Deadpool: Wade Wilson's War by Duane SwierczynskiMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
So, I've heard a lot about this title and expected magic. What I got was underwhelming and over-hyped. The four issues start with Wade Wilson - our favourite merc with the mouth - being dragged into court and making a farcical case for himself. People are dead (this is a Deadpool book, of course they are), and the courts want justice.
Unfortunately their only living witness is the survivor from hell. Deadpool inexplicably complicates, meanders and pads up a tale about how the Weapon X programme turned him into a monster and then got him involved in a covert group of assassins who were sent on secret missions by the US government. We would love to believe him... but we can't.
Panels don't always match DP's narrative, nor do other people's reports of his and the group's activities. The story moves to and fro between the present and the past, trying to make a way around DP's crazed banter and the unending fourth-wall breakers.
Less is more, says the old adage, and I think that is something the writers should have taken into account when creating this series. Far too many, often forced, attempts at humour dilute the text. It feels like they were more interested in making this a four issue joke, then a spectacular tale with a twist.
Less is also more when it comes to art; and the art over here is appalling. I mean, there's a reason why I veer away from most comics, you cannot stomach the ridiculous shapes they draw and refer to as women. Nope, not gonna happen. If they were trying to allude to the fact that this is what a person's imagination would make the female characters look like, then you still fail, because you're not calling yourself out on it.
You know what's great about this book, the last page. Not because you end your own suffering (there's that), but because it is the one spark of brilliance in an otherwise tedious piece of work. It's gobsmackingly clever and enthralling, and makes you wish the rest of the 100-odd pages had worked a little harder to tickle and excite your brain into wondering if there's going to be a twist, or leading you to predict it.
All that and more are possible, even in comics and graphic novels; unfortunately, the writers didn't try hard enough to do it in this one.
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