DEADPOOL #2 – September 1993

Rabbit Season, Duck Season

Credits: Fabian Nicieza (writer), Joe Madureira (penciler), Mark Farmer (inks), Chris Eliopoulos (lettering), Glynis Oliver (colors)

Summary

In Cairo, Deadpool retrieves a disc with information on Tolliver’s will. Supposedly, the secret behind the will is the most powerful weapon on Earth. Juggernaut suddenly appears with Black Tom, whose body is now partially made out of wood. They steal the disc from Deadpool, but he later retrieves it during Black Tom and Juggernaut’s airplane escape. In New Jersey, Sluggo tries to gain info on Tolliver’s will from Vanessa (Copycat), but she doesn’t know anything about it. She leaves on her own hunt to find the will. In India, the Executive Elite are hired to kill the suspects in Pico’s death – Cable, Copycat, and Deadpool. Finally, in Maine, Slayback interrogates Kane about Deadpool’s location.

Continuity Notes

Black Tom refers to Cable as “that meddlin’ mutant from the future.” How does he know Cable is from the future?

I Love the ‘90s

The info on Tolliver’s will is on an old-school floppy disc. Not the really old floppy discs that were literally floppy, but the ‘90s standard ones that apparently no one uses anymore (except for, uh, me...sometimes).

Review

The Deadpool mini is shaping up to be a fun series. At this point, it looks like Nicieza’s strongest work within the X-franchise. There are a lot of plot threads going on, most of which involve characters chasing around a McGuffin, but Nicieza’s able to keep the characters and the chase entertaining. Many of these characters seemed to show up at random in X-Force without a lot of development, but they’re starting to seem more authentic now. The brief scene at Vanessa’s home makes the character more interesting than she ever was in all of her X-Force appearances. The story itself isn’t wacky (unlike many of the stories in Deadpool’s later ongoing series), leaving room to develop X-Force’s peripheral characters, something that should’ve been done months earlier. At the same time, the action never slows down and the events keep moving towards the series climax. In some ways, this doesn’t really feel like a ‘90s X-book. The four-issue format keeps things from dragging, while the ongoing X-books dedicate entire issues to agonizing about Magneto and the Legacy Virus. It’s a nice break.