Spider-man / Deadpool 18 Review
Itsy Bitsy Part 5
Writer: Joe Kelly
Penciler: Ed McGuinness
Inkers: Mark Morales Jay Leisten
Colorist: Jason Keith
Letterer: VC’s Joe Sabino
Editor: Jordan D White and Nick Lowe
G’day Spiderlings
A year and a half after this title started and here we are at the end of Joe and Ed’s run as the main creative team. (20 years from when the team first teamed up to work on Deadpool). So far the issues of this title these two have worked on have been fantastic. They are some of the best modern stories of both characters. How can you wrap up such an exquisite run? Lets find out.
Plot
The dark lord Mephisto can’t stand Spider-man’s purity and has conceived of a plan to corrupt Spider-man’s soul. The plan is close to succeeding, as Spider-man is pushed to his limits and about to kill the villain Itsy Bitsy. There is something standing in Mephisto and his plans way however and that’s Deadpool. Deadpool the ULTIMATE Spider-man fan can’t stand to see his purity corrupted by the machinations of Mephisto and refuses to let his favourite character friend be changed. Deadpool unable to physically stop Spider-man does the only thing he can do to save Spider-man’s essence. He kills Itsy Bitsy. Sacrificing his newly found purity for the sake of Peter’s.
Story
What a Finale. Where to start?
Let’s look at One More Day. I have avoided going here as it’s more theory than real context, but how can I not as it is the last issue and all summed up here. I believe this book (intentionally or not) is social commentary on the state of Spider-man.
The Story of One More Day is a tale about the essence of Peter Parker being “corrupted”. The figure behind that story is Mephisto. Well the same thing is happening here. Mephisto is corrupting Spider-man. We see in the first story this corruption being initiated about by Mysterio, aka the Hollywood influence and a fake Dormammu hinting at pretence behind the hell that appears later in this title. Going into Brand new day and Big time we saw a Spider-man that for a lot of fans had something missing. A ‘hole’ as it was. In this title we literally see Mephisto tell Spider-man that a part of him is missing. The apex of this modern eras corruption of Peter is the Superior Spider-man arc (I know some fans would argue the current Parker Industries arc but I’m referring more to in story than behind the scenes, although an argument could be held for symbolism of the fake Peter wondering the halls of PI in the first arc). In this and last issue we see Peter as his corruption by Mephisto reaches its peak donning a Superior Spider-man costume. In this arc the enemy is the literally the title itself. Spider-man and Deadpool mashed together in trying to make something sexy for the weasel behind the scene. Last but not lest is my biggest jump in hubris. The fourth wall breaking link to the real world Deadpool aka the Spider-man fan. In the beginning we see that Spider-man has an effect Deadpool becoming a moral compass for him as Spider-man has done for many of his fans. By the ends of the story despite the absolute crazy the adventures Spider-man has gone through Deadpool’s main wish is to keep spider-man intact and a good pure character. As is a lot of Spider-man’s fans wish .
Am I reading too much into this? You are damn right I am… but it is damn fun to think about either way.
It is why I have loved this run so much. It could have easily been phoned in and it would have sold but there is something greater here. Thought has been put into these characters and where they are in this title. They go through arcs. While Joe does the noble thing as a comic writer and leaves the toys in the same condition in which he found them. I still feel at the end like the characters going forward have been enriched by my reading and enjoyment of this story.
The plot of this issue is very basic. It is not like a million characters being balanced in the air like balls as is what happens in a lot of finale arcs. This is kept simple to Spider-man and Deadpool. Both Peter and Wade going through some classic to their characters arcs. Peter overcome by rage at being pushed to far then feeling guilty and Wade trying to be heroic but always ending up sacrificing a part of his soul to do the noble thing.
I also love that this series has been able to bring these two characters together in a way that in my mind I felt genuine affection for their friendship. Spider-man hugging Deadpool at the end feels earned after this run. We also see it in moments like Deadpool being scared in the battle when Spider-man stops talking. He knows Peter enough to know that Spider-man being quiet is a dangerous thing.
We also still see the trade mark humour in this book, Dragon ball references, Deadpool sweetly telling Spidey he will always fill his hole, or questioning what continuity they are in.
Mephisto
Do we see Peter united with MJ? No we do not.
I didn’t ever think we would see that. It was nice just seeing the character used again. So much has been built around him since OMD it feels like many creators, even in other titles, have been afraid to use him. It does seem like they are setting him up for a Deadpool villain in the near future judging by how the story ends. I do like that we get a reason for Mephisto to hate Peter too and that’s the level of purity Peter has. Peter is one of the purest Marvel hero’s but he is often close tothe edge. He probably seems like one a devil might be able to tip over and score a powerful pure soul.
Art
I’m out of words here to describe Ed McGuiness. The guy is a legend and one of the greats. It’s the reason toys and statues have been made of his art. His simple and dynamic style works so well in the genre of superhero adventures. Not only is he beautiful in style but he is a fantastic storyteller. As I referenced so many times before, you really should study his page layouts when looking at unique ways to progress story on a page. This title reads so well even without words thanks to Ed’s art.
All in All
I am sad to see this team go. Truly I am. This is a run that will always have a soft place in my heart. So many times in comics we are shown that a legendary creative team should probably not return to a classic run of theirs… well this is an exception to that rule. If you have not read this title than you should rectify this error immediately. While the run is over the title is not. We will see two fill in issues followed by a new creative that is yet to be named. They fact they are holding back on it makes me think it might be a big name. I’m interested to see and will be here to give my thoughts but I have a hard time imagining it can come close to the masterstroke ‘the Joe and Ed run’ has been.
Rating A+
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I still don’t understand how deadpools face got fixed and then unfixed again can someone explain to me ?
I have an ‘excuse’ for everything because I make it my business to dive deep into these topics. It ain’t my fault you don’t have the time to ponder and write this stuff up. Me, part and parcel of what I literally get paid for.
Additionally a lot of this comes down to Doyellian logic and good old fashioned No. Prizing.
Spider-Man is a hero, who believes in responsibility and the sanctity of life and who obviously doesn’t go around maiming or killing people. He has saved the lives of super villains at numerous points before.
Therefore an instance where at pure face value he seems to deliberately kill must have an explanation, or rather it is right and proper that we seek one out rather than be lazy and cheap and just handwave it as him obviously killing randomly when it suits him, which blows up his concept as a hero, him being responsible and indeed how his character is established to have acted.
Sure, sometimes there might not be good explanations (I’ve tried many times to figure out if OMD could even remotely be in character and no it really can’t) but on those occasions you write them off as being OOC, not clearly and obviously part of who the character is.
Now let’s discuss those points you focussed on
1) The Goblin’s costume itself provides a degree of protection. They didn’t mention it in PPSM #75 itself but they also don’t mention the spider signal either.
Yeah there is a difference between the two methods of death, but not to the point where Norman couldn’t have survived as Spidey correctly figured he would. When Norman returns he’s not at all surprised to see him ALIVE so he obviously knew he wasn’t dead and therefore that his attack wasn’t going to kill a guy who could heal from something like that.
The bombs weren’t even particularly concussive in nature, they lit him on fire basically. Spidey saw the guy in protective clothing and a healing factor going down in exploding fire and still yelling and laughing at him.
So no, Spidey 100% didn’t think he was killing Norman.
Greenberg was heavily involved in the story of PPSM #75. It’s the reason he gets a special thanks credit in the issue.
So no, it’s not just Mackie who’s word is authoritative on this matter.
Not that it matters what either of them say. The internal story and character logic trumps everything and as I’ve explained, Spidey wasn’t killing the guy. He wanted to hurt him but he didn’t think he’d honestly die from it given the conditions and he was 110% right. In the extended edition of Revelations, we see Norman emerges alive and well.
In a UK prose story set shortly after Revelations Peter specifically mentions Norman in the context of him being alive and at that point the last thing he’d seen was him falling in the explosion.
Point is he didn’t think Norman was dead nor that his actions were going to kill him
2) If you actually double check the very first Morlun story you’ll see that Spider-Man DOESN’T kill Morlun. He has the chance and deliberates over doing it or not when Morlun’s abused manservant shoots him and Spidey runs after him. He’s angry and only upon hearing about and seeing the abuse on the guy’s face does he let him go but threatens him to leave and never come back claiming he’ll hurt him even worse than Morlun if he does (which I don’t think he meant btw)
Oh look.
The ‘mitigating factor’ I came up with was that there was another guy on panel with a gun who used that gun to shoot Morlun which resulted in his death which Spider-Man tried to verbally prevent and briefly considered bringing the shooter to justice.
-_-
@AL
You literally have an excuse for everything. Some less valid than others. I don’t have time to write an essay, so I’ll just focus on a couple points. 1) there’s a difference between being impaled by a metal glider, and being blown up a gazillion times and falling off a skyscraper. I didn’t see anywhere in PP:SM#75 where Norman mentioned wearing body armor. Also, Greenberg can believe what he wants. He didn’t write the book. Howard Mackie did. Only his answer would be authoritative in this matter. 2) I wasn’t talking about the dreadful ‘The Other.’ I was referring to the first time he met Morlun in ‘Coming Home.’ Spidey was in his right mind and deliberately killed him. That’s not up for debate if you’ve read it. Though I’m sure you’ll craft some mitigating factor to suit your pre-existing narrative, so go for it.
Norman wears a form of body armour, has a healing factor which allowed him to get back up from his chest being stabbed by a large rocket powered piece of jagged metal. Some incendiaries weren’t going to bring him down. This is confimed in the very scene it happens as Norman is still ranting and raving as he explodes, he’s maybe in pain but clearly not dying. Glenn Greenberg agrees with this:
“People have asked me over the years if Peter was really intending to kill the Goblin when he hit him with that bag of pumpkin bombs. I’d like to think he wasn’t, because Spider-Man is simply not a killer, no matter the circumstances. He’s a hero, and a hero should never kill if it can be avoided. I guess we can assume that with Norman having revealed to Peter the existence of his incredible healing factor, Peter knew that the bombs wouldn’t kill Norman, that they would only incapacitate him temporarily. Which we now know was exactly what happened, since Norman came back, strong and healthy, a little less than a year later. ”
So…you can not care and think it’s attempted murder…but you’d be mistaken…
Yeah no.
You are conflating killing with murder when they aren’t the same thing.Killing requires deliberate intent to end someone’s life.
I literally did a three part essay on this going over EVERY alleged kill 616 Spidey has had pre-2007 and addressing them each in turn.
The Finisher was an example of miscommunication and stupid writing because the whole scene doesn’t make any damn sense. But even ignoring that it could very easily be excused as something done in the heat of battle for survival purposes. A missile locked onto his very body was fired at Peter in a foreign country he was unfamiliar with but was nevertheless in a populated area. He got rid of it and then ANOTHER one was coming at him and this one he states couldn’t be avoided. His actions can be interpreted in a few ways. One of them is that it was a mistake made in the heat of the moment.
Another colder way is that it was an instictive manouvre taken in a stressful moment and the heat of battle when he was very young and comparatively less experienced and trying to just stay alive and preserving the nearby population. Additionally the assailants were as far as he knew Communist terrorists, which for when the issue was written really connotated them in ways way worse than any fictional super villains that abounded or have abounded since. That would be like Nazi or the single most hardcore ISIS killer ever in modern day times.
A similar thing applies to Whisper. He killed him, but among the ways to interpret that scene you could easily just say Spider-Man reacted instinctively in the heat of battle for self-preservation. Spider-Man is a hero but his desire to not kill doesn’t and shouldn’t extend to allowing himself to die in order to avoid possibly taking life in a combat situation. In both cases there is also an important element of Whisper and the Finisher being assassins/mercenaries which Spider-Man has a big problem with but I don’t have time to dive into that right now.
This issue is different because he’s deliberately going out to kill someone who isn’t in that specific moment trying to kill him or posing an immediate threat to anyone else. Norman Osborn posed a perrennial threat to his life, his family, his friends and innocent people but Peter never sat down and planned out a way to end his life. So no he wouldn’t do this.
Morlun is a really lame example because he killed him when he was literally not in his right mind, he was like a Man-Spider monster at that point in time, more animal than man and not in control of himself.
Digger is equally lame because he wasn’t really alive. He was a zombie living off of borrowed time. He was going to get destroyed sooner or later anyway and again wasn’t really alive in the first place.
@AL
Oh yeah? What about PP:SM#75 when he threw an entire bag of flaming pumpkin bombs into his chest and watched as he exploded multiple times while falling off a skyscraper? I don’t care how you look at it. That’s attempted murder.
Spidey also killed the Finisher, Morlun (he got better), Digger, Whisper, the list goes on…
@Andrew C
Not at all.
In ASM #122 Peter nearly beat Norman to death. You could say that did in fact cross A moral line but not the biggest one where he would become a straight up murderer. He stopped himself short of that recognizing he was close to the threshold.
It’s a massively important distinction to this. Here Peter WOULD have killed Itsy Bitsy had Deadpool not intervened.
Deadpool stopped Peter, Peter didn’t stop himself. So Peter WOULD have murdered her. But in ASM #122 he was capable of using restraint.
@AL
How is an attempt not “crossing the line”? Whether Norman lives or dies is incidental and luck on his part. It’s still an attempt on his life.
Quesada ruined Spider-Man’s “purity” a looong time ago and Slott continues to rake him over the coals. The Spider-Man that this comic portrays died in 2007. Since this isn’t a main Spider-Man title, its actions make no consequences.
Pure my a**. Peter Parker hasn’t been pure for a long time. Thanks Slott.
Okay…I’m spotting some problems with this book.
The book puts across a presumption that Spidey’s soul is pure in Mephisto’s eyes.
If this book is subtly referencing One More Day this makes no sense.
In making the OMD deal, a deal which hurt himself and the innocent Mary Jane for entirely selfish reasons (it wasn’t about May’s life, it was about him not wanting to feel guilty over her death, OMD states that explicitly) then by definition Peter’s soul would not be pure. Mephisto’s deal even stripulated in the new timeline their souls would be affected and they would on some level still remember what they lost and be tortured by it.
So…Peter Parker’s soul would not be pure after OMD objectively speaking. That’s putting aside any other immoral crap he’s done since then like lying to Aunt May for no reason, allowing Black Cat to walk free purely because he was fucking her despite her being a criminal.
So whilst taking this title in isolation makes the story works, in the wider context of Spider-Man’s history (that is obciously being referenced) and the metanarrative you pointed out it falls apart.
At the same time…in all seriousness I’m not even joiking right now…is it really believable that
a) These major character shifting attitude altering events in Spider-Man’s life is happening somehow in tangent to what we see of the character in ASM where those major life events aren’t even vaguely referenced? Is that not the equivalent of like, Harry Osborn dying in Spectacular Spider-Man but ASM around the same time just basically ignoring it?
b) Spider-Man would honestly come this close to the edge and basically 100% WOULD have murdered someone if not for Deadpool’s intervention when we’ve seen that he couldn’t bring himself to do that in response to an uber powerful mass murdering serial killer who kills just because he enjoys it like Carnage or in response to the guy who murdered his girlfriend, buried his mother alive, made him think his mother was dead (twice), killed his brother, put his friend into coma, vandalized his home and place of employment, has attempted to murder his friends and family (including his wife) on multiple occasions, brainwashed him into assaulting his friends, abducted and tortured him for like 2 weeks, made him believe he wasn’t even a real human being but a science experiment, tricked the children of his the first woman into trying to kill him, indirectly got his best friend killed but later just made him grieve his BFFs death pointlessly, tricked him into freeing him from prison and also murdered his brother and his unborn child?
Norman Osborn has done AAAAAAAAAALL of that to Spider-Man and at one point was literally TRYING to get Peter to kill him…and Peter wouldn’t no matter how close he came would NOT compromise and take his life.
I know some of that stuff is pre-OMD but my point is Norman in one timeline or another has done all these horrible, horrible things to Peter, to people Peter cares about, to innocent people and continues to pose a threat to all of them so long as he lives.
And Peter whilst being tempted and coming close NEVER actually killed him. He at best attempted to kill him twice but didn’t cross the line.
Now I’m asking in genuine sincerity here. Given all of that…is it HONESTLY believable that Spider-Man would not only consider but actively try to murder someone and the only reason he doesn’t is because somebody switches out his target without him realizing it?
Again…in isolation this is a wonderful piece of dramatic character writing…but this is still part of the mainstream Marvel universe so this is still happening later in the life of Peter Parker who still lived through all those things I listed above.
So in all honesty I am asking…does that REALLY make much sense?