Spider-Man/Deadpool #3

Spider-Man/Deadpool, Issue #3 came out today, and of the eight comic books I bought today, it was the first I read.  That doesn't mean that it's better than the other eight; it isn't.  In fact, I usually have a higher opinion of the last couple of comic books I read after a Wednesday, when new comics come out.  I read Spider-Man/Deadpool first because it's the easiest and most readable comic I bought.  The characters are familiar - I'm not a Marvel expert, but I've read thousands of pages of Spider-Man comics and spent hundreds of hours watching Spider-Man TV and movies.  I'm new to Deadpool, but he has quickly become a familiar face in my comic-reading time.

This is a fun story.  Deadpool is hired to kill Peter Parker, but he doesn't know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.  Hobbie Brown poses as Spider-Man so that when Deadpool finally meets up with Parker, he has no reason to suspect Spider-Man's secret identity.  This comic sees the two Avengers going to Bolivia to help a small village fight an insurmountable horde featuring two super-villains.  The catch?  The village farms and produces drugs, most likely cocaine.  Then, Deadpool introduces Spider-Man to the daughter Deadpool didn't know he had until recently.

Joe Kelly knows how to write for Spider-Man, and he knows how to write for Deadpool.  The pencils are by Ed McGuinness, and the inks are by Mark Morales.  The pair capture both Spider-Man's awkward movement and fighting style and Deadpool's propensity to get wounded repeatedly.  As I mentioned in my review for Spider-Man/Deadpool, Issue #2, the ability for the two masked characters to portray emotions is reminiscent of Lucha Libre.  What I liked the best about the coloring by Jason Keith is how similar Spider-Man and Deadpool look from the waist up.  Damn, that sounds like the set-up for a crotch joke from Deadpool, but the reds of Spider-Man really come out from that angle, and the blues come out when the two are in action, differentiating the two.  The letters by VC's Joe Sabino are clear and classical, with a few italics and bolds to emphasize certain words.

But most of all, Spider-Man/Deadpool is funny.  Repeating the jokes and visual gags from the comic would be a little cheap, and it's not the jokes themselves that make the humor work.  What's great is that the title takes the reader on a roller coaster through humor, action, sappiness, and intrigue, diving and turning every which way without a hint of what's going to come next.  This is really good stuff.