Guess who’s got two thumbs and is up to Volume Ten after only 33 years in comics? Your Major Spoilers review of Deadpool #1 from Marvel Comics awaits!

DEADPOOL #1

Writer: Cody Ziglar
Artist: Rogê Antônio
Colorist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: VC’s Joe Sabino
Editor: Ellie Pyle
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: April 3, 2024

Previously in Deadpool: They call him the Merc with the Mouth, the Regenerating Degenerate… the man called Deadpool! His powers can heal any wound, but that doesn’t apply to a broken heart. After recent events, Deadpool and his symbiote-dog partner/daughter, Princess, are out and about, breaking heads and the fourth wall, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his life.

TIME-JUMP INTIATED

After the previous volume ended with Deadpool as part of a new mercenary group, along with his beau, Valentine, we pick up an unknown amount of time later. Wade is once again working solo, or as solo as you can be when you also have a giant pet symbiote who follows you around. It’s just another story of a boy and his dog and the people that they are killing for money. Deadpool’s target, sadly, ends up being able to create teleportals, leading him and Princess on a wild goose chase that only ends when Deadpool leaps through a final portal… to find his quarry already dead at the hands of ANOTHER masked madman. When the stranger strikes a killing blow on Deadpool, he thinks that everything is over, but he’s not the first man to make that mistake. He is, however, part of a strange little cult that has been seeking a man who cannot die.

I’m sure there’s no unspeakably evil reason why.

STORIES LEFT TO BE TOLD

The thing about this issue that bothers me is that Deadpool decides that he wants to build his own guild of assassins again, after The Atelier in the previous volume and the various takes on the Mercs for Money. It’s a lampshade-hanging moment that somehow feels too obvious, even in a book where the main character breaks the fourth wall repeatedly. The positive bit of the story is that it manages to capture a little bit of the super-successful Deadpool movies, putting Wade at a low point that reminds me of Deadpool 2’s opening sequence, and giving us an action set piece reminiscent of the first film. Antônio’s art is quite good, not just in that action sequence, but in the emotions of a postscript wherein he visits his daughter, Ellie, and gives her a phone that will allow her to call and talk to him anytime, anywhere. Combine that with the presence of Princess (who looks like Carnage, acts like a puppy, and eats bastards alive) and you’ve got a book that hooks a reader with style.

BOTTOM LINE: THE OL’ JUMPING-ON POINT

The old-school fan in me wishes that the tenth Deadpool #1 were actually just #336, but new readers should be able to climb on here without too much of a knowledge gap, and the clean, expressive art does good things for ol’ Wade, especially as he tries to work out his feelings with a whole lot of “keelings,” earning 3.5 out of 5 stars overall. I do want to know what happened to The Atelier, Valentine, and the Deathstrikes, though, and hope that there is a satisfying answer.

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DEADPOOL #1

70%

70%

Violent, Puzzling Fun

Deadpool has lost everything save for his alien symbiote dog, but that actually makes for a fun issue, especially when he stumbles onto a villain who is ready to bring the fight to him.

• Writing

  7
• Art

  7
• Review

  7
• User Ratings (0 Votes)
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