A collection of mediocre-at-best stories of Deadpool, wherein the character is imagined and written in about a million different ways, which, to me, solidifies that no one really quite knows what Deadpool's deal is. Deadpool was one of my absolute favorites growing up (back when Joe Kelly was writing it), and has remained in my pull list ever since. However, most people just seem to have absolutely no idea what to do with him. He's the "Merc with a Mouth." Ok, fine. What does that mean, exactly? Apparently, beyond the fact that he talks a lot, it means whatever a given writer wants it to mean, and that leads to a very ill-defined, all-over-the-place character that becomes exceedingly hard to like or care about.
In this book of short stories, we get Deadpool as sad clown, Deadpool as relentless murderer, Deadpool as complete idiot, Deadpool as brilliant strategist, ad contradictory infinitum. Michael Kupperman even has an entire story in here devoted to how many different versions of Deadpool there are (though his is a little more literal). The problem is, pretty much none of the stories are actually good. None of these guys are really comedy writers. They're comics writers who may delve into comedic overtones when the mood suits them, but in general, these aren't joke writers, and I think that's the one single thing Deadpool needs: jokes. Instead, we just get a parade of lame references and farts and "isn't-it-funny-how-he-won't-shut-ups" crammed into a bunch of impossibly lame scenarios that just plain suck.
The only two stories in this whole volume I enjoyed were Fred Van Lente's "Silent But Deadly" (which is somehow not about farts) and Matt Fraction's "Doctor America," which is from Captain America: Who Won't Wield The Shield and not even a Deadpool story. I'm not even really sure why they threw in that entire, meta-to-the-point-of-being-masturbatory one-shot, as only about 10% of it has anything to do with Deadpool, and the part that does contain Deadpool could've easily stood on its own. Oh well, whatever Marvel.
The point is, if you want to read a collection that seems to completely sum up the problem at the core of Deadpool as a character, here's your example. He isn't a character as much as he is a mouthpiece for whoever's writing him at the time. Now, people like Joe Kelly and the Posehn/Duggan team have done great stuff with the character, so clearly it CAN work (though Joe Kelly's entry in this book is wildly sexist AND drawn by the terrible Rob Liefeld, so who knows). It's just rare that Deadpool is really any good, no matter how much I may want it to be. I will continue reading this crap forever I guess.