Night of the Living Deadpool #2 Review!

Hello everybody, Donlinedude here and welcome to my review of #2 of Night of the Living Deadpool.

Synopsis:

Picking up a few days after the first issue, Deadpool is still in the truck with the band of survivors who picked him up. The group includes a pair of kids, one in fifth grade, the other in third, who are siblings, an old lady who the kids call Granma (because she swears like their grandmother used to), and two soldiers. The first is called Radcliff the one whose been bringing Wade up to speed with events. The second was bitten trying to save one of the kids, but he's being kept on board so he can talk his superiors into letting them out of the QZ. They approach the boundary, but soon find that it didn't hold. Wanting to check for survivors, Deadpool leaves the safety of the truck, with everyone but the old lady and the wounded soldier accompanying him. Wade quickly decides to retreat upon discovering the sheer amount of zombies present. As they head back to the truck, the soldier finally zombifies and crashes through the rear window, killing the old woman. Deadpool shoves them both out and takes the wheel, putting some distance between them and the zombies.

Through a montage we then see Deadpool and gang (whom he affectionately names the Deadpool Scouts) spend the next eight weeks visiting various locations, all of which contain zombies, in order to find a place to hole up. Among the locations (and references to classic zombie movies) are a mall (Dawn of the Dead), a fairground (Zombieland) and a British pub called the Winchester Arms (Shaun of the Dead)  They eventually set up camp in a wood, with no rations save for a single granola bar (that really isn't much).

Later that night, whilst having an amusing dream involving characters from the Archie series, Deadpool is nudged awake by Radcliff, who informs him that the kids have gone. Deadpool draws his sword and declares that they should go bring them back. While searching, they come across a graveyard, which Radcliff spotted earlier when he scouted the perimeter, but thought nothing of since the virus only affects the freshly dead. Upon checking the graves however, Wade finds that they've been freshly disturbed, which causes him to wonder if the virus has mutated. Suddenly they hear a branch snap, as well as the voices of the kids, who tell them that they heard a noise and, thinking it was a rabbit, went after it in order to surprise the two with breakfast, only for the girl to trip and "that's when they got us". The zombified kids then leap out of the shadows, tackling Radcliff and devouring him. In addition, several ancient zombies burst out of the graves, proving Deadpool's theory that the virus has mutated. Deadpool grabs Radcliff's machine gun and takes out the zombies, remarking to the kids that they kind of gave him hope for a while, that they were like family.

As the sun rises, Deadpool leaves the wood, with a noticeable wound on his forearm that heals regardless. Not long afterwards, he crosses the border into West Virginia, where he discovers a village on an island, with very well fortified barricades on the bridges and a large, healthy population of people. As Wade admires this unexpected find he is joined by a gaggle of woman of various ages. One of them (presumably the leader) says to Deadpool that they are travellers just like him, having come from "so far away" simply to lay eyes on this haven. Okay it's not simply that as the woman then all draw weapons out of their handbags, with their matriarch declaring that they are going to burn down the village and slaughter it's inhabitants, prompting a clearly annoyed Deadpool to ask "why does it always have to be nut-jobs?"

Thoughts:

Since he started writing these Deadpool miniseries, Cullen Bunn has excelled at providing both humorous and intriguing satire on the premise of each, to the point where some supposed shortcomings in the plot could very likely be part of that satire. That's very true with this latest issue of Deadpool zompocalypse action, and it's hard not to just take a "wait and see" stance on everything.

The fate of the human survivors Deadpool encountered at the end of #1 wasn't really that surprising, though it does come off as rather rushed since we don't spend enough time with them. Granted they're all zombie survivor archetypes, but that doesn't mean we can't get to know them as characters or see what they fully make of Deadpool. One of the things I do like about the group though is that Bunn makes Wade a competent leader of them, which is a nice subversion of what you'd expect from the character. He still makes fun of them, but you get the sense that he wants to keep these people safe (well, the kids anyway.).

The humour and zombie genre references are still prevalent and funny. I cracked up at Deadpool's reaction to the nut-jobs at the end, as well as his line about actually having to conserve bullets. There was also a funny nod to Archie Comics titular character as well as the montage of Deadpool and his band of survivors visiting locations reminiscent of zombie classics. My favourite was the reference to Shaun of the Dead.

Ramon Rosanas' art is on the same level as last ish, and by that I mean that it's very well detailed, sometimes gruesomely so. Two issues in and this is pretty good stuff, I'm very interested to see where this is all headed now that the darker elements of this premise are starting to set in...

Score: 4.0/5.0