Deadpool/Wolverine #1
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Joshua Cassara
Color Artist: Guru-eFX
Letterer: VC's Joe Sabino
Editor: Mark Basso
After I felt let down with one of Marvel's #1 offerings last week, I wanted to give the company another opportunity to wow me with this week's Deadpool/Wolverine #1. And wow me it did — this is definitely a book on the right track!
Deadpool team-up books are usually a solid read; Joe Kelly, Robbie Thompson, and Joshua Corin's Spider-Man/Deadpool ranking among the top team-up comics ever. I still have a screenshot saved to my phone of those two heroes wearing ugly Christmas sweaters reciting the "bad boys for life" lines from Bad Boys. Deadpool is the merc with the mouth, and he absolutely needs a straight man in his comedy duo.
And here, that straight man is Marvel mainstay Wolverine, fresh off of numerous other monthly titles where he just wants to be left alone. After an action-packed opening in which Deadpool interrupts a gangster's funeral to steal the corpse's teeth (it's tastefully done, I think), he's triggered into becoming a zombie by nanobots.
In Canada, Wolverine's usual drinking-in-a-bar-but-then-also-fighting shenanigans are interrupted by this possessed Deadpool, who drags him away to actually nuke South Dakota. It happens, and people (probably) die. It's one hell of a way to open an issue.
Along the way, the two commit violence on each other, encounter old X-pest merc Maverick (writer Ben Percy's favorite character from his Wolverine comics), uncover their own tombstones, rediscover the Legacy virus, and get caught up in a plot involving the code designation "X-cutioner," a term that can indicate one of two villains is behind this all. And at the end, the big reveal is one of them — I won't say which!
With Percy, I know I'm in good hands. His recent Wolverine and X-Force runs were tops, and he's got novels out there as well — so he's not figuring this writing thing out as he goes. He's a really hot talent, and he brings it all to this number-one issue. The action was never drawn out to fill pages, and the dialogue was crisp from panel to panel. This issue could have been twice as long, and I still would have asked for more.
And Joshua Cassara is no slouch either! Inventive camera angles, diligent pacing, and tons of details. He's been deep in the X-books for a while, doing X-Force, X Lives of Wolverine, and X-Men, and Deadpool/Wolverine just continues a winning streak. The combo of Percy's crackling dialogue (even when Deadpool is in zombie mode and not spouting quips, I didn't feel it lagged at all) and this great Cassara/Guru-eFX art made for a fantastic issue. I could read this all day.
This is Percy's first time out on a Deadpool book (although he did write him in the pages of Wolverine), so I'm excited to see him get a turn at the full-time Wade Wilson team-up wheel. Honestly, this might have been the most fun book I've read this week — so get on it!
Wolverine: 5/5
Deadpool: 4/5 (because he was possessed by nanobots)
Big villain reveal: 12/12 (figure it out when you read it!)
Funeral shenanigans: 5/5
Ben Percy and Maverick: Sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G
VERDICT: Let this book come home with you and pick up issue #2! Do it in memory of South Dakota!
