Night Of The Unliving Monks — Reviewing ‘Deadpool’ #14

Death and the mercenary with a mouth are really old friends. Clearly, the word dead is even in his codename. Not to mention there was that whole thing where he was trying to win the hand of Death herself by taking on Thanos the Mad Titan.

Anyway, death is close at hand again as Deadpool and Daughters (and that grumpy Uncle Taskmaster) are thick in their revenge big against the villainous Deathgrip. Too bad he’s using death as a trick against hem and has this whole healing factor destroying sword shoved inside of himself magically. Comics!

It’s the penultimate chapter, meaning things are action-packed, of this run of Deadpool from Cody Ziglar, Rogê Antônio, Guru-eFX, and Joe Sabino.

So much roughness. Tonally but also artistically, just as planned and necessary. Tapping Antônio for this series was an inspired choice. Rogê nails all the emotionally impactful sequences while delivering top notch action sequences, finding that perfect bullseye where roughness and smoothness gather to dance happily together.

Not to mention there is plenty of weight on the page. Meaning things have a hefty feeling to them from the depth and level of detail. Giving the aforementioned fight scenes even more presence and allowing the world to feel adequately lived within.

Accompanying this artwork are colors playing in the same sandbox.

Guru-eFX goes for a darker palette with a variety of flashier, but toned down still, colors mixed in for good measure. It matches the darker tone of the story (there are undead cultists killed by their leader and used as bombs here) and the world Wade Wilson inhabits regularly.

Despite my grumbly feeling about this series ending, Ziglar has crafted himself quite a good run here. It’s short, compared to many books, but compact and tells a good story. It’ll be a good one to go back and read at any point because most of it’s so contained it can be kind of timeless, outside of a few references here or there.

Where we started to where we are is pretty cool. With the father & daughter(s) stuff still at the forefront, having evolved greatly. I really hope that Ellie as Deadpool and Princess stick around for quite some time, as they are just delightful. Ziglar naturally has such a good sense for writing characters and finding the humor in things. Helpful, since he’s a comedy writer on the regular.

In the end, this was a delightful action sequence issue decorated with spot on humor befitting the characters involved. Just the right situation to almost wrap the series with. Especially that wild ending.

Ziglar provides the humor through dialogue, and Sabino makes it sing even more. He drops in the right uses of shifting fonts, colors, and other modifications to get the message across. He slides it all around onto the best positions on the page to maximize the view of the rest of the artwork, punching a hole through the various walls along the way because it’s got the right amount of power behind it.

Deadpool #14 is now available from Marvel Comics.