written by Joe Kelly
drawn by Ed McGuinness (p) and Mark Morales (i)
colored by Jason Keith
When Marvel's premier superhero, who also happens to be one of its chattiest, meets up with its renowned, patently amoral Merc-with-a-mouth, sparks, and more importantly, one-liners, can be expected to fly.
Such is the case in Spider-Man and Deadpool, a team-up book of sorts between Marvel's one-time number one hero and its number one antihero, in which Deadpool whisks Spider-Man away from a fight with the villain Hydro-man in order to do battle with the ancient evil demigod Dormammu and his dreaded Mindless Ones. Upon their escape, Deadpool makes arguably the strangest proposition Spider-Man could imagine: he offers him a job. It's not exactly an offer Spidey can't refuse, but if he thought that was shocking, he should see what Deadpool's plans for Peter Parker are...
Kelly's story is a reasonably fun single issue tale that sets the stage for what's to come, and he's got a good feel for Spidey's patented snappy dialogue, as well as his new status quo as CEO of his own company. Of course, Kelly is regarded as a definitive Deadpool writer, so I would imagine his characterization is spot-on, though as a causal Deadpool fan at best, I don't really have that much basis for comparison. Still, the story wasn't all that outstanding. The real draw for me here was Ed McGuinness, whose work I've liked for some time.
The good news here is that, not only does McGuinness live up to his billing as the quintessential Deadpool artist, he proves to be easily the best Spider-Man artist I've seen in quite some time, especially considering that the artists who worked on the title with any sort of regularity lately were limited to Humberto Ramos and Giuseppe Camuncoli, of whose work I am not the biggest fan. I had a hint of what McGuinness could do with the character from various covers he's drawn over the years, but this is the first time I've seen him do a full issue featuring the character, and the only question I find myself asking is why the heck Marvel didn't think of putting McGuinness on a Spider book sooner.
I had actually once imagined McGuinness an ill fit for Spider-Man considering his bulky depiction of Superman, but when I saw glimpses of how he would interpret the webslinger from appearances in other comic books, as well as various covers, I got the impression that he really could capture the sleekness and dynamism of the character. His variant cover for the Amazing Spider-Man relaunch back in April 2014 evoked John Romita Sr.'s work, and more and more I found myself wishing Marvel would give him a regular Spidey book, and almost two years on, my wish has been granted.
As first issues go, this one's pretty low-key, all things considered, but it seems that Kelly and McGuinness have big things in store, and I'm definitely on board for now.
8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment