Ultimate Spider-Man: Deadpool

I almost wish, if only for half a moment, that Bendis would write a bad, nay, even a merely mediocre run of Ultimate Spider-Man, just so I’d have something new to say. “It’s just so good! You’ll love it!” Whatever, man. I’m losing all credibility over here. But, okay, why do I love it this time? I have an answer to that. Now and again, one of the series will focus on a character with whom I’m unfamiliar, and the author will seem to be so proud of having worked that character into the Ultimate continuity that the book just coasts on recognition factor without really trying to be actually good in its own right. In fairness, that plan has worked on me when I did recognize whatever new character it was, but for the many times when I do not, the laziness outshines everything else.

Except this time, not so much. I’m not particularly familiar with Deadpool, and really all I know about him is that in the Wolverine movie earlier this year, he was maybe kind of indestructible? That character is largely dissimilar to this one, in any event. But, and here’s the part where I fulfill the inevitable gushiness quotient, Bendis went ahead and wrote a fine plot around the advent of Ultimate Deadpool. See, Spider-Man gets mixed up in a plot to murder the X-Men on broadcast television[1], and this guy Deadpool is the main hunter. But despite all kinds of mutant powers and explosions of exactly the types that a superhero comic needs to have to maintain credibility[2], most of the focus is on Peter and the delightfully unconfident Kitty Pryde, his recent paramour. Because, as has consistently been the case throughout the USM run, Peter Parker’s life is the important thing; super-villains and web fluid alike take the back seat. This is why it works. But also, Aunt May has a hot date, so I guess maybe it isn’t always about Pete after all. Then, for a change of pace, vampires! And more friendship trouble with Mary Jane! And the Kingpin! But I’ll glance at that last bit in my next review.

[1] Which is actually a callback to a previous UXM storyline, but I forget which one. It was alright, in any event.
[2] Unlike me, you see, is the thread tying this review together.

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