Do I talk about Deadpool too much? I feel like I talk about him a lot, but I don't think there's such a thing as too much Deadpool. At least that's what I thought after finishing Dead Presidents, the first installment in Deadpool's Marvel Now relaunch. It's fast-paced, pretty illogical and 100% awesome in pure Deadpool style. Let me tell you why.

First of all this is the perfect place to start for anyone who's new to Marvel comics and liked the Deadpool movie (which features a lot less insanity than the comics by the way). It's the first book in the new series, so you get a quick into to the Deadpool character and his powers and you're good to go. No references you'll miss, just an epic killing spree for you to read. You see, in this comic the US has gone to shit because of politics and such dividing the people. As this originally came out in 2013 I believe Marvel has predictive powers when it comes to the Trump situation.
Anyway, in this story a true American patriot in a kilt decides to resurrect America's dead presidents and let them fix the situation. This doesn't work out, as the resurrected presidents are evil. For no apparent reason. Because they needed some kind of plot, probably. So these dead presidents go on a rampage and SHIELD needs someone to stop them, i.e. make them dead again. Sending American heroes like Captain America won't go down well with the public, so agent Preston hires Deadpool, who's Canadian (fun trivia for your next wannabe geeky pub quiz). Deadpool goes after all these presidents to end their life once again and that's really all there is to this book. Perfect pick if you want to read something but don't want to think about it too much.


Even though I liked Dead Presidents a lot and it's a good starting point, I think a few warnings wouldn't be out of place her.
If you're squeamish, this is not the comic for you. You get some wonderful views of Deadpool's insides when they're no longer inside of him. There are a lot of bloody deaths and flying body parts. A few dead animals and one burning elephant as well. And let's be honest, Deadpool's skin has never been a pretty sight.
As for the presidents... If you're not American or haven't spent a decent part of your life in the US, you'll have no idea which presidents are getting killed. In my Dutch high school I was that weird kid who could name all the American presidents from the past century, including nicknames, and still I didn't recognize half of the presidents. At some point I started mentally referring to them as 'fat guy in bath tub', 'old guy in ugly suit', 'old guy with ugly beard' and such. The more obscure presidents are introduced and the presidents that get some real screen time are the more well-known ones. Still, if you're not into US history you'll miss some jokes, not to mention the significance of certain settings and actions.

Now we've got that out of the way I can talk to you about the art. This is what I refer to as solid art. It's good, but nothing extremely mind-blowing. Way better than Deadpool vs Thanos though, but that's probably because I just don't like that artist's style. Tony Moore's style however is one I do appreciate. Very detailed, which does make the comic look a little bit disturbing at times. Especially when it comes to some guts hanging out of a certain anti-hero or a fat president in a bath tub. But hey, making things look seriously disgusting requires quite a lot of talent too.
The entire book was drawn by Moore, so the artwork and style is consistent. It always confuses me when a different artist does one or two issues in the middle of a collected edition comic, like in Miss Marvel, so I was glad that didn't happen here. Moore gave us high quality art and quite a few full-page images which are just a bit better than the regular pages.

The full-page images were a big plus for me in this case. Okay, they always are, but this time my artsy side needed them because there weren't that many extras at the end of the book. And I just need my visual extras. Instead of loads of visual extras you get a few pages of fan mail this time, which Deadpool answers. That's already a hilarious concept, but it gets even better when Deadpool rips the complaining fanboys apart. I believe that's the kind of stuff I live for.


Usually I also like to use some fancy words on character development at this point of the review, but not this time. As this is the first book after the relaunch, it mostly focuses on establishing the main characters. So we mainly see Deadpool being a bit of an ass, but a funny one. Doctor Strange also makes an appearance, but didn't stick around long enough to impress me. Keep an eye out for agent Preston though; she'll be around for much longer than you'd expect and is one of the female characters I can't help but admire. There isn't much more to say about the characters for now though. I guess character development will happen at some point in the next issues.

So I've come to the end of this review and realized I have no rating system or anything. Quite unprofessional. To finish this in Deadpool style, I'll give Dead Presidents three out of five chimichangas. Enjoyable, great if you're a newbie with a strong stomach, but not for you if you're looking for a comic with just that little bit extra.