Deadpool (2012, Tim Miller)

Deadpool is an effects test by Miller to prove a feature is possible. It’s unclear, in terms of a narrative, if the ninety second short answers that question in the positive but it doesn’t much matter. These ninety seconds of a strange masked comic book character directly addressing the viewer are phenomenal.

There’s a certain smugness to Ryan Reynolds’s performance–the titular, very skinny character is CG, but Reynolds did the motion capture and voice–but Miller makes it work. The comic timing of the test footage is what’s so spectacular.

A feature length version would probably be tiresome unless it was just one high quality action scene after another.

Miller gets everything right–the bad guys, the mood, the music–he’s proposing the idea of a superhero action movie, with lots of CG, but on a human action movie scale.

It’s a neat idea… but probably wouldn’t work out.

3/3 Highly Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Tim Miller; based on a character created by Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld.

Starring Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool).


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OTHER DEADPOOL FILMS
OTHER FILMS DIRECTED BY TIM MILLER
OTHER 2012 RELEASES

Legion Lost 3 (January 2012)

Nicieza keeps going with the Timber Wolf narration. Sure, he’s the only character doing much for this issue, but it doesn’t excuse the lousy narration. I wish third person exposition hadn’t gone out of style in mainstream comics. Writers were much better at it.

Otherwise, this inoffensive series continues to be inoffensive. Nicieza doesn’t concentrate on the “stranger in a strange world” possibilities (and why should he–the new DC has like six series of that type). Instead, it’s a mix of investigation and action. Timber Wolf doing both, of course. Nicieza positions him as the only Legionnaire who gets the gravity of the situation.

Nicieza is covering about a day per issue (this issue is day three and the third issue). If he keeps up that arrangement, Legion Lost might be really interesting. Not exactly real time, but close enough.

Once again, it’s harmless.

What else should one ask?

CREDITS

Red Rage; writer, Fabian Nicieza; artist, Pete Woods; colorist, Brad Anderson; letterer, Travis Lanham; editors, Darren Shan and Brian Cunningham; publisher, DC Comics.

Legion Lost 2 (December 2011)

Reading Legion Lost feels like reading a nineties comic someone told you was really, really good… only for you to go back and read it to discover it’s okay, but painfully endemic of the period. I mean, where Woods came up with the hairstyles is beyond me….

It’s not a bad issue, it’s just a terribly mediocre one (with some bad elements). First and foremost, Nicieza uses first person narration and it’s rather bad. He’s not able to make it a distinguishable personality among the lost Legionaries. Even though there’s a little logo telling me who it is, I’m not familiar enough with the logos. I think it’s Timber Wolf. Pretty sure.

The content seems, like much of the new DC, a rehash of recent Marvel stuff. A little Civil War, a little of Bendis’s energy guy. Nicieza’s not even feigning originality.

Lost is pointless and passable. It’s totally harmless.

CREDITS

The Dawn of the Hypersapiens; writer, Fabian Nicieza; artist, Pete Woods; colorist, Brad Anderson; letterer, Travis Lanham; editors, Darren Shan and Brian Cunningham; publisher, DC Comics.

Legion Lost 1 (November 2011)

Legion Lost looks a lot more like old, nineties Pete Woods than the Woods I’d gotten used to a few years ago. He’s looser. Maybe it’s supposed to be more “fun.”

But Legion Lost isn’t fun. It’s a TV pilot about young superheroes trapped in a past they didn’t make. In a lot of ways, it’s totally fine. It’s nothing I’d ever read if it weren’t part of a publisher’s major relaunch—and I can’t imagine anyone else getting excited based on the content, Fabian Nicieza does nothing to characterize the time traveling superheroes.

But still… it’s not terrible.

Nicieza can write thoroughly mediocre superhero books and apparently Woods can draw them.

In a lot of ways, the comic’s utter lack of ambition makes it a diverting read. There’s no “weight” to it. It’s not trying to be fun or serious. It’s just a commercial gesture for its brand.

Whatever.

CREDITS

Run from Tomorrow, Part One: Present Tense; writer, Fabian Nicieza; artist, Pete Woods; colorist, Brad Anderson; letterer, Travis Lanham; editors, Darren Shan and Brian Cunningham; publisher, DC Comics.