Waiting for the Trade - Deadpool & Howard the Duck

Waiting for the Trade

by Bill Miller

 

Fear Itself: Deadpool and the Fearsome Four

by Christopher Hastings and Brandon Montclare

collects Fear Itself: Deadpool 1-3 and Fear Itself: Fearsome Four 1-4

 

Why I Bought This: I was buying Fear Itself tie-in trades from the discount bin of my favorite local comic store and this one had an unusual team-up story, which can be fun when done well.
 

The Plot: When Deadpool learns about the magic hammers in Fear Itself he decides to play a trick on D-list super-villain the Walrus. Howard the Duck assembles an unlikely group of heroes in a bid to prevent the Man-Thing from exploding since the Man-Thing normally absorbs fear to empower his mystic energies.

Chapter 1 – Deadpool is selling home security systems when he learns about the magic hammers falling from the sky. Suddenly some plumbers get their van bazooka’d and a sledgehammer falls out. Deadpool takes the hammer with him and starts gluing glitter decorations to it. Meanwhile the Walrus blows up a monster truck show with a horde of bees in revenge for some slight. Deadpool tracks Walrus down and drops his faux-hammer from the sky. Deadpool then dresses as an “avatar of destruction” and approaches Walrus with a mission. Meanwhile the plumbers realize they lost their hammer and say without it some small town will be destroyed.

Chapter 2 – Deadpool has Walrus perform various pranks on the citizens of the same small town the plumbers are concerned with. We learn the plumbers are actually werewolf hunters and a coven of werewolves is set to descend on the town tonight. Deadpool has Walrus rampage in broad daylight. Deadpool then approaches the town fathers in his normal costume and offers to save them from Walrus for a fee. Deadpool defeats Walrus but then when the moonrises the faux-hammer becomes actually enchanted and the tables are turned.

Chapter 3 – Walrus pounds on Deadpool. Deadpool tries to change back into the avatar costume but Walrus sees through it and pounds him some more until Deadpool calls it quits. He tries to hitchhike out of town only to run into the plumbers who tell Deadpool of the impending werewolf attack. Deadpool and tries again and loses even worse. He then tells Walrus there is safe of gold in some underground vault. When Walrus goes there the hammer loses its magic without direct moonlight and Deadpool shoots him in the head with a shotgun. Afterwards the townspeople attempt to pay Deadpool in gold but the gold was stolen by the werewolves in the commotion (who weren’t seeking a slaughter, just the gold).

Chapter 4 – In NYC Man-Thing is rampaging and killing civilians by touching them which causes them to burst into flame if they feel fear. Howard the Duck hires She-Hulk to help him track down Man-Thing, explaining how Man-Thing’s powers work and that he may potentially explode with the force of nuke given the fear-levels in the city. Kyle Richmond is back in the Nighthawk identity as we gloss over the events of The Last Defenders Story where he had given it up to some SHIELD agent. He also appears to be out of control with rage for no discernable reason as he beats on some would be muggers. While flying by he sees She-Hulk, who was one of his teammates in said Last Defenders Story and offers to help out. The heroes hear a commotion and a mob of civilians is attacking the Frankenstein Monster. The heroes save the monster and Howard invites Frankenstein to accompany them as the Fearsome Four. Just then Man-Thing arrives and uses the Nexus of Realities to mutate the Four into monsters.

Chapter 5 – We get a five-way monster fight until Man-Thing shuffles off and the heroes revert to normal. Frankenstein gives his origin and notes being recently captured by an unseen mad scientist and tasked to capture Man-Thing for him. The unknown scientist is revealed to be Psycho Man, who dispatches the heroes with ease. Man-Thing makes the save allowing the heroes to rally but just as it looks like the battle is in hand, Man-Thing opens a Nexus portal and the 1990s “New Fantastic Four” of Spider-man, Wolverine, Ghost Rider and the Mr. Fixit grey Hulk pop out.

Chapter 6 – Psycho Man uses his emotion box on the New FF so they will fight the Fearsome Four.  Spidey easily webs up Howard. Mr. Fixit pummels She-Hulk. Ghost Rider sets Frankenstein on fire. But for no explainable reason Nighthawk just beats the crap out of Wolverine and tosses him into Spidey and then breaks Ghost Rider’s magic chain. This allows Frankenstein to literally punch Ghost Rider’s head off. Mr. Fixit is still beating She-Hulk until Man-Thing returns to engage him. The fight continues until Psycho Man realizes Howard has version of the Ultimate Nullifier called the “No-Thing.” He takes it from but when he presses the button it fizzles. Howard gets it back and uses to incinerate Psycho Man and the New FF (although Psycho Man was revealed to be a robot duplicate during the fight). Howard then tries to use it on Man-Thing to put Man-Thing out of his misery but the device malfunctions again as Man-Thing begins to burst into flame.

Chapter 7 – We get a flashback on how Howard acquired the No-Thing. The device still won’t work so the heroes try getting physical with Man-Thing. When that doesn’t work Howard has them jump into the Nexus to confront their greatest fears. Each hero does so and triumphs and when they reemerge from the Nexus their triumph over fear allows Man-Thing to harmlessly disperse his excess fear-energy and the team disbands.

Critical Thoughts: This is even worse than the main Fear Itself story. As a crossover it has nothing to do with the main story; and its own merits it still pretty awful.

I have very little to say about Deadpool other than this is the second trade of his I’ve read since his solo-popularity boom and clearly the character’s brand of lunacy is just not my cup of tea. There’s a chuckle or two here and there but not enough to make the price tag worthwhile.

The Fearsome Four story is the one I was more interested in when I purchased this but that too is just a bad story. Howard the Duck is a character that I’ve only seen once before in a throwaway Spider-man team up (and also his bad 80s movie); but based on this story he’s another character I never need to read about again.

I don’t blame this writer for throwing away The Last Defenders story as that too was a bad story that few people read and it was clear 5-minutes after reading it that no other writer would ever hold to the status quo it attempted to set up (The short version is Kyle gives up the Nighthawk costume so he can fund a new version of the Defenders made up of variations of the original team that some prophecy said would become the greatest super-team of all time. The problem is the variation is Hellstrom, She-Hulk and some Atlantean whose name I can’t even remember; and clearly no other writer was ever going to use that line-up over the A-list combination of Dr. Strange, Hulk and Namor). However, that doesn’t explain why Kyle’s character is completely unrecognizable. The dude has never been this savage or had the rage problems they show here whether in the original Defenders series that ran from the 60’s – 80’s in which he was a mainstay to his more recent continuity appearances in the Thunderbolts and the aforementioned Last Defenders Story. Indeed if they are going to make the character so different than his roots then why not just leave the SHIELD agent Kyle gave the costume to in the identity and then you could characterize him anyway you want.  Furthermore why in the hell can Kyle, who is clearly D-list in every other appearance over 40 years, suddenly take Wolverine, Spider-man and Ghost Rider in a fight?

Indeed while it’s always kind of fun to see the New FF, this whole fight scene makes no sense. The Kyle scenes are the worst but by no means the only plot hole here. Psycho Man has emotion manipulation not full on mind control as a power, yet a few panels in he’s calling them minions as he barks out orders and they just do what he says. Mr. Fixit pummels She-Hulk in their fight, but the Fixit version of Hulk is far weaker than normal Hulk. He’s the only version that ever lost a fight to the Thing, which means he should be equal in strength to She-Hulk instead of totally outmatching her. Howard also vaporizes them at the end of the fight, which even though Howard says its alternate reality versions of the heroes, I still don’t see why that make its acceptable instead of just returning them to their home reality.

 

The only hero handled with any depth in this is She-Hulk. (I mean yes Howard has the big tormented moment of whether to kill his best friend Man-Thing, but they way his dialogue is written you can’t really connect to him). First of all her continuity is touched on throughout. She apparently has a past association with Howard, and they also touch on her recent association with Kyle. Ditto she knows Psycho Man from her days in the FF and gives this team some tips on fighting him. On the personal level when we see her greatest fear, it is she never wanted to be hero—she got her powers from a blood transfusion, and yet she gets sucked into these cosmic world level stories fairly often and hopes she can live up to the example of the other Avengers, Fantastic Four and Defender heroes she’s met and not accidentally cause the world to get blown up one day. Of the fears we see faced it’s the only one that feels like an actual insight into the character. Still since I’m mostly indifferent to She-Hulk that alone isn’t reason to recommend this story.

 

Grade E. I suppose if you’re a fan of Deadpool, Howard the Duck or She-Hulk you might like this more than I did. I only moderately care about the last of those three characters. For as well as She Hulk is written that’s offset by how poorly Kyle is handled or how the use of the New FF ultimately fails on every level as well. Frankenstein also serves just no purpose at all in this story, which feels like yet another missed opportunity.