Writer: Cody Ziglar & Alexis Quasarano
Artist: Andrea Di Vito
Colorist: Guru-eFX
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Cover Artists: Taurin Clarke, Mitsuhiro Arita, Jessica Fong & Andy Park
Graphic Designer: Kat Walkington
Editors: Cy Pedro Beltran, Drew Baumgartner, Mark Basso & CB Cebulski
Publisher: Marvel
Price: $3.99
Release Date: December 18, 2024
Taskmaster struggles for jobs because clients want Wade Wilson on the case. But Deadpool's undecaying body is floating in the office kiddie pool with ice cubes and energy drinks. At least Ellie’s made a new friend at Chemocorp. Valentine Vuong promised to help Ellie use alchemy to summon Wade's soul from the great beyond. But will Valentine's boss release her from this subsidiary of (the undying) Beyond Corp? Let's leap into Deadpool #9 and find out!
Story
MODOK is mad. He expected to buy more loyalty from Valentine than this. Then again, most of his employees are androids, which doesn’t say much about his management skills. Still, MODOK paid for her services, and he expects Valentine to deliver. She is helping him perfect a cell regrowth formula that could dramatically change people's lives. His motives may be financial, but Valentine's products could benefit others. Still, that doesn't stop MODOK from trying to kill Valentine when she quits without giving him two weeks’ notice.
Valentine may have left Wade to pursue her interests, but she wants the best for her former lover. Ellie argued that her dad died from a mixture of magic and science. Perhaps Alchemy is pseudoscience. But Valentine has experience with magic and science. She knows that both fields work differently to achieve similar results. In Deadpool #9, Valentine wonders if she can combine her research at Chemocorp with Death Grip's mysticism to revivify Wade.
Taskmaster should be living the carefree life of a mercenary. Instead, Wade tied him down with a promotion and the responsibilities that came with it. He feels so overwhelmed that he can’t even win a stare-down with the office rat. As the financial ship sinks beneath his feet, what hits hardest is seeing Ellie injured. In Cody Ziglar and Alexis Quasarano’s story, discovering that MODOK overtaxed Ellie’s healing abilities is Taskmaster’s worst nightmare. Forget about his friend Wade. Who cares about poor client reviews? So what if they must sell the kiddie pool to buy ammunition for their next job? All that matters to Taskmaster is saving Ellie.
Art
As MODOK hovers over the smoking company van, Princess looks like she's melting from the villain's blast. MODOK sprouts instruments of death from his armor while Ellie leaps onto his back, digging into his armor with her shock daggers. A timelapse extends across two pages as Ellie avoids laser beams while somersaulting off his boxing glove. As she creates a lightning storm, he slices through her suit. But Ellie uses every skill that comes to hand to turn MODOK into a beetle blasted by a firestorm in Deadpool #9.
Guru-eFX lavishes a loaded palette on Andrea Di Vito’s art as gold and purple MODOK blasts through purple-blue air a la Hammerhead. Yellow and orange spark in a black inset circle, revealing the state of play in Ellie’s gray ribcage. Valentine covers Deadpool's daughter with her blue jacket.
Later, when she and Princess bring Ellie to the green office, Taskmaster helps Valentine put the girl to rest on a green desk. The researcher's blue and white clothes link her with blue, white, and yellow Task Daddy. Then, the green desk becomes an altar, and a gray design fills the white floor.
White balloons feature uppercase black text, while Joe Sabino fills red ones with Princesses’ white dialogue. Words shrink for lowered voices and grow bold for inflection while Ellie’s thoughts fill pink narrative boxes. Colorful sound effects help us hear MODOK and Ellie's brutal battle, and white letters reveal twitching fingers as yellow dialogue balloons return in Deadpool #9. Thanks to Marvel for providing a copy for review.
Final Thoughts
While Princess uses her body to shield her sister and Valentine from harm, Ellie discovers the limits of her healing factor. Still, her physical injuries are nothing compared to losing her dad. So, the girl makes a deal without waiting to hear what it will cost her in Deadpool #9.
Rating 9.4/10
To preview interior art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.
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