Dan Slott’s greatest creation, the Great Lakes Avengers, crosses over with Fabian Niceiza’s greatest creation, Deadpool, in a series of short stories written by the creators themselves. Humorous one-shots don’t always work, but this one did.
There are three different stories that all sync up and interstitial pages narrated by Squirrel Girl. Anthologies often feel thin, even when they are “oversized,” because creators get less than 10 pages to tell their tale. In this case, given the nature of the characters and the interconnectedness of it all, it works pretty well.
After the Civil War, as part of their constant battle to stay relevant, the Great Lakes Avengers become one of Tony Stark’s “Initiative” teams (representing Wisconsin of course), and call themselves the “Great Lakes Initiative.”
Chronic fourth-wall breaker Deadpool shares some recent Marvel comics with Squirrel Girl to let her know that Speedball, who she used to have a little bit of a thing with, is now into S&M and has taken the name Penance.
In the first story, drawn by Mark Nelson, we learn that AIM captured Dionysus and weaponized his God-like wine powers. Obviously, this is a “you had to be there” kind of story with lots of super-hero drunkenness.
Deadpool and the GLI team up, free the God, and make Deadpool a reserve member of their team.
After which, he refuses to leave their headquarters and eats all their food.
Big Bertha goes on a date with Deadpool, hoping to get him out of their HQ. When she shows up in her “thin” form, Deadpool is disappointed. Bertha gets mad that she was only into him for her looks (even though it was her fat look), but when she sees his mutilated face with the mask off, she vomits.
There’s more comedic adventures with the team trying to evict Deadpool later in the book. On the last page, they finally succeed and on his way out Deadpool kills a new version of Grasshopper, who wanted to be on the team.
Also, Squirrel Girl visits Penance at Thunderbolts Mountain and decides to go back in time to stop him from becoming Penance in the first place. To do that, she used Doctor Doom’s Time Machine, but he tricks her and instead sends her to an alternate future where she meets the League of Losers.
Very full issue, mostly well done if you have a high tolerance for silliness and completely inconsequential stories.
English (US) · 