Deadpool #8 Review

 

Deadpool #8 Review

Writer: Cody Ziglar & Alexis Quasarano

Artist: Rogê Antônio

Colorist: Guru-eFX

Letterer: Joe Sabino

Cover Artists: Taurin Clarke; Derrick Chew; Ema Lupacchino & Dave McCaig; Cory Smith & Edgar Delgado

Graphic Designer: Kat Walkington

Editors: Drew Baumgartner & Cy Pedro Beltran; Mark Basso; CB Cebulski

Publisher: Marvel

Price: $3.99

Release Date: November 13, 2024

 

Taskmaster wants to hack Chemocorp’s bank accounts, so he suggests they create a diversion so someone can slip inside. Instead, Ellie and Princess opt for a frontal assault on the Z-List shell company. "Taskzaddy" tries to talk "Cutie-Pool and Wagsly" into descending to the data center, but Princess pursues a familiar scent. Will Deadpool's symbiote-canine daughter ascend to a happy reunion? Or will Ellie and Princess discover someone more deadly than the robots on the ground floor? Let's leap into Deadpool #8 and find out!

 

Story

Taskmaster wanted to dig Deadpool & Daughters, LLC out of a financial hole. His plan was simple but elegant: slip in, steal the data, and leave without anyone noticing. But Ellie is angry. As she can't attack Deathgrip, Ellie hurts other villains. Instead, she discovers that robots guard Chemocorp. Energy weapons sprout from their hands, and they shoot lasers with their eyes. Still, at least one employee of the biochem research company is Human (even if the leaders of Orchis might disagree). Her name is Valentine Vuong, and hypodermic needles adorn her fingers.

 

Although it was likely foreordained, Cody Ziglar & Alexis Quasarano reveal why Deadpool and Valentine parted ways in Deadpool #8. It’s a familiar story about juggling schedules and interests while making time for those we love. What surprises Ellie is how stoically Valentine takes the news of her former paramour's death. But then, Deadpool traded in death while Valentine experiments with life.

 

Wade Wilson may be dead, but his body doesn’t decay. He was killed by a man who swallowed a magic sword and returned from the dead. Ellie assumes that a combination of magic and science can heal her father. While Valentine echoes Taskmaster’s insistence that Alchemy isn’t real, this proto-science aided people for centuries and built the foundation for Valentine’s modern scientific methods. In Deadpool #8, Ellie wants Valentine to overcome her assumptions and try to save the mercenary who loved her so much that he stopped eating noodles.

 

 

 

Art

When Taskmaster pleads with Doug for good news, Doug offers him a graph. Old Skull-face is so depressed by their falling income that when the office rat claims a can from the kiddie pool cooling Wade's severed body, Taskmaster relinquishes the drink to cover his face. When a short Deadpool imposter attacks an evil scientist, and they halt with knives and needles poised at each other's throats, Ellie opts to resolve their differences with conversation rather than blood. Despite her appearance of calm, Valentine turns away when she learns of Wade’s death. Then she embraces Princess and scratches her snout.

 

Guru-eFX lavishes a loaded palette on Rogê Antônio’s art in Deadpool #8. While red, pink, and lavender dominate Valentine’s memories, greens and blues ground the fighting. Red lightsabers color their surroundings pink, and green eyes signal an overwhelming blast of yellow, orange, and red. Like Thanos, Valentine’s employer sports purple and yellow. The pink and lavender laser beams he fires prove more destructive than those of his robot employees.

 

White balloons feature uppercase black text, while Joe Sabino fills red ones with Princesses’ white dialogue. Words occasionally shrink and rarely grow bold, while Wade’s comments fill yellow balloons in Valentine’s story. Colorful sound effects help us hear wailing alarms, laser fire, clashing lightsabers, explosions, malfunctioning Terminators, and Princess' snapping tail, while enlarged dialogue accompanies a gout of oil. Thanks to Marvel for providing a copy for review.

 

 

 

Final Thoughts

Alchemy was a science written in codes and practiced in secret. In Deadpool #8, robots guard a biochem company, and Human employees who sign an NDA discover that leaving their employment (with the company's secrets) activates a termination clause.

 

Rating 9.6/10

 

To preview interior art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.