2 out of 5

This book is a bit of a chore to get through.  I’m giving it an extra nod (via that 2 instead of 1) because it’s a nice-sized presentation and doesn’t take the usual “big-issue” route of one story plus reprinting an origin issue.  There is a re-print in the back, but it seems like a random moment from Deadpool’s career, and so is welcomed as a random piece of the package.  Plus – I think DP fans probably would like the included stories, and the team / person that put it together put forth the effort of having it have the overall hacky/wacky feel of a Deadpool comic.  So.  Effort noted.

What’s inside –

Close Encounters of the @*#$ed-Up Kind by Jason Aaron and Chris Staggs – pretty generic but competent art (matching the penciller choices for Deadpool over his career, following in Ed McGuiness’s big-figure big-color ways), Aaron gives us a few pages of aliens picking up humans for testing and, whoops, grabbing Deadpool.  Cue some predictable anal probe jokes.  The pacing is quick but the jokes feel rather forced, but – see above – I feel like that’s how Deadpool is written, so there you go.

Silent But Deadly – Fred Van Lente and Dalibor Talajic – goddamn perfect, and the kind of loose, creative, not-concerned with continuity stuff I wish Lente was allowed to write (and did get to, here and there, in Spider-Man), and Talajic’s art has a gorgeous Chris Samnee feel to it, expressive characters with an edge of pop to it, darkened up with the blottier inking style.  An almost wordless story about some killer mimes.  Hilarious and random, which is also how I wish Deadpool was written.  But I guess anal probe jokes are easier.

Shrunken Master – Mike Benson and Damion Scott.  Scott delivers the most unusual look here, sort of the anime expressiveness of Skottie Young mixed with a Paul Popey sloppy indie look.  It’ s a nice diversion, but the story – about DP going to a therapist – is rather boringly written with clumsy jokes in the dialogue (and a rather unfortunate “serious” twist that doesn’t match the overall tone of the book), so the art becomes boring to sift through as well, especially as its mostly muted with tired blue colors.  I… think…? Scott also penciled Robin for a while, and I didn’t like the art there, either (horrible – to my eye – layout, just overly confusing), so perhaps the writing has nothing to do with, or they work together for a wonderful concert of boredom.

Pinky Swear – Joe Kelly and Rob Liefeld.  Looking forward to this, as Kelly’s run on Deadpool helped define, moreso, how crazy he is and also brought Joe to the fore as a go-to funnyman, and Deadpool’s much-maligned creator on pencils… but this is a pretty dumb short also.  The jokes are, again, overly scatalogical and pretty obvious, the art is what you’d expect from Liefeld (which is part of the “joke” but doesn’t make it any more exciting), and the story – DP follows up on a bet he made in school – doesn’t really… go anywhere…

What Happens in Vegas… – Duane Swierczynski and Shawn Crystal.  Again, appealingly unique art – Shawn has more of an indie book style, like an angry and sloppier Brian Hurtt – but Duane turns in a stupid script that’s a “satire” of CSI type shows and has some Hangover-themed jokes.  Stupid, a bore, insulting to read almost.  Sorry.

Great Balls of Thunder on the Deep Blue Sea – Victor Fischler and Sanford Greene.  Poppy-style DP pencils again.  This is a fun and distracting bit about DP going on vacation and trying to relax, but, y’know, relaxation = people ending up dead.  Not a laugh riot, but visually amusing and the script is chuckle worthy.

One Down – Charlie Huston and Kyle Baker – a meta-ish story about Deadpool trying to end his life.  Really off-putting computer art by Baker, and Huston seems to completely miss the point of the dual internal narratives.

Lastly, a reprint of “Deadpool Team-Up #1: Deadpool and Widdle Wade” by James Felder and Pete Woods.  This is probably from the late 90s, so it was a while ago for Woods and, yeah, he’s grown a bit.  He draws here in that 90s Marvel style of bigm poppy pencils (but again, that’s also the Deadpool thing), and it’s not really much to look at – blocky figures, blocky panels, blocky colors.  James Felder’s script jumps all over the place, but Deadpool was also sane at this point, so there’s continuity in the story that seems out of place.  Still, who’s been able to read this book in the 50 years, so it’s nice that they reprinted it here.

And then the book ends on a funny note with a reprint of all 900 issues of Deadpool… 201-900 of which are fakes, and so are printed super tiny so you can’t tell what’s on them.

Most of the stories, you’ll notice, I was pretty ho-hummed on, but I accept that most of these guys “got” how Deadpool is written – crude and stupid and violent – so props to the collection for getting several known names in the comic field to contribute original stories, and for 5 bucks, its quite a bit of text and pictures.