Published on: May 7th, 2008
Written by: Fabian Nicieza, Joe Kelly, Mark Waid, Joe Madureira
Art by: Rob Liefeld, Ian Churchill, Lee Weeks, Ed McGuinness
Marvel Comics, 264 Pages
Review:
I recently re-read Cable & The New Mutants, which collected Cable’s first appearance and his first big story arc as the new leader of the New Mutants team before the roster was shaken up and rebranded as the original incarnation of X-Force. I enjoyed revisiting it, so I figured that I’d also pick up the earliest stories of Rob Liefeld’s other greatest creation, Deadpool.
This collection really does start at the beginning, as the first chapter is issue #98 of The New Mutants, which was the first appearance of Deadpool. Who, awesomely enough, showed up to kill Cable.
The New Mutants #98 was also the first appearance of two other Liefeld creations: Domino and Gideon. However, and not to spoil anything, but this isn’t the real Domino, we wouldn’t meet her for another two years and this character was Copycat posing as Domino. Copycat, for those who don’t know, is actually Vanessa Geraldine Carlysle… the same Vanessa that’s played by Morena Baccarin in the Deadpool movies.
After Deadpool’s quick debut, we get into The Circle Chase storyline, which was Deadpool’s first solo story and his debut self-titled series. This takes place after 20-plus issues of X-Force, as Copycat has been exposed and is parading around as herself in this story. This tale also features the villain team up of Black Tom Cassidy and Juggernaut with a bunch of other villains and assassins also thrown into the story.
The story after that features Black Tom and Juggernaut again but this time Deadpool has help from Banshee and his daughter Siryn. In this story, Black Tom is being torn apart from his strange physical condition and he needs Deadpool’s DNA to cure his painful ailment.
The last story is just the first issue of what was the first ongoing Deadpool comic book series. It’s a quick read but the highlight is seeing Deadpool square off with Sasquatch of Alpha Flight.
These early stories were cool to revisit but Deadpool, as a character, hadn’t quite been fleshed out to his regular level of greatness by this point. But being that he is a unique character, it took the writers some time to figure out what he was supposed to be.
Deadpool hadn’t found his groove yet but this is still entertaining and a precursor to the character’s greatness. And thing’s do get better after this.
Rating: 6.5/10
Pairs well with: The end of the original New Mutants run and the first two years of the original X-Force run.
Talking Pulp 