Reflecting 'Pool – Deadpool #3

 

This time around, Deadpool writer Daniel Way wanted to take a slightly different approach to the postmortem column: with a  little egging on by ComicRelated, he wanted to do a kind of “director's commentary”-style examination of the issue.  Scene-by-scene, we'll take a look at the issue that was Deadpool #3 and—with minimum specific spoilers—talk about how they came to be, what motivated the writing and, of course, a little about what they mean for the future of the title and the greater Secret Invasion storyline that they're a part of.

 

ComicRelated: Okay, so the first “scene” in the book is really just 3 panels, with Nick Fury sucking on a pacifier and--

 

Daniel Way: Yeah, the 'Pool-A-Vision scene – as far as where that comes from, we try to kind of incorporate that concept into every issue.  We try not to force it, but at the same time it's a concept we've put forward and it's the new thing we're doing so we want to kind of keep it at the forefront and get people used to that concept of exposition or whatever.

 

CR: And as far as the story goes? 

 

DW: It appeals to Deadpool that a guy like Fury—who's got it together—needs his help.  That is itself kind of a fantasy sequence for Deadpool.  I think that sequence kind of wears the origin on its sleeve...and he's got to throw in some hot chicks, but then reality kind of comes crashing in and you turn around and there's the Super-Skrull.

 

CR: It's kind of funny that after the whole “Deadpool sells out to the Skrulls!” marketing blitz, he's so gung-ho about helping his people, his country, all that...!

 

DW: We kind of went back and forth on the kind of patriotism here—you see a lot of this overinflated patriotism, but it's kind of refreshing to see someone who's so blatantly full of shit.  I mean, he says he'd never do it, but he's Deadpool—of course he would!

 

CR: And who can't love calling the Super-Skrull Frosty the Fireman?  How easy is it working on a book that's go so much carnage, and so much comedy, and trying to make sure that your artist doesn't play up the wrong aspect in any given panel?

 

DW: When the art comes in—comedy's all about timing, and you have to kind of say, “Does this joke or does that comedic line work with this piece of art?”  And working with someone who doesn't speak English as their first language, sometimes maybe in the script it's a little unclear as to what the emphasis needs to be, and so it's easier to change the line than to change the art and a lot of these payoff panels, there are five or six or ten lines and we just kind of show it around the office and say to the editors, “Whatever gets the best response, use that one.”

 

CR: ...And so there's the big action scene of him fighting the Super-Skrull, but it's intercut with a bit of the Skrulls' Chief Science Officer or whatever trying to wrangle the Deadpool Super-Skrulls.

 

DW: That was also funny, where the Deadpool Super-Skrulls—now that they've slaughtered all the regular Super-Skrulls—they don't want the party to end and so they're taking any excuse to pull the trigger and there's the whole “You've got a point,” and it gets back to the knock-knock joke from last issue.  That went over really well, actually, which is always a gamble.  You never know if your sense of humor is going to come across, but what we're hearing back so far is that the knock-knock joke really worked for people.  Isn't there a sequence where the Science Officer says “Who's there?”

 

[ComicRelated then spent about five minutes paging through the issue, looking for a “Who's there,” only to find that ComicRelated had missed the joke the first time, but that there was in fact a reference to how Skrulls don't “point weapons at someone who's their--”]

 

DW: As soon as they hear a “Who's their,” they pull the trigger.  The comedy is there to cover up the fact that the book is dripping in blood – if we didn't have a sense of humor, we wouldn't get away with half of this.  I like the fact that the comedy's getting across, but it's really a secondary thing; this is an action book.  Always will be.

 

CR: You want to talk about a little bit of the Rube Goldberg genius of Deadpool's fight sequence with the Super-Skrull?

 

DW: Right after he dodges that fire, you see the scene where he kind of whispers to himself, and he sees the electricity and he sees the water and he says “I'm gonna use this for that and I'm gonna use this for that,” and that's kind of how his plans come together.  Before that?  No plan at all.  Coming up with the stories for Deadpool, we've seen throughout the first story arc that it seems like he has a plan.  Really he comes up with kind of a general plan and kind of fills in the gaps later.  That's how I approach these plans.  It's like something that Wile E. Coyote would scratch out on the side of a rock.  The basic concept might be sound, you know, general plan.  You're going to drop the rock on the Roadrunner as he runs past here.  But it's all about the application of same, is kind of where the magic happens.  That's why he kind of always has that look on his face. Hopefully as much fun as the reader is having watching this, he's having the same moment of discovery and it's very exciting stuff for him.  It's like a kid on Christmas.  With a guy like Deadpool, anything is possible or at least that's the way he approaches it.  That's how he's able to do the impossible because he hasn't discounted it.  He hasn't crossed it off the list.  He doesn't walk into a situation saying this can't be done and that can't be done.

 

CR: So once the plan has come to fruition, such as it is, and the Super-Skrull is out of the picture, in comes the Chief Science Officer with his army of Deadpool Super-Skrulls, and it looks like he's got our boy right where he wants him...

 

DW: Things don't work out for him, and that's due to a nifty little bit of pseudo-science!  I wanted to get across the idea that introducing Deadpool's DNA into the Super-Skrull's genesis matrix was a hastily-made decision.  It was made by this kind of upwardly-mobile guy who's looking for a shortcut through the ranks.  That's something that Deadpool seized upon.  When the scientist did that, he sold it to his superiors as being a really good thing but the consequences are completely unforeseen and it goes a long way to defining where Deadpool comes from in that he's kind of a freak and this healing factor he has is a complete abberation that's as tied to keeping him sick as it is to keeping him healthy.  When you put that same thing into not only a healthy body but a healthy super-body...a healthy, alien, super-body, that's when things go horribly awry, which is where we got the kind of cool image of both melting and exploding at the same time.  When I wrote it I thought, “I hope it didn't come across as anti-climactic,” but if you looked at it as Deadpool against a bunch of other Deadpools, that'd be a lot of carnage and that'd be cool but we've already had a lot of that.  And this gave him a chance to be kind of the smart guy.  He's always looking for a chance to cut down those people who have it all together—guys like Nick Fury and like this science chief, who are so smart and so together, and he loves to make them look bad.

 

CR: So then, with the disposition of our ambitious, young science officer...

 

DW: I really liked the coda at the end of that scene.  There's time to joke around, but you I always want to get across that Deadpool is a homicidal maniac and if you get on his bad side then horrible, horrible things are going to happen to you.  When he settles up to that scientist he's pretty direct at this point, and he gets to walk off into the sunset. 

 

CR: But even as he rides off into the sunset, some presumably nasty crap is going on that looks to impact the whole Marvel Universe in terms of Secret Invasion.

 

DW: I don't think I ever planned on kind of painting Deadpool into this hapless guy who never wins, but at the same time, hasn't he always been that guy?  If his plan had worked out, he would have saved the Earth.  He would have been able to deliver this magic bullet to Nick Fury and this golden path would have opened up for him.  There's no telling where it would have gone.  Of course it doesn't work out for him and just when he's about to have his moment in the sun, this kind of dark horse in the running shows up and makes him look like shit in front of Nick Fury, which I thought was really funny.  If you really think about it after you read the book, this really puts Deadpool in debt to Nick Fury, too, it doesn't really put him on his friend's list, so he went from being the world's greatest hero to persona non grata in the blink of an eye.  That's an interesting dynamic because he can't call up Nick Fury for a favor anytime soon, but that last page sets up a dynamic that Deadpool will be dealing with for a year's worth of stories or so.  There's a lot of story there for a character whose star is already rising.