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DEADPOOL #57
"Deadpool: Agent of Weapon X Part 1: Facelift"
Mildly Recommended (5/10)
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Marvel Comics
Writer: Frank Tieri
Pencils: Georges Jeanty
Inks: Jon Holdredge & Dexter Vines
Colors: Tom Chu
Letters: Sharpefont
Editor: Mike Marts
Price: $2.25 US/$3.50 CAN |
Don't be fooled... the cover says Deadpool: Agent of Weapon X #1, but it's basically just Deadpool #57, with Tieri continuing the style that Palmiotti and Scalera brought to the book and bringing in his own touches, fresh from such books as Wolverine and Iron Man. Tieri often starts off strong, and this is no
exception, with a decent reinvention of the Weapon X program and a mildly funny
version of Deadpool, but I'm wary of his ideas flaming out early as they have in
his other stories, and there's still no getting around the fact that without Joe
Kelly, this book just hasn't recovered the style it once had.
The Weapon X project is one of those
concepts that never appears the same whenever it appears. Larry Hama had a
version, Barry Windsor-Smith had a version, Mark Millar has a version and now
Frank Tieri has a version, and they're all pretty much different things
entirely. Tieri's version of Weapon X is a covert government organization, using
mutants for missions and enhancing their powers, in a familiar but still
enjoyable type of structure, and I liked his use for cast-off, third-rate
mutants as more dangerous operatives in the prologue.
Unfortunately, once Deadpool enters the picture, the book begins looking even more familiar. Specifically, it looks pretty much like the last few issues of Palmiotti/Scalera Deadpool, or Tieri's Wolverine, which is to say that it feels a little
generic and uninspired. Tieri does a fairly decent job with Deadpool's constant
wisecracks and use of the image inducer, but like the creative teams before him,
he's pretty much just doing half-hearted copies of what Kelly introduced, and
earning laughs based on remembered gags rather than creating a new type of
humor. Also, while Deadpool's power modification certainly gives him motivation
to give up, there are some logic problems involved in thinking about how his
cancer-related powers would have really grown and why some body parts need to be
cut off before improving while others just improve.
Jeanty does a nice job on the artwork here, and while the work isn't as impressive as his story in this week's Wildstorm Summer Special, it's still pretty nice stuff.
His storytelling fundamentals are solid, he's able to convey humor and action
visually, and he's got nice designs for all of the characters. He's once again
stuck on a book with a character I don't like, but I keep hoping one day this
talented penciller will find himself on a bigger name book.
On the whole, if you've been enjoying Deadpool, you'll enjoy this. But if you're hoping for a
return to the days when this was a somewhat dark book with a direction and
something genuinely new about it, you'd probably better wait until Gail Simone
comes aboard and shows us what she can do with it.
Email Randy Lander comments about this review. |
