COMIC BINGE: Night of the Living Deadpool
It’s been increasingly hard for me to find time to pick up a book over these last few weeks, and this week was no exception. I’ve had Stephen King’s third book in The Dark Tower series started for a few weeks now, and I haven’t gotten much in the way of comics from my library. However, I have been holding onto Night of the Living Deadpool for a special occasion, and the time finally presented itself. With the complications in life, work, and school recently, a book that is a nice short and sweet graphic novel was something I was looking forward to. So what better way than to read Night of the Living Deadpool? Well, there probably would have been a few better ways, but I did the best with what I had. This is exactly what author Cullen Bunn does in these Deadpool books that he has been doing recently. Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe, as well as Deadpool Killustrated, were both really great books from Bunn. This is done in the same kind of style, and uses the typical Deadpoolery, but it just didn’t capture me like the other two did.
There is so much potential in a book that contains both Deadpool, and zombies. I feel as if the opportunity to make one of the best Deadpool books was squandered by an author who usually does very well with putting Deadpool in pop culture scenarios. What is really done well in the book, is those actual pop culture references. There were definitely a few, including an Evil Dead one, that really had me laughing out loud while reading the book. I also really enjoyed how some of the scenes, mostly the ones in the current apocalyptic environment, were colored in black and white with Deadpool still being full color. It was not a necessary artistic choice, but it gave some of those pages a little flare and caused Pooly to stand out a little more than usual. But where the book falls short is a decent story to accompany that sense of humor, flashy artwork choices, and witty style that I’m used to with Cullen Bunn. With Deadpool halfway looking like a zombie, I also didn’t think it would be that challenging to combine zombies in with him as a storyline. It proved to be a bit too large of a task for Bunn I think, and I really don’t see any other writer topping it because in all reality, it’s already been done. Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan’s first volume of Deadpool, Dead Presidents, successfully found that tone and also made a great story that was equal parts brilliant and wacky. Posehn and Duggan incorporated zombies, history, and Deadpool’s one of a kind sense of humor into their premiere book in the Marvel NOW! and knocked it out of the park.
So I suppose I shouldn’t be too bummed out that Cullen Bunn didn’t quite rock it like my dude Brian Posehn, but he did a serviceable job and by no means did he write an incomplete book. The laughs are here, and the violence is here too. It clocks in at four issues long so it’s a nice breeze of a read if you’re looking for something easy, or need to fill your Dead-hole. The one thing about the story in this book that stands out, is the ending. In the least spoilery way possible, I think this ending could have been the beginning to what makes this Night of the Living Deadpool story awesome. So far, Cullen Bunn has not really been churning out too many issues in any one Pooly-verse at once, maybe to keep them all fresh, but I’d definitely like to see more of this one, as well as Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe. Be on the lookout for some possibly great stories from Cullen Bunn and the Deadpool team, but also if you haven’t already, please check out Posehn and Duggan’s current run on Deadpool. It’s one of the best comics out there right now, based on straight up entertainment value. Which I think most of us know by now, Deadpool’s sole mission in life is to entertain the readers.
STORY : ( 6 / 10 )
ARTWORK : ( 7 / 10 )
COVERS : ( 10 / 10 )
AWESOME : ( 5 / 10 )
FINAL RATING : ( 6 / 10 )