In ‘Avenging Spider-Man’ #12, Spidey teamed up with one of my least-favorite heroes in the Marvel Universe… Deadpool. I read that issue with some wary trepidation but came out a little surprised. The premise was that Spider-Man was trapped inside his dreams with Deadpool and the pair lept from one ridiculous scenario to the next before discovering that all of this was in Spider-Man’s head and that he was being controlled by the Hypno-Hustler! Say what!? Yes… the story was that weird. But it was fun! It ended with the Hypno-Hustler reveal and that’s where we pick up this month.

When Spider-Man realizes that he’s been hypnotically duped into rescuing the Hustler, he tries to take the villain down. However, the Hustler has other plans and uses some new powers to make himself appear massive to Spidey and sends our hero running. Then, since he doesn’t want his escape plan ruined, the Hustler sends Deadpool on one more mission… kill Spider-Man!

I thought that pulling Spider-Man and Deadpool out of the dream world and into reality would make this issue a downer from last month but, since Spider-Man is still being affected by the Hustler’s abilities, he sees a lot of strange stuff while attempting not to end up deceased at the hands of Deadpool. While it is a little more grounded than last issue, it’s still far from normal.

I said it with last issue and I’ll say it again. I normally don’t like Deadpool but writer Kevin Shinick seems to know how to make the character likable. I don’t know if it’s because of his background with humor shows like ‘MAD’ and ‘Robot Chicken’ but Shinick’s Deadpool comes across as more funny and less annoying. I even enjoyed Deadpool’s trademark talking through the captions, which usually end up making me grinding my teeth.

I like that Marvel has some actual comedians handling Deadpool instead of the usual superhero type writers. I may even have to give the rebooted ‘Deadpool’ series a chance this November when Brian Posehn takes a spin as writer. If they can pull off the humor like Shinick did with this arc, Marvel may make a Deadpool fan out of me yet.

Final Score:

 

AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #13
Story by Kevin Shinick
Art by Aaron Kuder
Cover by Shane Davis, Mark Morales, and Matt Hollingsworth