Thursday, October 8, 2015

Thursdays With Wade: Joe Kelly's Deadpool Revisited Part 7




Today’s reading: Deadpool #8
Story: Joe Kelly
Art: Pete Woods, Ed McGuinness, Shannon Denton and John Fang
 

Mary, we’ve been together for a couple weeks now. Remember that time we broke you out of that mental-health facility and you hired a gender-fluid psychic monster to take us out? Or that time you tricked us into tagging along on your revenge spree across New York?

My point is, it’s time for us to break up.

Deadpool #8 wraps the book’s second big arc, revolving around that whirlwind of psychotic chaos otherwise known as Typhoid Mary. Mary turns the tables on Wade’s quest to help her face her demons by killing civilians to show Wade he can’t “fix” her. Two die, two get saved. All the while, she teases him by calling him hero, treating the term with all the disdain of the four-letter word it technically is. Finally, she tells him Siryn was wrong about him, and Wade beats the ever-loving crap out of her, leaving her bleeding and barely conscious on the floor of a dive bar in Queens. Because as funny as this book can be, it can also be just as violently dark.

Making a return appearance this issue are Zoe, Noah and Montgomery from the interdimensional firm of Landau, Luckman & Lake. The three spend a couple panels watching Wade and Mary fight, until Zoe decides she can take no more and leaves for Chicago, “to fix things.” It will take Zoe two issues to get there, as she does not show up again until issue #10.

Issue #8 also gives us another random scene of Gerry the Bum. This time, for seemingly no reason, San Francisco’s residence-less old hippie is in Paris, talking to a stranger on a park bench about the truth behind The X-Files, which was at the height of its popularity at the time. The scene is scripted in French, but a page at the back of the issue reprints the conversation in English. It has seemingly no bearing on the plot. Or does it?

Next week we’ll be tackling issues #9, a standalone face-off against a new villain, and #10, a romp with the Great Lakes Avengers. The week after will be devoted to what may be my favorite single Deadpool comic of all time.

For those of you reading along at home, issue #8 is the last in the Deadpool Classic Vol. 2 trade. If you want to keep reading and don’t have the single issues, you can find issues #9-17 in Deadpool Classic Vol. 3, which goes for $22.22 on Amazon. Or if you’ve got the dough, you can buy the entire Kelly run in one hardcover omnibus for $76.32. Or, you know, digital.
 
 
In addition to writing for The Matt Signal, Dan Grote is now the official comics blogger for The Press of Atlantic City. New posts appear Wednesday mornings at PressofAC.com/Life. His new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He and Matt have been friends since the days when Onslaught was just a glimmer in Charles Xavier's eye. Follow @danielpgrote on Twitter.

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