Last issue saw Dracula, the Headless Horseman, and even Huckleberry Finn bite the dust. Which beloved icons of fiction will Deadpool fustigate this month? Deadpool Killustrated #3: Is it Good?
Deadpool Killustrated #3 (Marvel Comics)
True to the cover, we open with Deadpool taking out a certain miserly nonagenarian from Charles Dickens lore. An act deplorable enough to have made Jack Kevorkian recoil in disgust:
Wade’s our boy but more and more with each issue Bunn affirms the fact that our protagonist is bat-shit demented; sure, it’s fun to see Deadpool take out other Marvel characters and ne’er-do-wells in his usual surroundings — but snuffing little kids, defenseless old men, and women with reckless abandon makes it a little tough to root for the guy, especially since his prevailing logic is selfish and tenuous at best. (Kill everyone in existence so that I can die.)
Now that we know what Bunn’s trying to pull though, a huge part of the fun in reading each Deadpool Killustrated comes from guessing which characters in classic literature the Marvel Universe ones are homages to/derivations of. Most will have you nodding, saying: “Makes sense,” “I should’ve known,” or in your English teacher’s case: “Ersatz, copy-catting swine. Is nothing sacred anymore?”
Then again, it can be argued that greater reverence is paid to the stories here than anything done by Disney or other adaptations. When most kids today hear the name Jungle Book they think the frolicsome weirdos from Disney’s animated enterprises and not the much darker vision of the Rudyard Kipling tales on which they’re based. And Bunn’s narrative certainly stays true to the original in that respect:
Although the book’s funniest moment comes when Deadpool takes out the Little Mermaid from Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale and divulges the corresponding Marvel character:
8.0
- Inventive kills.
- Proper reverence to the classics.
- Quality art by Mateo Lolli and vibrant colors from Veronica Gandini.
- Deadpool could be a tad funnier.
- Still no real interaction with the “main antagonists” so to speak.
Bunn might not be the most outwardly humorous of Deadpool writers, but that’s alright — in a book like this, I’d rather see inventive kills and story progression than forced puns and Bunn has made imaginative and cunning use of our dude. Finally we have a writer who has taken Deadpool’s inner voices and sublimated them into something… actually useful for once; here they have a purpose besides contrived jokes or debilitating and egregious bouts of inner turmoil. I won’t fully spoil the surprise, so I’ll just be all smooth and tell you that Deadpool’s “created a monster.” Bunn, you cheeky devil, you.
Is It Good?
Yes. Though we still have yet to see Deadpool’s “main antagonists” do anything besides lag a few steps behind his kills and remark on how crazy he is, the story is building towards something interesting and the twist thrown in this issue regarding Deadpool’s inner voice was inventive and bad-ass to boot. Will we get to see which character Bunn thinks Deadpool is based on besides Deathstroke the Terminator next issue or would that be giving Rob Liefeld far too much credit?
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