Aug 18, 2015

[Comics] Hawkeye vs Deadpool

So yeah, my many recent Deadpool comics purchases because of various comiXology sales has resulted in practically a series of Deadpool comic book reviews. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and I suppose this will become super valuable once the new Deadpool movie finally comes out. Plus he's a lot of fun to write about, to be honest.

Hawkeye vs Deadpool is not a title I was expecting to happen. I could see no logical reason for the two characters to cross paths since Deadpool has always been more aligned with the mutant side of the Marvel Universe, so this felt a little out of character. But I've totally enjoyed the recent Hawkeye run (expect reviews soon!) and to have him interact with Deadpool did prove to be an interesting situation I wanted to see happen.

And while a lot of these crossover titles tend to be pretty shallow and cheesy, the same could be said of many Deadpool titles, so I suppose it worked. And to have their respective narrative styles brought together in this one comic did result in a pretty crazy story that enjoyed quite a fair bit.

Synopsis: Hawkeye vs Deadpool is a 5-issue comic book mini-series (including an issue #0) written by Gerry Duggan with art by Matteo Lolli,  Jacopo Camagni and Nick Filardi . The versus in the title is a bit of a misnomer since the two don't really fight all that much in the series, but that's getting ahead of things.

I'm not sure if I really need to get into the plot here since you can't expect much of a plot from a story like this.  But you have a guy stealing information from the bad guys and hoping to find a way to stay safe but more importantly put that information in the right hands. This somehow leads to him trying to get to Hawkeye, who is know to be a hero in his neighborhood (of course), and eventually manages to speak the thumb drive over, although Hawkeye is not immediately aware of things.

Deadpool was in the area because...it's Halloween? So he ends up getting involved in the shenanigans somehow - especially when aforementioned data thief turns up dead in front of Hawkeye's apartment building. Throw in some mind-controlled zombie-like enemies, Kate, Pizza Dog and somehow the Black Cat and you have a very strange adventure indeed.

I really appreciated the humor of the book since it was an interesting effort to combine the sort of stories that have helped make the current Hawkeye series so popular but also still feature the quirky stories you get from Deadpool. And that resulted in things going as far as Deadpool's tendency to break the fourth wall resulting in commentary about Hawkeye's often visual storytelling style. So we actually had a point in the story where Deadpool was wondering why we were waiting for the dog to solve the crime, as has sort of been the case in past Hawkeye titles.

I was not expecting Kate Bishop to get along with Deadpool so well, but once the two started to interact, it all made sense. And this is hardly anything romantic - just two kindred spirits realizing that they were meant to cause mayhem together. Deadpool may not be very easy on the eyes, but he definitely has a knack for devilish destruction.

The plot is nothing amazing, nor does it need to be. This is a crossover comic book after all and not the Marvel Universe epic. These stories were meant to be silly and thus we got a minor villain, a lot of action and a lot of good comedy. Things didn't get too over the top silly and there was certainly a lot of clever campiness. This was the prefect book for me to read at the end of a long day.

Hawkeye vs Deadpool may not involve the two titular characters trying to kill one another but we do get an interesting comparison between their two story styles. And ultimately the book is a lot of fun, especially for people who have read the books for both characters, thus making it possible to recognize the references to each character's history. Thus the comic get a fun 4.5 moments of Hawkeye being adorable Hawkeye out of a possible 5.


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