There’s No Business Like Merc Business: Reviewing ‘Deadpool’ #2

Wade Wilson is a businessman! Not a great one, but every business owner has to start somewhere, even bad ones. At least he has (friend) Taskmaster (being paid) to help out.

Surely, nothing will go wrong for them or their clients in Deadpool #2. A story approved by the Deadpool company board members Cody Ziglar, Roge Antônio, Guru-eFX, and Joe Sabino.

After setting the tone for their run in the first issue, this team continues to move the pieces around to really get the game going. Plenty of action mercenary beats but also some really good building character moments, with just enough plot setup to wet the proverbial whistle.

Ziglar writes my favorite type of Deadpool. The version that quips and jokes while doing badass things, with light fourth wall breaking. Full of emotions, masked by his humor and bravado, while not just being a never-shutting-up joke machine. A lot of runs want to tap too far into that fourth wall breaking, and, to me, the second movie did that too much as well. There is breaking the fourth wall and there is obliterating that wall, and one of those is not fun at all.

I’m glad there are ties to the previous run, which I loved, while also momentum with his daughter Ellie who has been sidelined for years. Seeing that she might have some powers of her own and is on the hunt for her father is fun. As is the addition of Taskmaster, a character I’ve come to love more in recent years (mainly thanks to his mini-series from a few years ago).

Antônio brings such a good energy to the series with plenty of moments that are really solid, deeply detailed, and full of well-framed and kinetic energies. Especially the big fight scenes, keeping the reader right in the thick of things amongst the characters. It’s an art style that also has just a touch of rougher whimsical flairs that keeps up the fun energy high and clear. Paramount is how it makes sure that the story hits the right amount of violence, without having to be an R-Rated Marvel Max experience just for the sake of gory violence.

This plays quite well with the darker toned color palate that Guru-eFX brings to the page. Throwing in splashes of the brighter vibrant colors for some of the outlandish things, while not being afraid to scale them back at times. Letting shadows and lighting have a good effect on what costumes, spaces, or elements might look like at any given moment.

Having fun is paramount with a comedy drama book like this. Because it’s Wade, the lettering can go to a lot of really big spaces. Colorful bubbles, big fonts, shifting styles, bigger bubbles, and more. Tons of right there in the moment colorful SFX that get the point across like the tip of Wade’s katanas. Sabino just nails it, no matter what the book, finding the way to make it all work on the page while squeezing out every tiny bit of something there might be within.

Deadpool #2 is now available from Marvel Comics.