Review by Karl Verhoven

Even more so than was the case in Good Buddies, Deadpool Team-Up continues to tour Marvel’s secondary personalities, this time accommodating Captain Britain, Satana, Machine Man and Gorilla Man, again by rotating creative teams.

Rob Williams and Matteo Scalera kick off proceedings with Deadpool one of several folk attracted to the location of a securely protected weapons cache on the outskirts of London. Giving Deadpool an English personality as an excuse to parody the US portrayals of the English plays out very amusingly for Williams as an English writer offloading years of frustration. Applying the reverse by having Captain Britain develop an American personality works equally well. “Being American is great man!!!”, he bellows, presumably at considerable volume, “I feel all empowered and young! Confident, free and optimistic…” Does it end well?

Well, Deadpool’s still around when Satana wants to hire him to locate her immortal soul. David Lapham and Shawn Crystal are responsible for this, with Crystal disturbingly objectifying Satana’s woefully outdated costume, not at all excused by Lapham’s in-story comment. However, the remainder is very silly, and very satisfying, and Crystal draws an amazing unmasked Wade Wilson.

Frank Tieri begins with Deadpool advertising the benefits of a career in assassination at a job fair, and he continues to provide a fine Deadpool story if you’re prepared to overlook the lack of a guest star. Chris Staggs is still a developing artist, and his work here improves on his contribution to Good Buddies, being both technically stronger and more imaginative.

What does the thought of Machine Man “positively oozing with lubricant” do for you? Creepy, no? Well, you can thank James Asmus for that thought, and in a collection considerably better than its predecessor his is the funniest script, with some laugh out loud moments. Artist Micah Gunnell didn’t draw many comics before moving on to animation storyboards, and this is a quality performance.

With the bar set high Jeff Parker and Steve Sanders have a hard act to follow, but their contribution also hits the mark. Deadpool is duped into protecting a woman allegedly held captive by Gorilla Man, who’s actually attempting to bring her to justice. It’s another silly treat, if simpler than some earlier material, and Sanders shines with the villain as eventually revealed.

Next up is BFFs, or alternatively the entire series is collected as Deadpool Classic 13.