So with the final release of the trailers for one of the coolest, uh, can we say superhero? ...Marvel Masked Entity with Questionable Morales, I thought I'd go through two of my least favourite Deadpool related comic series as I'm now finding this as an acceptable excuse to put aside what I'm currently reading and reread some old comics.
The first series does not exactly feature Deadpool, but it is still considered part of the series because the character in question was actually a replacement for Deadpool for a little while. Yes, "Agent X", the classic series that started in 2002. Now, 2002 saw a large trend in America. Adult Swim was becoming a late night hit, kicking off its run with more niche anime like the first broadcast of Cowboy Bebop, and eventually the premiere of InuYasha's English dub. The building popularity of gritty anime left an unfortunate impact on Agent X. While dips into other art styles and including non-American cultures was not a foreign (heh) concept to comics, Agent X just looks...stupid. The company behind this was UDON Entertainment, who not surprisingly work wit manga and manhwa.
What are the negative effects of this? Well...the art for one. Sandi, Deadpools secratary, has hair oddly similar to Aeris and breasts like Tifa, both of Final Fantasy VII fame. Other characters are equally goofy, sporty way too large shiny eyes, and spiky dramatic hair styles that would make Maester Seymore proud. The faux-anime art style clashes with the incredibly dull colours that make up the comic. It favours browns, grays, and navys, while the actual Deadpool series is bright and vivid, making use of bold primary colours. Another bad area the comic slips into is white-washing. Agent X goes by the name "Alex Hayden" but apparently is also named "Nijo Minamiyori". It feels incredibly Marty-Stu and reminds me of all those MySpace kids who had profiles saying "Hi my name is Zach Kuwabara Neko Gintama but my friends call me Vash or Kuro Lestat". Stop. But this isn't the only case of "this random white dude is secretly Japanese". Nope, most of the villains are white guys with Japanese names. The main offender is "Saguri", a woman with magenta hair and green eyes, wearing a traditional Chinese dress, wielding a samurai sword and using phrasing like "respectfully" and "___-sama". Basically a weeaboo Sansa Stark. Her boss, Higashi, is a Japanese crime lord who for some reason has facial tattoos. See, the thing about the Japanese gangster mentality and tattoos... Yakuza get full body tattoos that can be hidden under office attire. I've never seen one with extensive facial tattoos. Especially since they get them done in the traditional method of Japanese tattooing, I don't even think you can get a head tattoo! This comic screams of a sudden addition of perceived Japanese culture for edginess. While it's not to an offensive level, it's really annoying and makes the creators look amazingly stupid.
The story is weak in itself, having the Deadpool knock-off having a ridiculously endless arsenal of resistance level superpowers that would instantly get him thrown out of an RPG for "god-moding"and being essentially a crime syndicate story mixed with "you absorbed his powers and memories" level stunts. Eventually, the series was canceled and ended with Deadpool just returning to save the day and run the Agent X industry that was created to replace him and the drama with his licence. It's a boring run in the series that is briefly joked about elsewhere in Deadpool's various comics, and is really not worth your time or effort at all.
The next one I'm going to trash is actually a little bit on the popular side. It's Cable and Deadpool, another unfortunate cum dumpster for Rob Liedfeld. You know you've done something wrong when your most notable work is Youngbloods. His artistic ineptitude has ruined countless comics, and this one is no exception, except that this one also has the unfortunate addition of being not amusing at all.
I'm serious, the story is just completely uninteresting! It starts off with a cult that wants to turn everyone blue. And while its ripe with stupidity like that, Deadpool is also missing a lot of his wit. I remember that this was the first Deadpool series that I read and I hated it. People told me Deadpool was such a classic and he was witty and hilarious. But none of that translates into this series. It is a slog to get through and while it's only 50 issues, it feels like I'm reading Dune.
I suppose I have less to say on the story than I did Agent X because I read Cable and Deadpool a while back and I have no desire to do so again. I'm unsure of if I even finished the series or if I just skipped through to the end so I could go back to X-Men. Even articles going through the history of Deadpool don't linger long on this series. It's an unfunny disappointment.
I really recommend the Deadpool titles by Joel Kelly. I'm going back through those now, and they are everything you expect Deadpool to be. It's witty, funny, and startlingly brutal, with plenty of meta jokes to go around. And don't for Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe and Killustrated!
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