He's your number one, and these are his #1s! (Plus some other weird numbers.) Deadpool's dazzling debut steals the New Mutants' spotlight, leading to his very first limited series. Then brace yourself as the degenerate regenerates into nine new titles! The ever social sociopath gives top billing to his bro Cable, teams up with a demigod and even hangs with his own zombified head, before assembling a whole Corps of alternate Deadpools! NEW MUTANTS (1983) 98, THE CIRCLE CHASE 1, DEADPOOL (1994) 1, DEADPOOL (1997) 1, CABLE & DEADPOOL 1, DEADPOOL (2008) 1, MERC WITH A MOUTH 1, DEADPOOL TEAM-UP 899, DEADPOOL CORPS 1, DEADPOOL (2013) 1, DEADPOOL (2015) 1
Fabian Nicieza is a writer and editor who is best known as the co-creator of DEADPOOL and for his work on Marvel titles such as X-Men, X-Force, New Warriors, and Robin.
His first novel, the Edgar Award-nominated SUBURBAN DICKS, a sarcastic murder mystery, is on sale now from Putnam Books.
The Dicks will return in THE SELF-MADE WIDOW, coming June 21st.
So what this is is a collection of the first isues of various Deadpool series, plus his very first appearance from New Mutants #98. Lots of stories begin, but none end. There are more writers and artists represented in this book than you can shake a stick at (and who goes around shaking sticks at writers and artists anyway? If you went up to Rob Liefeld at a convention and shook a stick at him, they'd call security ...) This isn't a book you read for the story, but rather to see the evolution of a character over the years.
With such a diverse cast of creative talent, this comes off as quite spotty in quality. Some of these number ones seem like series that I'd like to read more of, Deadpool Corps in particular. I've already read and reviewed the first volume (Dead Presidents) of the 2013 Deadpool series elsewhere. Overall, the impression is kind of meh. There are high points and low points, and the lack of closure on the stories gets a bit frustrating. It is fun to see the changes in the character over the years though. And I was also fascinated to compare Rob Liefeld's art from New Mutants #98 (1991) with his art from Deadpool Corps #1 (2010). It looks a LOT better in the latter title, partially due to Adelso Corona's inks, and partly due to Rob's improvement over the years, or at least he's gotten better at hiding his weaknesses (like, you know, feet.)
And I'm going to hate myself for mentioning this, but, when I was looking for this book on Goodreads, it came up with a looooooong list of Deadpool titles, one of which was Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe. Somehow, my brain combined that title with a misreading of the title of this book, and came up with Deadpool Fists the Marvel Universe. Yeah. I don't think we'll be seeing that title from the House of Ideas anytime soon ...
I dare you to read this and not hear Ryan Reynolds in your head. I love Deadpool - the Merc with a Mouth, but also with a heart
This is a collection of a selection of first in series. Some are better than others. It includes teamups with Hercules, the Deadpool Corps, Cable. Thor makes a brief appearance. A bit of a timeline of the character is also provided, which helped me to understand a bit more about him.
My favourite story in this collection is the final one, where your friendly neighbourhood pool guy goes up against dead presidents (because Shield won't let the Avengers do it). I might have to track down the rest of that arc.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Great for fans of Deadpool who don't have a lot of time or funds to purchase all the original comics, but who want to read his early interactions with the Marvel universe and watching him get into all kinds of shenanigans. My only complaint was that each "story" was just an introductory comic and not a cohesive storyline, but honestly, I didn't care that much because, as always, Deadpool is utterly hilarious and just a complete joy to read. It's hard to pick my favourite mini story, so let's just say all of them win! This is a fantastic buy for any Deadpool fan, old or new, and I'm glad to have it in my library.
I have to say that I would recommend this to people not familiar with Deadpool and that want to learn more about the character. It starts with his first ever appearance, and included the bad issue examples and some good ones, and to be totally fair that's why I rated this 3 out of 5. "You take the good ...you take the bad, and then you have" Deadpool Firsts...lol.
Maybe I just didn't read the description closely enough, but I was expecting complete stories, not the literal first issue of each incarnation. Kind of interesting to see the evolution of the character (wow the Rob Liefield era illustrations are terrible) but if you actually want a complete adventure, get a different collection. Seriously considered giving up after I realized the format; I only finished the whole thing because of my OCD/perfectionism.
Kinda fun, but hard to read b/c you only get the first issue in a bunch of story lines. I wanted the ending too! Sigh. Looks like I've got some more work to do to find the rest of them. I liked the notes interspersed throughout though. Those were fun.