Deadpool/Amazing Spider-Man/Incredible Hulk: Identity Wars

Deadpool (2008) (Single Issues) #Annual #1

by John Layman, Lee Garbett (Illustrator), Juan Doe (Illustrator)

Collects Amazing Spider-Man Annual #38, Deadpool Annual #1 and Incredible Hulk Annual #1. An explosion transports Peter Parker (with Deadpool and Hulk) into another dimension where the lives of our heroes have all gone in different directions. Can these three heroes find their way home?

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Marvel, Spider Man, Graphic Novels Comics, Science Fiction, Superheroes

102 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 7, 2011

About the author

John Steele Layman is an American comic book writer and letterer. Layman is most known for writing Chew, published by Image Comics.

Reviews

[Jesús]

I really liked it. I'm definitely going to read some Deadpool the next time I get Marvel Unlimited.

[WillBrit]

More alternate reality fun, we see The Amazing Spider (which of course is an alternate to our Spider-Man). It is revealed this Amazing Spider brings other Spider-heroes to his dimension in order to leech off their powers and make himself more powerful, and we learn he has beaten the likes of Doom, Galactus, and many more. In the end, this evil Peter Parker dies, but is brought back to life with the promise to avenge the souls he used to fuel himself, and thus becomes the Ghost Spider! (Very interesting to finally learn this origin story).

The Deadpool and Hulk storylines are fine in this too, but nothing compared to the twist of the Spider-Man story, as well as the pretty epic design of The Amazing Spider with his cape.

A short read but an entertaining one!

[Aaron]

Layman has a knack for the zany, making the Deadpool story the standout here. Rapid-fire visual jokes and ridiculous points of view round out a solid comedic arsenal, and he shows a welcome restraint in the pop culture reference department. Seems that's what most Deadpool writers imagine comedy is. Just remembering a thing. Not Layman, thank God.

The other two stories (Spider-Man & Hulk) are pretty mediocre. They're packed with action and huge plots, but they don't really do anything new with the whole "alternate universe" concept (Spidey is different in this world, but not TOO different!). There's good stuff in these stories, but overall they rely too heavily on huge blocks of exposition to push the story forward, and left me feeling unfulfilled.

[Johnny Andrews]

Short and sweet, Identity Wars is three annuals from Amazing Spider-Man, Deadpool and Hulk. Written well enough that you could just read one character or go for the three for the whole picture.
DP is hired to help some criminals break into Parker lab where there is some sort of "Stargate " looking piece of equipment. Bruce Banner is working late and is caught and then things go wrong, opening up an alternate reality where, Spidey, DP and Hulk find themselves meeting their other versions in a too good to be true world...but is it?
Will they ever make it back home?

[Chris Browning]

Is the title a deliberate joke at the expense of DC and their interminably boring crossovers via parallel universes? If so it’s the only genuinely subversive thing in this otherwise pretty tame multiverse saga. It’s fine but is about as predictable as you can get - if anything it feels oddly timeless (but not necessarily in a good way), like a story that with minimal tweaking and another hero instead of Deadpool (who’s at his PG dullest here) could come from any decade. It’s not very good, it’s not very bad. It is essentially *a book that happens*

[Trevor]

This story takes part across three annuals: Amazing Spider-Man, Deadpool, and Incredible Hulks. The Spider-Man issue was decent. Spider-Man, Deadpool, and Bruce Banner get sucked into an interdimensional portal and meet an alternate version of Peter Parker on the other side.

Unfortunately, the latter two issues were pretty bad and the story went in some pretty dumb directions.

[Alex Jiménez]

a kind of random addition to my current comic binging but i bought this 8-ish years ago and never read it lmao so finally got around to that. the deadpool story was definitely the standout, i had forgotten how much i love that guy (,: he is so quirky i simply adore him

[Rodrick94]

Falopa de la buena, es un comic corto, absurdo y con ideas claras y divertidas.
Si te gusta Deadpool, este es la clase de comics que podes leer para un divertimento claro. Ahora si no bancas a Spidey y Deadpool lo mejor es saltearlo

[Christopher]

A roller coaster ride from the start, rib breaking humour, alternative worlds with unexpected surprises, daring do, full of epic events, great vistas with a real cinematic quality great art and a frentic pace and full of clever twists you won't see coming! :D

[Daniel]

Short but a wonderful little tale that is interwoven together nicely

[Harley Joe]

a fun story with spider man Deadpool and hulk

[Ham Sandwich]

A decent read and fairly interesting, but I felt it could have been better.

[Jake Vosters]

3.5/5⭐️

[Alex Sarll]

Another of those odd three annual mini-crossovers, this time with Chew's John Layman popping the three (sort-of) heroes across to a parallel world. The Spidey strand includes some interesting prefiguring of developments we've since seen in the aftermath of Otto's takeover and Spider-Verse - given Slott clearly knew where he was going in the main book, I wonder if this was deliberate foreshadowing or simultaneous evolution? And Deadpool was always going to be a good match for Layman's twisted sense of humour, particularly when you've got more than one of him running around. Alas, it ends on the Hulk story which never quite fulfills the promise of its opening concept: Bruce Banner, Sorcerer Supreme.

[char]

Amusing, but I think each of the stories could have benefited from going further in depth, which is very difficult when you're limited to a single issue each. I particularly would have loved to see more of Bruce Banner as Doctor Strange. Still a lot of fun though!

[Neal]

At any time I could think of several reasons to give this book just 3 stars. But at the same time I couldn't put it down towards the end, and that made me want to give it a big 5 star salute. So in the end I compromised.

[B]

Parts were dull, but what can I say? I liked it anyway. Some clever/cute Sliders-y stuff.

[Kala]

Literally the best comic book I have ever read. Spider-man and Deadpool are the best pair of people! I couldn't contain the awesome.

[Victoria]

I loved the Deadpool and Hulk sections of this, but I didn't enjoy Spider-man's too much. Then again, I've never really been that much of a Spidey fan.

[Eliran Teller]

Just fun to read

[DeAnna Knippling]

Eh, none of the characters rang true. Some clever alternate universe bits.

[Jeffery]

An awesome read. The alternate universes are neat, especially the Deadpool world. I wish the story was a bit longer because it felt kind of rushed at some parts but it's an awesome read nonetheless.

[Matthew Ledrew]

Decent side-quest style story, with a few cool twists and turns. Bit of a "Oh Henry" ending though, the last chapter falls a little flat.

[TK421]

This. Was. Fun. Period. It is so satisfying to see that Marvel can wink at itself and laugh.