"Spider-Man/Deadpool: Road Trip"

 

                The following is a review of the graphic novel “Spider-Man/Deadpool: Road Trip” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

                Years ago, scientists Richard and Mary Parker discovered Master Matrix, an android, and it led to the creation of Project Doppelganger for the government agency S.H.I.E.L.D., superpowered Life Model Decoys. In the future, the world was overrun by LMDs, particularly those of Deadpool. Wade Wilson/Deadpool in the future swapped bodies with his past self to prevent this dark future from coming to be. In the present, Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Bobbi Moorse/Mockingbird, Cindy Moon/Silk, Paige Guthrie/Husk, Clay Quartermain, and psychic advanced sharks Bruce and Deborah had been overwhelmed by the Project Doppelganger LMDs, who had used the supervillain Dmitri Smerdyakov/Chameleon to lead them to Master Matrix. Master Matrix, who had been kept dormant for years by S.H.I.E.L.D. was revived. Master Matrix transformed all the LMDs into Deadpool, and Spider-Man, Old Man Deadpool, and their allies fought the LMDs, but Master Matrix and the LMDs teleported away. Spider-Man discovered a file on Project Doppelganger revealing that his parents were behind Master Matrix and Project Doppelganger. In the future, Old Man Parker, Deadpool, and the Fantastic Four (Valeria Richards, Reed Grimm, Vision and H.E.R.B.I.E.) fought the Deadpool LMDs and Master Matrix and lost, so Valeria sent Old Man Parker and Deadpool back in time to the present. In the present, Hellcow, a member of Deadpool’s crew, had secretly been reporting to the Chameleon. Chameleon stole a Galactus robot, intent on destroying Master Matrix. Spider-Man, Old Man Deadpool, Old Man Parker, and Deadpool teamed up to find Master Matrix, and Chameleon discovered them at the gravestones of Richard and Mary Parker. Master Matrix fused the Project Doppelganger LMDs into one giant robot to fight Chameleon’s Galactus robot. Both robots were destroyed by Deadpool’s commandeered S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier the USS Deadpool, and Old Man Parker and Old Man Deadpool disappeared, their future now erased. Spider-Man and Deadpool appealed to Master Matrix and agreed to take responsibility for him and show him he could be something besides a weapon.

                Spider-Man and Deadpool attempted to train Master Matrix, but their parenting styles were vastly different. Mockingbird insisted to Spider-Man that Master Matrix had to stay in their S.H.I.EL.D. safe house and gave Spider-Man a tool that would permanently shut down Master Matrix. Spider-Man and Deadpool teamed up to fight the Wrecking Crew, who were using stolen magical artifacts. Master Matrix disobeyed Spider-Man’s instructions and joined the fight, and as the Wrecking Crew escaped, Spider-Man, Deadpool and Master Matrix were teleported to the Savage Land. Spider-Man gave Master Matrix the tool that could disable Master Matrix. Spider-Man, Deadpool and Master Matrix discovered the Wrecking Crew were in the Savage Land to steal a special alloy called Vibranium-B. Spider-Man and Deadpool left Master Matrix behind while they went to fight the Wrecking Crew, and Master Matrix destroyed the tool that could destroy him. Spider-Man and Deadpool were joined in their fight by the Warriors Three (Hildegard, Fandral and Hogun), who were after the Asgardian artifact the Wrecking Crew had stolen and were using to teleport. Master Matrix decided to return to his “home” in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Area 14 and suggested for Spider-Man and Deadpool to take a road trip to strengthen their bond.

                While on their road trip, Deadpool explained to Spider-Man that they were in a comic book, and that Deadpool enjoyed talking to the readers. Spider-Man accepted this as one of Deadpool’s eccentricities. They woke up one morning and were attacked by an army of giant bugs from the Negative Zone called the Ghlteyks. They were joined in their fight by Bug, a Kaliklak adventurer. They followed the Ghlteyks into a tunnel, and Bug decided to try to learn more about them, leaving Spider-Man and Deadpool to travel further into the tunnel. Spider-Man and Deadpool were attacked and teleported into the Negative Zone. They came across an Eternal named Ransak, who was on a rampage, and Ransak attacked Spider-Man and Deadpool. Spider-Man and Deadpool were defeated and retreated. They ran into Jannor and Koly, two members of Negative Force, the police of the Negative Zone. Spider-Man, Deadpool, Jannor and Koly fought Ransak, and Jannor electrocuted Ransak, which temporarily brought him back to his senses. Before he was overwhelmed by his rage again, Ransak gave Spider-Man a device with a button, telling Spider-Man it was the only thing that could stop Ransak. The fight was joined by Blastaar, Lord of the Negative Zone, who had been using the Ghlteyks to stabilize a portal between the Negative Zone and Earth so Blastaar and his army could invade and conquer Earth. Karkas, another Eternal, also joined the fight, summoned by the device, to save his friend Ransak. Blastaar used a rage inciting machine to sway Ransak, Deadpool, and Koly to his side, and they fought Spider-Man, Karkas, and Jannor. During their fight, Spider-Man electrocuted Deadpool, breaking Blastaar’s sway over Deadpool, but Blastaar had then also converter Jannor and Karkas. After their fight, Spider-Man and Deadpool were returned to Earth, only to discover Earth was in ruins. Deadpool also discovered he was no longer able to break the fourth wall and communicate with the readers. Spider-Man and Deadpool were reunited with Silk and Deborah and fought a giant mutated Mole Man and his army the Moloids. Silk told Spider-Man and Deadpool about the Manipulator, who had killed many heroes and had been harvesting others. Spider-Man revealed to Deadpool that he was really Peter Parker. Silk brought Spider-Man and Deadpool to her Underground, James Howlett/Wolverine, Eugene Judd/Puck, and Crystar/Spirit of Vengeance, and they planned to be harvested so they could free the other heroes. During their fight with the Manipulator, Puck and Deadpool were destroyed, and Spider-Man, Silk and Deborah were harvested. Deadpool found himself transported to Gutter Space, the place between the panels, with Gwenpool, another hero who frequently breaks the fourth wall. Gwenpool drew Deadpool into the Harvesting Zone, where he freed Spider-Man and an army of other superheroes. Deadpool deduced that the reason he could no longer break the fourth wall was because the Manipulator himself was the fourth wall. The heroes teamed up to fight the Manipulator to once again break the fourth wall and discover the truth about the Manipulator and their entire existence.

                Okay, now that we’ve got the synopsis out of the way, let’s get to the Tim Cubbin part of this review. We’re going to start where we always start, and that is with my own personal opinions on the book. Let me begin by saying that I didn’t find this book to be extremely enjoyable. My main problems with this book were that some of the storylines were slightly confusing. The first storyline in the book involved time travel, and it did get a little wonky, particularly that originally Deadpool and Old Man Deadpool switched places, then later were both existing in the same place at the same time. And “Road Trip” and “The Manipulator” centered around “Infinite House of Civil Yet Secret Crisis War Invasion,” an “event” that actually really didn’t exist and was just made up as a joke, full of references that were never explained because these issues don’t actually exist. This joke just didn’t really work in my opinion. I found that the character development of Master Matrix just didn’t make sense, how he went from just being pure evil to being completely rational and then compliant to Spider-Man and Deadpool, and I felt like the ending of “My Two Dads” with Master Matrix just deciding to shut himself away seemed uncharacteristic from where he was at the start of the book. And the series finale was contained in this volume, and I found myself underwhelmed and dissatisfied with the conclusion and really didn’t feel it was resolved properly. I also didn’t find the humor to be all that funny, I didn’t really have any “laugh out loud” moments while reading this, maybe a few smiles and scoffs, but no significant sound escaped my lips. I will say, though, that I thought that the artwork in this graphic novel was actually extremely high quality. That was, actually, one of the things I actually liked about this collection. But if we’re looking at the story here, I just didn’t find it very appealing. As far as the title goes, I feel like “Road Trip” was actually a perfect title for this book. This was a seven-issue story arc, the longest in this volume, and also fits with the rest of the content of this book as well, so this was actually an adequate and appropriate title for this book.

                Next up on our schedule is to discuss accessibility. I’ve done the explanation of this over six dozen times at this point, but I’m compelled to do it again every time I do a new post because I always have new readers every time I do a post and they’ve never been to this blog before or read one of my reviews before and have no idea what I mean when I say “we’re going to discuss accessibility,” so, yeah, I’m doing it again, so if you already know the drill, just deal with it again so I can explain this to the newbs. Anyway, when I say if this book is accessible, what I’m actually saying is if this is a book that anyone, even a person who has never heard of Spider-Man or Deadpool before, can find this book on a shelf and be intrigued enough by the title that they decide to by this book and read this book and understand everything they’ve read without outside context. I will tell you that this book has an exceptionally low accessibility factor. Right off the bat, this is Vol. 3, and I will tell you that Vol. 2 (which has already been released) ended with “To Be Continued…” on the bottom of the last panel, and this book picks up exactly where that book left off, so if you haven’t read “Spider-Man/Deadpool: ‘Til Death Do Us…” you will have no idea what is going on at the start of this book. Also, this book ties in to an “event” that doesn’t even actually exist, so the referenced storylines cannot be found anywhere you look. If you’ve never read a Marvel Comic book before, this is definitely not the right place for you to start.

                Next up on our tour is the numeric score, one of the most crucial parts of one of my reviews. I can’t say as it’s the most important part of my review, everything in my review can be considered important to any of my readers, so who’s to say what the most important part of one of my reviews is, but the numeric score is still really important. Anyway, my system is very simple. I score on a scale of one through ten. One is the lowest score I can give, which means that every copy of this book should be taken, destroyed, and this book should never be republished. Ten means that this book is solid gold and sheer perfection and that every copy should be bought off the shelves because it deserves to be in every Spider-Man or Deadpool fan’s collection and it should need to be republished multiple times so new copies can make their way into readers’ homes. I will tell you that I’m not leaning exactly towards the flaming hot pile of trash score of a one, it did have some factors about it that saves it from total annihilation, but it definitely is nowhere near getting a ten either. My regular readers know this already, but I have a special blender in my head made specifically for making scores for these reviews. So, I take all the contents of the book when I write these reviews, the story, the art, the title, and all my own personal likes and dislikes, and I dump them into my metaphorical blender. In this case, we have an unsatisfying and confusing story, excellent art, and an appropriate title, as well as a lot of dislikes. Then I press the mix button on my blender. I leave it on until this book is completely mixed. Then I take my review cup and pour the mix in, look at my score, and what do I see? I see… a three! This was an unsatisfactory effort and not very enjoyable to consume, so I had to give a low score, but I still do feel like there were a few good things about it. The biggest thing that saved this book was the art. If this book had terrible art, I would likely have given it a two. I didn’t feel like it was so abysmal as to deserve a one, but I still feel like this was just not at all a well-written graphic novel.

                Next up on the agenda is the recommendation segment. This segment comes in two parts. The first part is if I myself personally recommend this book to you, my reader, or if I talk to any friends about this book, will I tell them to read it? The second part of the recommendation section is regardless of if I give this book the personal Tim Cubbin recommendation or not, who do I think would be the best audience for reading this book. Now, you can probably guess at this point my response to the first question, but I do have to confirm it for you in exact words because sometimes my opinions can be a little misleading. As to the question of if I recommend this book to anyone reading this or listening to my words, the answer is no, I do not recommend this book to you at all. However, if you are a diehard fan of both Spider-Man and Deadpool and still want to read this book anyway, I will say that as long as you’ve read “Spider-Man/Deadpool: ‘Til Death Do Us…” in Modern Era Epic Collection format, this book is something you should consider. If you like team-up comics, this book is a team-up of great characters, you might somehow find enjoyment in this book. And if you like comics with humor, you might enjoy this book as there are a lot of attempts at comedy contained within these pages.

            Well, I think we’re at the point where I’m about ready to wrap everything up. So first off, if you’re still reading this at this point, thank you, you are THE BEST! I post on this blog on a very frequent basis. I collect every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection that is released as soon as I can following its release and post up a review if possible. I’ve done over six dozen other reviews, if you liked this one, feel free to check out “Spider-Man/Deadpool: Isn’t it Bromantic?” or “Spider-Man/Deadpool: ‘Til Death Do Us…” and any of the other over 170 posts on timcubbin.blogspot.com. I’m done over six dozen other reviews like this one, as well as other types of reviews, and short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials, so there’s plenty of other content here to check out as well. Feel free to keep checking back for more, you can expect my next review of “The Amazing Spider-Man: Big Time” within the next eight weeks. I’ve been doing this blog for five years now and will keep doing this until I can no longer see, my hands no longer work, or I’m dead, so expect me to keep this up for quite a while. That’s all for now, but until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!