Deadpool 27, Thunderbolts 24, All-New Ghost Rider 2

Deadpool 27
Posehn and Duggan (w) and Hawthorne (a) and Bellaire (c)
SO MANY OTHER STORIES: Duggan, Koblish, Staples, Posehn, Nicieza, Hepburn, Waid, McCrea, Elder, Kelly, Medina, Vlasco, Curiel, Priest, Henrichon, Palmiotti, Timms, Gandini, Tieri, Soy, Simone, A. Lee, Way, and Barberi

Deadpool is getting married and everyone's invited. The bride is a former prospective bride of Dracula and a current queen of monsters named Shiklah. Deadpool invites just about everyone (as evidenced by the Guinness Record breaking cover at left) and sets up the wedding in Central Park with Nightcrawler officiating. It's a nice ceremony with a nice and hero-filled reception wherein Deadpool finally has a nice day. However, Ultimatum, still after him for blowing up their helicarrier, thinks they've discovered his lost daughter.

This is a ten dollar issue so many people might write it off as a gimmicky issue. It may well be that BUT I can tell you that this one is understandable at ten dollars. On top of the record breaking cover (right, it's pretty cool but don't spend ten dollars just on that), there are about ninety pages in this book that features the regular sized wedding story and a week's worth of creators filling out the majority of the book with silly little throwaway stories about all the other times Deadpool has been married. It very much feels like creators were given the objective (tell a Deadpool-gets-married story) and were set loose, leading to a lot of fun and interesting stories. Of course, like any compilation of stories, some are going to be better or more attuned to your own tastes than others. Gail Simone adds a pair of solid stories in her return to the Marvel Universe (she'll also be writing on SAVAGE WOLVERINE, if memory serves, before too long). Other big names like Mark Waid, Christopher Priest, Frank Tieri, and longtime DEADPOOL scribe Daniel Way also contribute to the issue. Certainly worth thumbing through and, if you're a Deadpool fan, probably worth finding the money to drop on this one.

Thunderbolts 24
Soule (w) and P. Diaz (a) and Silva (c)

The Thunderbolts are on a new mission, one picked by General Ross. Years previous, a team of Ross' men had gone into the jungle in search of a weapon that could potentially bring down the Hulk. After enlisting the services of the reluctant crime boss who had led Ross' team into the forest long before, the team sets off. While on a boat into the jungle, Ross explains the mission to Elektra, revealing that he's looking for his team but has ulterior motives for why. Apparently one of his men had appeared to him on a plane and asked for him to return and find them, then wiped the plane from existence. Ross wants to find the men but also to make sure they don't strike against the world with whatever unearthly powers they may have now. While he tells this story, Deadpool decides to go for a swim, drawing the ire of a river monster lurking nearby. 'Pool escapes, though he's injured, as a woman claiming to know Ross parachutes in. She lands in the water and Ross instantly dives in to rescue her. Saved, she embraces and kisses Ross as she pulls a gun on him.

There's a lot of character development happening here for Ross, who typically keeps everything pretty close to the chest. The great thing about a team book is that character development for Ross also means character development for the rest of the team. We get a lot about Ross, including a little of the way that his mind works and what he holds important (like keeping people unaware that he's Red Hulk, even to the point of fighting a pair of much younger thugs to gain the services of the crime boss as the elderly Ross), but we also see some from Elektra as she accuses Ross of hiding things from the team that they need to know and as characters like Punisher and Leader specifically don't ask questions about what they're doing. Lots going on here and another interesting story to follow as Soule enters into what is likely his final arc on the book before Acker and Blacker take it over.


All-New Ghost Rider 2
F. Smith (w) and T. Moore (a) and Staples (c)

The Ghost Rider sets off to find the men who killed Robbie Reyes and blew up the car. He tracks their small envoy leaving the area and drives his car through one of the cars in their procession. Though it annihilates that group, he loses the others. He returns to Robbie's home and Robbie, completely healed, returns to his life, confused about what happened the night before. He returns to the body shop that night to see the car he remembered being shot up and destroyed returned to pristine condition. He decides to take it out again that night to see if he can shed some light on what happened. As he tries to leave, he's accosted by the same men who killed him the night before, a gang working for villain Mr. Hyde and selling drugs that seem to make people Hyde out (a la Hulk out, not like hideout) who are now missing some of the drugs from the night before. They attack Reyes only to have him Ghost Rider out and attack them instead. After dispatching them, Robbie drives to a junkyard and sees the reflection of Ghost Rider, asking what he is only to have Ghost Rider ask "what are we?"

Robbie's still getting his bearings and Smith has hit on an interesting idea here, making Robbie unsure of what Ghost Rider is and that he seems to be going through this transformation. Smith does a good job showing Robbie in something of a daze as he goes through his normal business the day after dying. He ignores the bullies who beat him up the day prior in school, he doesn't seem to realize that he's healed from said beating until it's brought to his attention, and he's just typically zoned out throughout the day. I think it's a really strong characterization to have that be his reaction rather than freaking out or even beginning to understand what's happened. Tradd Moore's art continues to be outstanding as it brings something of a cartoony element to it, almost at odds with the dark content of the book. It's almost a relief that this book is so dark but the art is so light. It gives ALL-NEW GHOST RIDER a different feel than any other sort of gritty and dark book out there, swapping out the blacks and grays and blurred characters for vibrant colors and sharply outlined people. Sometimes the action, which looks good, gets a little confusing as it feels like the book tries to do a little too much at once but it's easy to get past because it still looks good. This one's off to a strong start out of the gate and things are only going to get more interesting as Robbie pieces together what's happening.