Thursday, December 29, 2022

REVIEW: Deadpool: Samurai (manga, vol. 2) by Sanshiro Kasama, art by Hikaru Uesugi, translated by Amanda Haley

Deadpool: Samurai is a Marvel manga. I bought my copy of this volume brand new.

This review includes major spoilers.

Review:

At the end of the first volume, Deadpool and his new teammates found themselves up against a regenerated version of Thanos. That battle continues in this volume. Then it's time to travel to Mount Fuji in order to find out what Loki's cooking up there and stop him. The specifics of Loki's motive are finally revealed, and it's all just as stupid as you'd expect.

Okay, the first volume was better. Except for Deadpool, just about every Marvel superhero who showed up either behaved out-of-character or like a parody of themselves. Captain America, in particular, made me wince, although Loki was fairly disappointing too. Design-wise the most difficult to handle was Hulk, who was weirdly pretty.

The plot barely held together and none of the battle scenes had any real weight to them. Either there were fewer jokes, or there were fewer good jokes - not sure which. But I did appreciate Loki's reaction to the way Deadpool vs. Deadpool turned out, and Sakura Spider getting hit by a truck just before the big battle got a surprised laugh out of me (although I still think the writer missed an excellent opportunity to work in a good isekai joke). Also, the All Might cameo was great.

This fell mostly flat, and the fourth wall pulverizing ending didn't help. I think this was the last volume, but if it wasn't, I don't know that I'm interested in continuing on with it.

Extras:

A bonus manga in which Deadpool takes his sweet time getting to a big battle, plus several more bare-bones character profiles. Also, an afterword from both the writer and illustrator. Looks like Uesugi wasn't just imitating Kohei Hirokoshi's artwork - Hirokoshi actually drew those All Might cameos. Neat!

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