Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #4 – “The Quick and the Dead and the Really Dead”

* Part 4 of 6 of the Dead Presidents storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #4 – “The Quick and the Dead and the Really Dead”! In the previous installment, Deadpool kicks some zombie president ass and takes some names with the help of everyone’s favorite Marvel sorcerer Jeff Bridges! I mean, Stephen King. Strange. Stephen Strange.

Strange enchants a sword that will help eradicate the zombies and sends them back to the other side. The necromancer is choosing to cooperate because, in all honesty, he seems like a really nice guy anyway. Preston has been briefed that an army of the undead is being raised to take over the country, so they have to deal with that now.

Deadpool makes a lot of jokes! I wonder if a comedian is writing his material.

Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #4 [March, 2013]
Written by: Brian Posehn / Gerry Duggan
“The Quick and the Dead and the Really Dead”

In South Florida, Undead Marylin Monroe is singing to Undead JFK from the back of a truck. JFK and a couple of alive cronies are loading the truck up with guns and ammo. “Hi there, Baby Girl… we’re, ah, reinvading Cuba.”

Marylin Monroe comes out into the light looking scabby and gross, much to JFK’s disgust. “Yeesh,” Kennedy recoils. “The years have not been kind, Marylin.”

The “Marylin” flashes her dick and pulls out a big sorcery-enhanced sword. “SURPRISE! Say hello to my little Wade!”

Slash, burn, fizzle. Kill. Kill kill kill. Everyone dies. Deadpool removes the blonde wig and grins wickedly. “Don’t go anywhere, boys and girls. The show’s not over. There are so many other undead presidents for me to send back to Hell.” I’m looking forward to that. I haven’t seen much of Jimmy Carter milling about… … …yeah, well, he might not be dead, but he will be by the time you actually read this! Let me know in the comments if it happens.

Anyway, up on the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier, Deadpool chomps an oversized burrito while thumbing through a history book looking for his next victims. “Can I just kill Nixon again, please?”

Agent Preston tells this guy to make haste! James K. Polk and John Tyler are terrorizing San Francisco right now with a couple of other who-cares presidents from the 1800s. Rutherford B. Hayes? Rutherford B. Giving Us a Hard Time! Ha! That’s MY joke and I’m not letting anyone take credit for it. Why would they? It’s awful!

They didn’t have burritos in the 18th century? It’s a wonder why everyone didn’t just kill themselves back then.

Ghost Ben Franklin wants Deadpool’s burrito. And then he calls Deadpool’s Marylin Monroe impersonation “strangely enchanting”. Get it? Because Franklin was a horny boy.

Deadpool and Franklin plummet from the helicarrier right onto the Golden Gate Bridge, where a big group of patriots are defending the existence of the zombie presidents with picket signs like “PARTY LIKE IT’S 1776” and “SAVE OUR DOOMED COUNTRY, FOUNDING FATHERS”. Sounds cultish to me, but that wouldn’t happen in America! Don’t be silly. Ghost Franklin likes their tri-corner hats.

These freaks want to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge! Why? For America, of course. Other reasons and readily apparent, but these folks want Pol, Tyler, and Co. to follow through with it. Deadpool says NO MAS. “So, I have about six pages to kill ten presidents and their henchmen. I say it’s montage time.”

Montage time it is, although montages, to me, imply wordlessness. There are certainly words here.

“Hey, obscure presidents, call out your names as I kill you!” Deadpool says as he leaps toward the group. Zachary Taylor takes offense to the appellation of “obscure president”, but it doesn’t matter what he thinks. He gets re-killed pretty quickly. Then Polk. Then Tyler. Then Fillmore. STAB. SLASH. GUT. GORE. A nearby tourist boat gets rained upon by presidential zombie guts, those lucky so-and-sos!

Time to head back! Deadpool leaps off the bridge, assuming that the helicarrier will catch him, but he doesn’t seem to mind too much one way or the other. “I always thought if I jumped off a bridge it would be over a girl and I’d be nude and listening to the Smiths,” he says to himself pensively. Then he does land on the helicarrier as a miserable pile of blood and guts, successfully finishing his suicide like so many Gold Gate Bridge jumpers before him.

Check San Francisco off the list! Next, the Hoover Dam, where Herbert Hoover (naturally) leads his platoon: Coolidge, Harding, and Buchanan. A meta-note tells us that they should’ve stuck Buchanan with the other guys, and he looks understandably perplexed next to these early 20th century stalwarts of… something. These guys weren’t that great either, actually.

DYN-O-MITE!!

These guys fight over who gets to blow up the Dam even though damn Hoover has damn well earned the right to blow up the damned Dam himself. It’s like Hoover, Damn. Deadpool shows up, scares the presidents, causes them to swerve their car off the bridge (which gets blown up feet from the dam) and that takes care of that! Next!

Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, and Franklin Pierce are at the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant. They’re gonna meet up with Lincoln and then the Adams Family and do some attempted nuclear blastin’. Grab your sunglasses.

Once again, though, Deadpool makes incredibly short work of this batch. Sword’s a-flingin’ and a-slashin’. “YOU’RE GONNA DIIIIIEEEEE!!!”

Lincoln puts up a fight, though, avoiding the sword and punching Deadpool in the mouth. “Be wise and stay down this time.” Then Dead-Honest Abe hops on his own aircraft and skedaddles. This guy is going to be the final showdown for sure. Too bad they already made a shot-in-the-head joke.

Then Deadpool throws his iPhone onto the roof. I don’t know why yet! I don’t even have a joke for that!

Back at the helicarrier, Michael the Necromancer has been detained and he looks rather forlorn in his brig. Preston’s boss, Agent Mustache, doesn’t want her wasting time with the Facepaint Sorcerer. Make with the President Killing or else Maria Hill’s gonna come over here and take a giant shit on the floor. Move!

Ben Franklin ghosts his way through the glass into the brig and introduces himself to Michael. They’re going to have a nice chat. I’m getting a snack.

Michael wants to speak to Tango, which is a codename for Agent Gorman, who is Agent Mustache, and the plot thickens (I guess). Ah, it’s because Gorman was “one of the handlers on Nick Fury’s secret magic school”. Michael studied at that school! Connections are happening! (I guess)

Ah yes, Abraham Lincoln, famous for actively befriending slave owners.

Abe Lincoln is headed to Vegas, baby. Viva! A UFC fight has just ended, with reigning champion Adrian Van Lundgren taking it all! If that’s what you get in wrestling when you win: the “all”. Since this is comedian Brian Posehn’s script, he namedrops Scott Aukerman as Van Lungren’s trainer! What’s up, Hot Dog?!

Van Lundgren barely finishes talking before Lincoln strolls in, takes over, and starts talking smack! WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP! Then Lincoln starts laying down the smack! By that I mean he knocks this guy down with one blow. Then Lincoln starts shootin’ up smack! I kid you not, folks!

The S.H.I.E.L.D. show up a little too late. Ben Franklin thinks they’ve traveled to Hell, but Deadpool corrects him. All the debauchery is Heaven, baby! Viva!

Much to Lincoln’s utter distaste, Deadpool ain’t dead yet, and he’s going to challenge him to a few rounds in the cage! WOOP WOOP! So they work on kicking each other’s asses, which buys Agent Preston time to order an evacuation of the premises. Lincoln is fucking ripped, man. Jacked as fuck. Deadpool asks for advice on the fight from his corner. “You lack the physical prowess for a straightforward confrontation,” Franklin responds congenially, “so stay mobile.”

In Lincoln’s corner, you got Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrsion, and William McKinley. You know… them. Meanwhile, Franklin goggles at some young hotties sitting near the cage.

Do you think Ben Franklin can transmit ghost syphilis?

Lincoln really fucks Deadpool up. Bouncing around, knocking down lights, he’s not really having a good time. Some scaffolding comes down and crushes Franklin’s hotties, which is devestating to say the least. “DEADPOOL, KILL THAT MAN NOW!!!” he snarls.

“Ugh, hey Abe, after you got murdered we invented something called a ‘bath’.”

“SHUT UP!!!” Then he slams the bouncy bastard against the cage and reigns blows into his abdomen. “You don’t seem to do anything well except heal yourself, and appear everywhere! I don’t understand your appeal! I hate you. These people hate you. Tell me, what is it that you’re good at? What do you do?”

“I don’t give up…” he wheezes and he reaches for the magic sword of magic killing. Franklin is unable to pick it up for him. Lincoln continues punching the omnipresent, unappealing bastard. Van Lundgren grabs it and hands it to our hero! And I don’t mean David Duchovny, although that would be pretty choice, king.

Deadpool slices Abe’s head off. Then he tears through the cage and slices the other four presidents’ heads off. Taft rolls into the venue in his floating bathtub. “Oh dearie… Abe, I hope I’m not too late for you. Have you gone and died in another theater?” The he grabs Lincoln’s severed head and floats away. Deadpool has won! The crowd woops it up! Tears are in my eyes! Oh wait, that’s because of the mace.

Meanwhile, in a Russian rocket ship, Ronald Reagan has infiltrated and taken over command with violence and mayhem!