A Spider-Man Podcast

Spider-Man/Deadpool #7 – REVIEW

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Spider-Man/Deadpool #7 gives us our second and final round of guest issues before Joe Kelly and Ed McGuinness return with the second part of their tale next month. This month, regular Deadpool writer Gerry Duggan and his long time Deadpool collaborating artist Scott Koblish give us a tale from the ‘60s… sort of. First, we need some background. In Joe Kelly’s Deadpool vol. 1 #11, Deadpool gets transported back in time to an early issue of Amazing Spider-Man and is literally inserted into the pages of Amazing Spider-Man #47Spider-Man/Deadpool #7 comes out of that precedent, though the explanation is more metafictional than Deadpool #11’s set up.

SPIDPOOL2016007-int2-2-aed61Editor Jordan D. White explains in the introduction page that this is an inventory story – a story commissioned by editorial as a one-shot to fill in when deadlines are missed. Supposedly “dug up from the year 1968,” this issue was never run because it “[juggled] way too many political hot potatoes.” It’s a set up and perhaps a little cleaner than last month’s, but maybe one that doesn’t quite work as well as Deadpool #11’s diegetic explanation. But I’ll get to that in a second.

I’m going to be comparing this issue to Deadpool #11 because Spider-Man/Deadpool #7 is in a clear dialogue with it, but I should come clean about something first. I don’t particularly care for Deadpool #11. I think it takes cheap shots at the tone of the series during the ‘60s but ignores that comics then were very much a children’s medium rather than the slightly older audience they skew toward now (and in the late ‘90s when Deadpool #11 ran). So for me, it read like an extended series of jabs at a target that doesn’t really need to defend itself, much like how “Barney and Friends” attracted ire from those outside of its intended audience for conventions and styles that made it very popular with its target demographic.

By this metric, Spider-Man/Deadpool #7 does a little better than its ancestor title. More so than Lee’s bombast and over-narration (though, those are lampooned to some extent), Duggan uses the old-school setting to use the larger-than-life characters that a Silver Age comic could only have gotten away with. So a vast amount of the humor comes from Deadpool’s mostly in-character interactions with Silver Aged personalities. But at the same time, it seems that Duggan is trying to imagine Deadpool as if he was a Silver Age character while also maintaining his modern tone.

So instead we get this half-and-half Deadpool who will make reference to Duggan’s “Dead Presidents” story-arc and make reference to flatulence (it wasn’t until Mel Brooks’s 1974 “Blazing Saddles” that flatulence-based humor really broke wind in America) while also maintaining that this is a Deadpool from the ‘60s that existed in the Silver Age. It’s a minor gripe, but it did serve as a slight disconnect for me in the story. So much of this issue is trying to recreate the look and feel of the Silver Age, so it’s jarring to have Deadpool make reference to present-day events with modern day sensibilities. But again, that’s integral to his character. Kelly worked around this in Deadpool #11 by establishing that modern Deadpool had traveled in time back to the ‘60s. So while the story was punching down, it at least provided a frame to support the lampooning.

SPIDPOOL2016007-int2-4-fe427So, I talked about larger than life Silver Age characters… who exactly are they? The nefarious Bagge siblings are two oligarchs who are looking to manipulate the political landscape from the background and are definitely and in no way the Koch Brothers. Their attempts to rabble-rouse involve hiring Mysterio to impersonate a politician – my guess is that the Chameleon was busy that week – and tank his campaign by having him deliver a speech “so crazy that he will be unelectable.” By the end of the issue, Deadpool points out to the Bagges that they could have just used the money to buy political power instead of attempting this far-flung plot, and that’s the big punchline of the comic. Which again, seems to fly in the face of the thesis of this issue, which is “let’s pretend this is an issue from ‘68.” The political humor is a little hackneyed, though I’ll always chuckle at shots directed toward “Tricky Dick” Nixon. With this particular election cycle I’m not quite sure if it’s possible tell a joke that hasn’t already been told a thousand times by the time the title hits the stands.

Backing away from politics, the art team knocked the ball so far out of the park it’s orbiting the Earth and might collide with a satellite and trigger World War III. A friend of mine picked up this issue from my car seat and asked if this was an old comic after thumbing through the pages, and it really looks like it. If you checked out my Daredevil #9 review, you’ll know I complained about the colorist there using a filter to create faux-halftone dots to recreate a pulpy comic book feel. Here, colorist Val Staples really did his best to mimic some of the errors and eccentricities of printing on newsprint and each panel has a bit of blur and color shifting. Some panels get a little excessive with the shift seen in the background color in the halftone coloring, but most panels look really authentic. Scott Koblish’s pencils and scratchy inks also capture the look of the Ditko era with amazing likeness. Even the gutters on the page have yellowing and visible wood pulp. This is about as authentic as it can get on glossy magazine paper and is the real highlight of the issue.

Outside of Deadpool, Duggan is also able to make a convincing period piece with all of the appropriate check boxes marked: penny pinching Jameson, overly concerned for his Aunt Peter Parker, and a cast of teeny boppers and malt shoppe hoppers that fill the ranks of Peter’s social life. Duggan even gets a few solid jokes in here and there, my favorite being Peter’s remark that if Jameson ever got glasses and realized that all his photos were taken 25 feet off the ground and out of focus, he’d be fired. SPIDPOOL2016007-int2-5-02d14In fact, outside of Deadpool and some of the more on-the-nose dialogue trying to really point out to you the similarities between the political landscape of then and now, this issue reads like it could be an old Amazing issue – mostly because it follows the beats typical of the time, albeit with a bit more decompression. And Duggan nailed Stan Lee’s characterization of Peter Parker, right down to the near obsessive mention of pulling his punches and hammy internal narration.

So we have another Spider-Man/Deadpool fill in title that’s a bit more heavy on the Deadpool, but unlike Aukerman’s, this one is at least hung up around Amazing Spider-Man set dressing. While it isn’t the more balanced (but still Deadpool leaning) style of Kelly’s Spider-Man/Deadpool, Duggan still manages to make this feel like a Spider-Man and Deadpool story, rather than a Deadpool story featuring Spider-Man. Though, I will say I am looking forward to getting back to our regularly scheduled program with Kelly and McGuinness next month. These two issues have been fun diversions, but they’re also good looks at what could have been. And that makes me all the more grateful for the effort and passion that Kelly and McGuinness put into this title. That’s not to say that #6 and #7 were bad issues, but after the care and craft that Kelly and McGuinness put into the first five issues, its hard to see anyone else on the title.

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