Meme with a Mouth: Spider-Man/Deadpool #1 by Kelly, McGuinness, Morales & Keith

Like many fans, I suspect, who have returned to reading monthly superhero comics later on in their life, I went through a phase where I was convinced that this stuff, essentially modern myth (and on the Marvel side, bold and confrontational allegories for modern issues), was for children. My prime years of devouring Marvel books, sixth through tenth grade, went behind me when I started noticing swaying hips and my friends wanted to spend more time on video games than discussing Animal Man. 

The cover to Spider-Man/Deadpool #1.

Deadpool, as a character, is essentially born out of that impulse. Deadpool's characteristics, on the surface, are "kewl" enough to stop the heart of the most dedicated MLGito consumer. He's a ninja clad in red and black, wielding twin pistols and dual katana blades. He's a trained, cold-blooded killer with both. He's got a tragic backstory involving the Weapon X program and cancer. If you thought most of that was over the top, wait until Wade Wilson opens his mouth.

Deadpool is more than your typical snark-machine in a comic, doling out far more zingers and bon mots than Peter Parker and Johnny Storm combined. He frequently mocks whoever he's working alongside and whoever he's fighting. He's made gay jokes to ghosts of dead Presidents, and he's proven his 2016 bonafides by professing to be an open pansexual. The "Merc with a Mouth" breaks the fourth wall so much in any given comic (or film, or video game) that there basically isn't one. Reading one of his stories is akin to having Damon Lindelof over your shoulders as you watch The Leftovers telling you, "yeah, this shit is dumb." I suspect he's connected with, and helped the House of Ideas retain, many teenage boys specifically because reading Deadpool so often feels like being a teen in practice: you're cursing, you're fighting, you're trying hard to convince everyone that the world around you is fake while clawing desperately for substance, and you're talking about sex a lot while not having much of it. To read the adventures of Wade Wilson is to be actively encouraged to not care, but also urged to continue reading.

A character that abrasive and off-putting really only works if the one-liners come both fast and furiously. In certain runs, such as Brian Posehn's Marvel Now! run on Deadpool, the character and his interactions with S.H.I.E.L.D. veer so far into absurdity that you can't help but be charmed. In the 2013 video game, Deadpool went all Devil May Cry on villains while the game around him featured plenty of mixed genres and asides to the player. 3 days before release, Tim Miller's Deadpool features an 82% Fresh rating. All signs point to it working well as a low-stakes superhero farce from a studio that can't seem to do anything else right with Marvel properties (WHERE U @, JOSH TRANK). In other books, such as the abysmal 2015 miniseries Mrs. Deadpool & the Howling Commandos, and the relaunch low-point Uncanny Avengers, the character stands out as a dramatic dead end. The latter book, the undeniable sixth finger on Marvel's handful of Avengers-themed books at the moment, featured a debut issue with Spider-Man leaving the new team because of a rift with Deadpool. I wish Wade had taken the hint.

In the first issue of Spider-Man/Deadpool #1, the character doesn't work at all. For those unfamiliar, the ongoing dynamic with Spider-Man and Deadpool is that Spidey hates Deadpool, while Deadpool loves Spidey. Subtextually, this should work. There is no character more representative of "old Marvel" and the values associated with traditional superheroics than Spider-Man. There should be interesting friction between Mr. Responsibility and Mr. Dank Memes. However, everything between the two characters is entirely surface-level, Odd Couple stuff that doesn't quite fit. At this point, Peter Parker has teamed up with Squirrel Girl and Silk. Would he really be that annoyed by Deadpool?

Local men ruin everything.

It doesn't help that, in recent months, Spidey has been drained of everything that made him the perfect foil for Deadpool. In reframing Peter Parker as the Elon Musk of the Marvel Universe, he's not exactly the common man we're used to anymore. Why is he fighting Hydro-Man at the outset of this issue anyway? Deadpool dragging Spider-Man to Hell to face off with Dormammu confuses the adventures of both of these characters while also cheapening a villain that Marvel should be ramping up for the release of a certain film about the Sorcerer Supreme later this year.

The plot is serviceable, but because Deadpool pulls an already-struggling character into his vacuum of LOLZ, it ultimately services a tone-deficient machine. The art by Ed McGuinness is clear and crisp, but Dormammu is a little too abstract to be feared.

WHY WOULDN'T DORMAMMU JUST LEVITATE THEM?

Like the titular character's approach to joke-telling, Marvel is quickly putting out as many Deadpool books as they can print at this point, to gear up for his big screen resurgence. Unlike Deadpool's sexuality, however, I suggest you be a bit selective when it comes to books like Spider-Man/Deadpool.

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