Back to form?
I dropped Daniel Way's Deadpool title not long after the Utopia/Dark Reign arcs (I believe it was an issue or two after the "pirate" story). My problem was that Daniel Way wasn't balancing the tone of the book well at all. I thought he managed to handle the serious stories surprisingly well, but his Deadpool just wasn't very fun to read. Way had really played up the "wacky" elements of Deadpool's character to the point that there was little serious story managing to shine through the immature fart jokes and film references. For example, I thought the Bullseye rivalry in Dark Reign was great and a good story but Deadpool and Bob running off and becoming pirates didn't measure at all.
Despite always admiring the fantastic covers by the amazingly underrated Dave Johnson, not until this issue had I decided to recommit to the series. I was pleasantly surprised to find the issue was fairly mature and enjoyable. We have art by Carlo Barberi which doesn't stand out as groundbreaking but it certainly wasn't bad. Deadpool's wackiness is seriously downplayed, perhaps to reflect how Rick Remender writes him in X-Force (who appear in this story), and I think that greatly benefits the issue.
As set-up, this looks to be a very fun and entertaining story arc, with a whole cast of entertaining characters from the Kingpin and Typhoid Mary to Nick Fury and X-Force (sadly no Deathlok). I'm really glad I managed to check this out, it's also made me curious as to whether I've missed out any other good Deadpool stories in the 25 or so issues I've skipped.
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