Deadpool #5

This cover's honestly really boring compared to the others. There's really nothing going on, it's just Deadpool floating in space with a severely oversized..... jetpack thing? And gatling guns, sure, but he's just... there. Nobody else is there, Deadpool's not really doing anything... it's boring, especially compared to what's come before.

This issue's a little odd. The whole arc has been a variety of Presidential battles, but the previous issue had a whole bunch of them in a montage instead of one big one. This created a new pacing, showing us we were nearing the end as the battles themselves became less personalized. But most of this issue is one big battle with Reagan in space, unrelated to the rest of the stuff. It's a side story with another President instead of advancing the story towards the end. Well, the end of the issue is different, but most of this issue felt a little monotonous, there wasn't a whole lot done to make this stand out from what we'd already seen.

There were still plenty of great laughs, Deadpool cutting open Reagan's "Jelly Belly" was definitely a high point, and Deadpool had a nice 4th wall break when he talked about how he stopped reading Captain Marvel when he got cancer; but overall some of the jokes just felt like they were going through the same motions as the previous issues. A lot of Reagan specific puns and space monkeys. It just felt a little simplified in scale compared to the others.

What this issue did better than the others came towards the end, where we got the most genuinely serious moment for Deadpool we've seen in this series thus far. Agent Preston has an interesting conversation with him that explores his complex psyche in his approach to reward and heroism, and then when LBJ and Washington attack him on his home front with a magic tome and martial arts skills, Deadpool drops the comedy act for a minute to save what he considers one of his few friends. You really feel something for Deadpool as he almost offhandedly explains his entire tragedy, and likely reason for his shallow persona. His life doesn't have much to it, and his mercenary work gives him temporary emotional drives to cling to. It's nice to finally see Posehn and Duggan use Deadpool as something besides a joke factory.

In Conclusion: 4.5/5

Most of this issue felt like it was just going though the motions, as Reagan's plot had very little literary difference than the other President's we've seen. It wasn't bad, but it was a little insubstantial. But the issue makes up for it in the end when we get the setup for the different spark of the big finale, and some genuine character exploration for the Merc With a Mouth.