Spider-Man / Deadpool “til Death do us” Event Review

What is harder than helping your friend through a divorce? Having your friend be a crazy mercenary divorcing a demonic ruler of the underworld! So how does Peter handle it? Let us find out.

Part 1)Deadpool 28#

Part 2) Spider-man/Deadpool 15#

Part 3) Deadpool:Mercs For Money 9#

Part 4) Spider-man/Deadpool 16#

Part 5) Deadpool: Mercs For Money 10#

Part 6) Deadpool 30#

Written by …

Deadpool: Gerry Duggan

Spider-man/Deadpool : Joshua Corin

Deadpool: Mercs For Money: Christopher Hastings

Art by…

Deadpool: Salva Espin

Spider-man/Deadpool : Scott Koblish

Deadpool: Mercs For Money: Iban Coello

Reilly Brown

Jordan B White, Heather Antos & Nick Lowe

G’day Mates

So this review is running a little late, let me apologise for that upfront as life got in the way. However as this is a Non Spider-man event it may be fortuitous as it allows me to look at the whole story rather than individual issues. This is a Deadpool event that Spider-man takes part in. As always I’ll focus on Peter but for sake of clarity cover some other things too.

Shiklah and Deadpool have been having marriage problems. This reaches boiling point when humans gun down a senile monster in the New York City subway. Vowing revenge after the human justice system fails her; Shiklah leads an army of mutants to over throw Manhattan. Knowing her husband wont be pleased she attempts to have him removed from the picture. Deadpool escapes and encounters Blade who is seeking the assistance of a member of the Van Helsing family. The last surviving member of this family of monster hunters is Camper Van Helsing. An R&D engineer at Parker Industires. At least she was, but Peter fired her the day of the attack. PI is one of the first buildings attacked. Shiklah appears there to steal a device that will put people to sleep that just happened to be created by Camper. Deadpool, Spider-man and Camper escape the building and Manhatten. They take off for Latvia in search of Shiklah’s Ex Dracula who Deadpool believes is the one person how can stop Shiklah. Upon their return Dracula betrays Spidey and Deadpool and sets out to marry Shiklah. The monsters running amok however have enjoyed their freedom in the real world and learnt about democracy from the ghost of Benjamin Franklin and don’t wish to be ruled by the likes of Shiklah or Dracula anymore and soon depart new york, as do newlyweds Shiklah and Dracula. Leaving Deadpool alone with his best friend Spider-man who’s boss (Peter Parker) is now suing him for damages along with everyone else in new york .

Wow. This one is all over the place so lets try to focus on the Spider-man side of things. First off this is not where we last left our heroes in the pages of Spider-man / Deadpool 14#. This book spins far more out of the Gerry Duggan continuity. Spider-man is his regular self here (rich billionaire CEO, you know, classic spidey ) and not the kill crazed man who we have seen returning from the dead in the title recently (you got to love comics) .

I actually liked how the team gets spider-man involved here. In the first issue there is a joke about Deadpool sending out a mass text looking for help and heroes ignoring it. Peter being one of them. It would be so easy to write “Spider-man comes to help Deadpool”. Instead it is because of an employee under his charge that he gets dragged into this.

However from here on out Peter is really just here because 2 out of 6 books have Spider-man in the title

There is a nice moment where Camper Van Helsing plays a video game called “versus” featuring real 616 world heroes. Peter asks if she plays spider-man but she is more a Deadpool fan. We see her Deadpool fandom at her house where her room is covered in Deadpool posters and Deadpool has the great line “is your house covered in Mirrors? Is it a vampire hunting thing?” . Anyway when they track down Dracula it turns out he has been playing this video game as well and when challenged to a dual to get him to return with them, Camper chooses to play as Spider-man than Deadpool as she has learnt that he is the true hero of the two.

There is another great character beat where Campers device to put people to sleep is called “the Sandman” and Peter winces every time the name is brought up.

I do like the visual as well of Peter being held hostage, as a groomsman of Dracula while the bridesmaid he is paired with is a giant spider

But really Peter is wasted here. He serves not true purpose to the story. Time could have been better spent establishing Ben Franklin who is familiar to Duggan Deadpool readers but appears out of nowhere in 6 issue for everyone else but impacts the whole story resolution.

I really hated “the Parker Brothers”. Robots made to protect Parker Industry building and basically there for a bad board game joke. It felt so out of place here. The designs didn’t even look like anything PI would develop from what little we have seen of the company.

And now for this titles reoccurring segment “Mephisto Watch”. While he does not appear in SM/DP he does show up in the solo DP book to officiate the wedding of Shiklah and Dracula. While I chuckled at the line about “normally I take them away” it did also leave me wanting. Mephisto is a big cosmic bad and should be treated as such. Other wise you are taking away importance of both Spider-man and Deadpool stories.

Here is where the crossover got interesting for me. We had Three distinct are styles. Epsin on the main Deadpool book draws a good Spider-man but has a very cartoon style. I think this guy would be perfect for a Ultimate Spider-man XD or Adventures  book.

Koblish is one of the greatest artists of this generation. I have sung his praise many times here. However on SM/DP  he is very much his own basic style that while great I know he is capable of wowing me more but this is his base level stuff. Still better than most artists resume but basic for him

Coello from DP:M4$ was the biggest surprise . His Spider-man was a great piece of art for the few panels he got to draw him. Nick if you are reading this we need Iban Coelloon a spider-man book yesterday

Do I recommend this Deadpool event to Spider-man fans? Sadly I do not. In fact I don’t recommend this Event to Deadpool fans. It’s all over the place. Humour falls flat. It breaks a key rule of writing Deadpool (he is funny, but the world he is in shouldn’t be). The story does not mesh or arc well. It is a shame as it is an important story beat for main Deadpool book, which is also normally fantastic. Please don’t judge Duggan’s work on this alone if you haven’t read it.  If you’re picking up SM/DP for the spidey factor feel free to skip these issues. You won’t have missed anything.