Wednesday Already

Cable & Deadpool #37
Marvel Comics

Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Artist: Staz Johnson

At first I was a little frustrated that I picked up nothing but books that are in the middle of ongoing storylines, but then it occurred to me so much the better. If this column is supposed to reflect the accessibility of comics nowadays, why not make it as challenging as possible.

This brings us to the latest issue of Cable & Deadpooyou know what? I’m just going to type “and” from now on, because hitting shift + 8 to make an ampersand is a huge pain in the ass.

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Cable AND Deadpool! Yes! So we pick up in what appears to be part two of a two-issue storyline (oh fuck remember those). Deadpool wakes up in a hospital bed after being drugged by some woman at a bar, and wakes up after having been exposed to Pym particles, thus being shrunk to about an inch tall.

So again, Deadpool hits up a hooker at the bar (offering her eight dollars) and wakes up Ant-Man size.

God, I love comics.

I was a little big confused about the overall plot of the book, I guess it ties in to a previous storyline where ‘Pool shrunk The Rhino down and fit him to a keyring (amazing), and there’s the question of if Cable has top-billing in this book, why the hell isn’t he, you know, IN IT? But I don’t like Cable anyway, and i’m assuming he’s caught up in the X-Books right now, leaving Nicieza to play with Deadpool and his subplots. Which, again, serves me fine.

I was a huge fan of Joe Kelly’s Deadpool series in the 90’s, but after it got entirely too dark during the second year, I had to drop it and haven’t looked back since. This book really sold me on the humor, though it was a little confusing at parts, and didn’t really give me a clear idea of what the book is about. Still, if Nicieza writes this good of a Deadpool every issue, I might even be able to stand Cable farting around and having large shoulderpads.

Pull or Drop?

Pull. But again, this is more or less a filler issue. A damn good one, but filler none-the-less. Once Cable turds his way into the book again, we’ll see how long it stays on the pull list. Yes I used “turd” as an adjective. My mom will be thrilled.

New Avengers #27

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Leinil Yu

I dropped New Avengers, and everything else on my list, a while back. I’d poked around online and heard this issue would be a decent jumping-on point, what with the Civil War tie-ins winding down, and the debut of the new team.

Well, the new team doesn’t show up until the end of the issue, but it’s a solid enough read.

The book belongs to Maya Lopez, or Echo. Oh, and Ronin. Except Ronin is in the Avengers at the end of the book, only isn’t Lopez. Except Lopez is Ronin up until then in flashbacks. We don’t know who the new Ronin is, like we didn’t know Echo was Ronin at first but now we do, but now she isn’t anymore. ISN’T THIS FUN? The thrust of the book is that Echo is exactly where we left her earlier in the run: taking care of the Hand’s involvement in Japan, and posing as a male ninja named Ronin. The Hand, now led by Elektra, is SUPER PISSED at Maya/Ronin for getting all up in their Kool-Aid and wants her dead.

So they kill her. And then bring her back to life. It’s what they do, you know. As an aside it kind of irked me that Maya was apparently wearing her Echo outfit underneath the Ronin mansuit. I don’t know why that bothers me more than a ninja woman wearing a MAN SUIT and still being able to fight comfortably and well, but I digress.

BOY DO I EVER DIGRESS.

They bring her back to life, and the narrative of the book is an email to (blind, lol) Matt Murdock asking her to track her down and kill her, as she must be either dead or under Hand control if the email was sent.

Bendis’ writing is solid, as I said. The banter (actually bantering about banter) between the Avengers is a little clunky to me, but he still writes the best Spider-Man in the industry. The Star Wars reference absolutely slayed me. The mystery as to who is THE NEW RONIN THIS TIME doesn’t really affect me that much, but he’s making it pretty difficult to figure out at this point.

The team itself hasn’t gelled with me yet, but seeing Iron Fist and Luke Cage side-by-side is worth the price of the book itself. Dr. Strange in the Avengers is a little weird, but i’m excited by it. I just hope he gets utilized well. What an amazing character, and putting him on a team is a bold move, just like Spidey was when New Avengers launched.

It annoyed me that because Civil War still hasn’t wrapped, things like the team roster and Spidey being in the black costume again are still unexplained, but it gave the book a certain level of excitement to me.

Yu isn’t my cup of tea art-wise, but it’s fine.

Soooo Pull or Drop?

Pull. For now anyway. The fact that so much is up in the air is interesting enough to keep me with it, but we’ll have to see how it pans out. I think the book was a decent enough jumping-on point for new readers. But a team book like this is a hard thing to get people immersed in if they aren’t familiar with the characters. Also: God why is Wolverine in this book WHY WHY WH