Giving a rare look at a modern Marvel comic he doesn’t despise, Bellarius thumbs through the pages of The Wedding of Deadpool by a variety of authors who know the character best.

“It’s Deadpool doing whathe does best, with the writers offering a constant barrage of fourth wall breaking gags, gore and explosions. The joke is great, but begins to wear more than a little thin by the end.” – Bellarius, The Founding Fields

As you might guess from the title, The Wedding of Deadpool is a comic largely revolving around a single joke. Sometimes these gags are failures when the material isn’t good enough or the joke itself wasn’t that great the first time, but for the most part this one is a solid hit. Rather than being a single running narrative akin to Dead Presidents, what’s here is a series of short stories by a multitude of authors who have handled the characters over the years. Each takes time to give their own spin on what it would be like for the merc with the mouth to get hitched, and it allows the comic to make use of various big name writers such as Mark Waid, Gail Simone, Christopher Priest, Fabian Nicieza, Jimmy Palmiotti and a great many others.

The subject matter here is broad enough for each to make their own mark on the idea and put a very different spin on things. Even without getting into the problem of just who would be insane enough to wed someone like Deadpool, this is the Marvel universe, so demonic incursions, mutants and aliens are abounds. It further helps that each author manages to keep a consistent voice with the character without compromising their own styles, ideas or the like and no one is obviously a repeat of another. They are each also well balanced in equal amounts violence and jokes, with most providing brief snapshot fights and battles to keep the pace going and give Deadpool something to do. Well, something he’s not so bad at to do.

Unfortunately despite all the big names many of these are very hit and miss. Due to their short length, many read as if a much bigger story was originally planned and then jammed into a third of its intended page length, causing abrupt beginnings or some very unusual retellings. This makes a number fairly insane to read, and it can take going through it more than once to actually understand just what happened or leave you wondering just where the ending went. The fact they are so short, even with the opening included, means that the comic is not one which reads well as a volume and should be better looked at individually. Trying to go through them one at a time can feel taxing as if the story is constantly starting and stopping, making the joke in question wear quite thin very quickly.

These are all treated as isolated issues which is both a strength and a weakness here. On the one had, given this is treated as a celebration of the character, it means it’s not tied down to ongoing plot elements. On the other, the wedding itself comes out of nowhere for anyone reading the series issue by issue, and much of the supporting cast are shoved to one side in favour of comparatively minor matters. It’s open to new readers this way, but even then it’s not a good opening into Deadpool’s life due to the short length of each story and their single subject focus.

Thankfully a little more variety is offered in the form of two additional tales which help to break up the story towards the end. First among these is a time travelling tale involving Hitler. After punching out one of the many assassins sent back to kill him and stealing his equipment, the leader of the Third Reich opts to correct his mistakes by getting revenge. Cue Hitler trying to murder Nick Fury following the war, with Deadpool going back to stop him. This one really put out all the stops to make it far more entertaining and while brief the gags come thick and fast. Along with the fluid nature of time travel stories, the creators did everything from throwing a mech fight into the mix to frequently playing fun at the nature of older comics.

The other short tale involving a crossover with Madcap is much more mixed and ultimately both does and doesn’t work. On the one hand the writers clearly understood what a meeting between these two characters was going to be like and took advantage to play fun at both Deadpool’s morally grey nature within the superhero industry and their immortality. On the other, many of its sections work best as individual bits and as a cohesive whole it leaves a little to be desired. The ending especially proves to be rather head scratching with the actual resolution coming seemingly out of nowhere and making little sense, even by Deadpool’s standards.

The Wedding of Deadpool is a very mixed bag of good and bad elements. The ideas were good but it definitely required a little more tweaking and it unfortunately misses as much as it hits. If you’re already laughing at the very title this is a one for you, but if you’re after a tale truer to the character or unfamiliar with this current era of Deadpool’s life, Dead Presidents is a better bet. This one’s okay but we’ve seen a lot better in recent years. It’s just a shame that for all this talent something there wasn’t enough pages for something more remarkable to emerge.

Verdict: 6.2/10