them that if he dies or doesn't come back for some reason, they're to kill the Korbonites onboard. Outside, the War Bringer comes online right beside Sam and he, of course, ends up fighting it. It's very nearly powerful enough to kill him but his last minute adrenaline surge and will to live end up overpowering the robot and he survives. Bill comes to meet him there and tells him that they have to go to Knowhere's Continuum Cortex to be teleported away or else many on the ship will die. Skaarn teleports Bill away as Nova projects an image of himself into the teleported, making Skaarn believe both have gone. Free to try to follow Skaarn now, Nova finds himself called away telepathically by Cosmo, the "watchdog of Knowhere." He is, of course, an actual dog (one time member of the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Annihilators) whose powers have been weakened by a poison Skaarn used. Nova isn't alone as the story continues.

There are important pieces here, obviously, but a lot of the issue is dedicated to filling out the arc and to giving us just a little more character. The issue starts with Nova and Bill saving a damaged spaceship on their way out to Knowhere which leads into a story about how Bill nearly died saving his people once before being saved by another of the Nova Corps. The story is meant to inspire Nova and it clearly does enough of the trick as he recalls it when he brings down the War Bringer. This is Sam Alexander's real first experience with the things that are more his birthright, the deep cuts Marvel Cosmic stuff as he has now gone to Knowhere, dealt with Beta Ray Bill, and even met Cosmo, ratcheting the number of Guardians of the Galaxy he's met, past and present, up to three. This Nova is clearly going to be something interesting as we've now seen him deal with things on Earth, which he'll likely continue to do here and in NEW WARRIORS but he's still spending a good amount of time in space. Not often do characters drift between the two, usually preferring to stick to Earth or space. Could make him a pretty important cog in this universe.

Night of the Living Deadpool 4
Bunn (w) and Rosanas (a and c)

Deadpool finds himself seemingly alone now in a world filled with reluctant zombies, wondering how he turned zombie and back to kill everyone he was trying to save. He finds the zombie AIM agent he had met last issue and uses his head to direct the two of them to the AIR base, hoping that there would be some semblance of cure there. He gets there after a long and hard struggle and finds what appears to be the cure derived from clones of Deadpool himself. He doesn't have much time to celebrate as he's quickly overwhelmed by zombies. In a last ditch effort, he drinks as much cure as he can and allows himself to be eaten by the zombies. Anyone that bit him or was bitten by someone who bit him or so one and so forth ends up replacing their zombie tendencies and their mind with Deadpool's, making it essentially a plague of Deadpool now.

I've been very lukewarm about this book all the way through. I've thought some of the ideas were interesting, though the book was maybe a little overtly laden with references for me. I also liked the art and I'm kind of a sucker for black and white with only a specific splash of color, as this book had. It's hard to criticize this ending too much because, frankly, you don't see a lot of zombie related media ending well, or even ending at all. Sure sometimes people will get to some island, or embrace the zombies, or find some little hideaway home somewhere, but it doesn't explain anything major. No one has ever shown a real cure for zombies (aside from removing the head, destroying the brain) so, if nothing else, this one gets points for trying something new right as we got to the end. Of course, it's rather deus ex machina as a severed head directs Deadpool to the AIR lab and the lab has, in good condition, gallons of "cure" derived from Deadpool himself. Still, it's a bold choice, even if it's one that doesn't really track with me. Whatever, play by your own rules, I suppose. This style off-shoot Deadpool will return in DEADPOOL VS. CARNAGE.