Review by Frank Plowright

Deadpool is in love with Valentine Vuong, who’s sold out her membership in exclusive assassins’ group the Atelier to be with him. He also has a new dog, Princess, who is in fact a Venom symbiote. You’d know all this if you’d read Vol. 1, but the takeaway from that is Alyssa Wong not distilling what makes a great Deadpool story.

The best of that volume was Martin Coccolo’s art, but the pages provided by primary replacement Luigi Zagaria are competent, but not as imaginative or decorative. He’s at his best with the violent action, especially that featuring Princess.

Thankfully, then, Wong’s upped her game. She’s still not great when it comes to the snappy one-liners expected from Deadpool, but if you can accept an organisation the way the Atelier is set up would bother themselves with targeting Deadpool, there’s fun to be had. The Atelier have been constructed to be a variety of talents, requiring Deadpool to be continually resourceful to deal with them, and his scattershot character and unpredictability is something they’re not set up to cope with.

Given the number of assassins and supporting characters, this is more a group book than solo Deadpool, even finding room for creepy Cable, Spider-Man and Wolverine guest appearances. Not every unconvincing aspect we’ve been expected to accept for the sake of the story is explained, but a couple of major ones are in the final chapters, including Valentine’s not quite selfless motives. Unfortunately, though, it’s scuppered by what’s admittedly a good twist, but one Valentine might have been expected to know about given the background and motivations we’re shown.

Wong’s two volumes of Deadpool are in fact a complete story with some diversions, but while this volume improves on the first, it still never manages to hit the highspots. In the UK this collection was issued as Deadpool: Valentine’s Day.