Fill-in comics are never expected to be good. They can be, but generally they do little more than give you something to pick up so the title doesn’t lose money for that month. It’s not a particularly flattering description, but after reading this comic, I’m not in the mood for flattery. I’m not angry, just deeply disappointed. Writer Joshua Corin and artist Will Robson give us a back-to-status-quo story with a “who asked for this?” gimmick – Spider-Man and Deadpool decide to not tell jokes and be serious about their crime fighting. We’ve seen Spider-Man drop the jokes before and every time he does it things get scary. Like, rip off someone’s face scary (never say Dan Slott won’t go dark when he wants to). We just had a handful of Joe Kelly/Ed McGuinness issues where Spider-Man stopped telling jokes. So to immediately open with another story where the joke/gimmick is that neither character is going to tell any jokes seems poorly planned.

The story starts out with your stock Spider-Man story beginning: Peter setting up a dinner date with Aunt May. We all know he’s not going to make it to that dinner, but this is really just a familiar cold open that Corin can immediately interrupt with an implied “when suddenly…!”. While on the phone, Peter is approached by (and I checked, this is a real name that people actually have) Ms. Colon. And what does the Lady Colon want from our webslinger? Why, the photo negatives from Peter’s first fight with the Vulture of course! Ignoring that it is very possible there were never any negatives of these images in the first place due to the sliding timeline and the rise of digital photography, this is a fight that took place around 13-14 years ago. Peter only briefly mentions that they might be lost, but then immediately acts as if they are most certainly still around, despite the Daily Bugle’s change in ownership and format. But the photo negatives are the McGuffin of choice, so ultimately it does not matter, but no story is served well by introducing plot holes right out the gate. Why does it need to be the first fight between Vulture and Spider-Man (aside from the obvious reason)?

As it turns out, Ms. Colon’s husband Ferraro was killed by a driver swerving during the Spider-Man/Vulture fight and the widow would like any image of her husband’s last moments she can find. Which begs the question… why now? Is this story supposed to seem fishy and full of holes? If so, nothing in the art or narration tips the reader as to how they are supposed to read this interaction, so we’re forced to read it at face value. Peter never doubts Ms. Colon, so the reader doesn’t know if they are supposed to doubt the story, or if this segment is just poorly constructed – which also makes it a poorly constructed scene, but for different reasons.

So, Peter, racked with guilt and comparing Mr. Colon’s death to Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy’s (rather than Captain Stacy, who similarly died as a bystander), swings to Jersey and happens to stumble upon Deadpool on a ferry (?) casually brandishing his weapons and attacking a man (?!). Classic Deadpool antics, but not really something consistent with his characterization thus far in the series (but consistent with how he’s been in most of the fill-ins). Spidey chides ‘Pool, and both agree it’s time to cut back on the jokes. That comes to a head when both end up running into Slapstick, a character I honestly have no clue about.

Given the name and the extraordinarily brief bio in the recap page, I know Slapstick’s a “living cartoon character,” which explains his use of rubber chickens and the big wooden mallet. I’m not sure what I was expecting from a “living cartoon,” but I certainly wasn’t expecting about half a dozen references to his Ken doll-like anatomy. Is this a major point to the character? Is this a weird fascination by the writer? I do not know. Slapstick gets no introduction, no quick recap, nothing. He just appears and the reader is left with the task of figuring out what his presence is supposed to mean. There are good ways to bring in obscure characters, but this is not an example of one of those ways.

The story ends with Slapstick doublecrossing team Spidey-Pool and then getting crossed himself by an alive-and-well Mr. Colon. Maybe this would have made a decent Marvel Team-Up with Slapstick and Spider-Man, but there is not much difference between Slapstick and Deadpool’s voice, leading to a monotonous read which relies on reminding the reader that there’s a “No More Jokes” schtick that Spider-Man and Deadpool are trying to adhere to. With Zdarsky’s Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man out now, Spider-Man/Deadpool has to be more than just the “funny Spider-Man book” and Spider-Man/Deadpool #19 is a pretty solid argument for the book’s obsolescence. Kelly and McGuinness spent a year and a half delivering a Spider-Man and Deadpool story that was more than just gags and wacky antics, and I just hope that Spider-Man/Deadpool #19 isn’t a preview of more to come now that those two are off the title.