Civil War Comic Review – “Cable / Deadpool #30-32”

The Civil War cross-overs continue, with the Cable/Deadpool tie-in wrapping up this week. After reading this, one this is absolutely clear: Deadpool needs to star in his own movie.

General Information

Title: Cable / Deadpool #30-32

Author: Fabian Nicieza

Illustrator(s): Staz Johnson (pencils), Klaus Janson and John Stanisci (inks), Gotham (colours) and Dave Sharpe (letters)

Original Publication Date: These issues originally published between July and September 2006.

Cover Price: Each issue $2.99 US. The Canadian price of the first issue is $4.25, while the later issues are cover priced at $3.75 Can.

Past comic reviews can be found here.

Premise

Deadpool, the Merc with the Mouth, decides that the Civil War is the perfect opportunity to get lucrative government contracts rounding up unregistered heroes. Cable, however, opposes the act due to his future-born knowledge of what the act will lead to.

General Comments

This was my first exposure to the character of Deadpool in the regular Marvel Universe. Man, have I been missing out.
This character is hilarious! He smoothly breaks the fourth wall (though he does sometimes have problems with his first person caption mode) and narrates the story with a complete knowledge of the world we live in, including Tobey Maguire’s role as Spider-Man and the current sales numbers of the Young Avengers title. A highly amusing change of pace. I regret not collecting this title sooner. I’ve picked up the trades covering issues 13-29, but still need to track down issues 1-12.

High Point

Captain America: “What do you recommend we do with him?”
Cable: “Duct tape. Lots and lots of duct tape. At least one roll for his mouth alone.”

Low Point

Cable’s haughty speeches to the president. If we didn’t have Deadpool’s narration running through it, it would be rather boring.

The Scores

This title feels quite original to me. This is partly due to it being my first exposure to a rather original character who has been around for ten years. However, this is also the only title I’ve read in the entire Civil War crossover that puts comedy first and story second. It’s a nice, fun change of pace in a rather serious period for Marvel. I give it 5 out of 6.

The artwork is nice and clean. I’m not entirely thrilled with the way Captain America and Cable are drawn, but Cap’s a relatively small character in a rather large cast here. Cable, however, is not. I give it 4 out of 6.

The story is very well crafted, using what appears to be a flippant joke to turn the entire plot around. Things are tied together extremely well, maintaining the fun and fast pace while still telling a story. I was too busy laughing to see where this was going, but once it got there, I realized that it really had been well and carefully planned from the outset. I give it 6 out of 6.

The characterization is great. I was already familiar with Cable from my obsessed-with-X-Men days back in junior high, but Deadpool was new to me. Still, in three issues, we become familiar with how Deadpool comes across to people, how he pretends to be to keep his targets off guard, and what he really wants for himself in the future. There’s a lot of depth and range here. I give it 6 out of 6.

The emotional response to Deadpool is great. Cable is his usual preachy and pedantic self, with all that entails, but Deadpool’s commentary recovers for a lot of that. I give it 4 out of 6, averaging the score for the Deadpool portions (6) with that for the Cable portions (2).

The flow is smooth and rapid, tying in Deadpool’s knowledge of our world to give major hints to the future of the main Civil War title. (This revealed more about issue 4 than I realized the first time I read it.) I give it 6 out of 6.

Overall, this is my favourite Civil War crossover to date. I’ve added the title to my pull list and will review other issues as I get my hands on them. It’s somewhat flawed, but the strong points are so strong that I still recommend it without reservation. I give it 6 out of 6.

In total, Cable / Deadpool #30-32 receives 37 out of 42.

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