Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #5 – “Star Wars: Revenge of the Gripper”! In the previous installment, the body count rises dramatically as Deadpool takes out about a dozen presidents with his magic sword. He rumbles with Abe Lincoln in a cage match and severs that guy’s head clean off his really tall neck, eliminating the Big Bad of the Dead President clan!
Just kidding. Ronald Reagan has taken over a Russian space shuttle and he’s going to blow up America. Just as God intended.
Deadpool (Vol. 5), Issue #5 [April, 2013]
Written by: Brian Posehn / Gerry Duggan
“Star Wars: Revenge of the Gripper”
Ben Franklin congratulates Deadpool on a job well done, killing a dead president all over again and all. A kid runs up to them in the parking lot. “I just wanted to say, you’re my favorite costumed freak,” he says nervously. Deadpool ain’t in the mood for the accolades of children. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”
The kid turns around glumly, but then “Mean” Deadpool Joe Green takes off his mask and turns around. “Hey Kid, Catch!” he says, tossing the gross thing to him. SPLACK! Right in the face, getting doused in all sorts of Deadpool’s various juices and fluids. The kid runs away screaming. “I’m not hemophobic! I’m not hemophobic! AAAAAEEEI! Blood off! Off! Must get clean!”
“Oh dear.” Ben Franklin wrings his fat hands. Deadpool is beside himself with glee! Making money, getting new fans, killing bad guys, this is great! Bring in the hamburgers and sloppy blowjobs!
“Guys! Guys! We have a big problem,” yells Michael, huffing and puffing his way down the parking lot. He holds a hot dog and a drink, but he swears he got here as fast as he could. Ronnie Raygun is on the loose! He’s floating in space right this second, preparing to shoot some very destructive weapons at a very vulnerable country. *points to a globe* Right here. USA.
Preston radios S.H.I.E.L.D. Command and request some involvement from any costumed motherfuckers who might be free agents right now. The kind of costumed motherfuckers that like to hang around in space. A few Guardians of the Galaxy would be quite nice right now, for sure.
Michael can see and talk to Ben Franklin, who asks if he is able to send Deadpool to space through voodoo magic and other hooey. Michael says maybe, I dunno, sure, why not?
This panel was way too good to pass up completely.
But, actually, no. That’s going to be difficult. You see, Reagan left Earth and now Michael’s magical tether is no longer connected. Reagan’s off his leash. This means that he can send Deadpool up, and he can’t send Deadpool back.
Not a problem! Space is the place! Ben Franklin doesn’t want to come with Deadpool since space is quite cold and scary, plus he isn’t sure he can hold his ghostly presence outside of Earth. The magnetic fields may rend him asunder, destroying his post-death consciousness! “Or perhaps my mind would persevere, but I would drift on the solar currents for an eternity. That would be worse, I suppose…”
Boring! Deadpool’s going, chief. Stay home if you want to, but there’s some Reagan Bashing to be had! Michael sends him up to the space shuttle, which is filled with caged astronaut chimps ready and willing to do various space experiments. Deadpool tries to get out of the room to the shuttle cockpit, but instead presses a button that releases the chimps. They rend him asunder! So he starts slicing them with swords, dismembering them quite gruesomely in my family-friendly comic book.
“Darn. It’s that weirdo again,” Reagan observes through a porthole into the next room. “Now what was I doing? Oh yes, I was just about to unleash a nuclear holocaust on the world.”
Reagan punches in the launch codes, which must not have changed since 1987, initiating the world-destruction sequence. “MISSILES FUELING. TARGETS LOCKED.”
Deadpool makes his way in while the monkeys continue chewing him up and whatnot. Reagan informs our snarky, rotting friend that he’s too late. “It’s ironic that the Soviets would help me wipe America clean,” he snarls.
90 seconds to launch. “Lift a glass of vodka, my cosmonaut comrades, and toast a glass to the destruction of – BZZAK.” The computer is interrupted by Reagen tearing off the console and launching the giant hunk of metal at Deadpool.
With respect to Captain Marvel, Deadpool breaks the fourth wall more deftly than Ronald Reagan breaks Deadpool’s bones.
Mr. Funny Man unsheathes his sword and promises to rend the 40th president asunder! Reagan, however, knocks it out like it was an affair partner’s dick out of Nancy’s hand. It’s hurtled toward, and gets stuck in, the metal wall. No matter. Deadpool has a regular non-president killing sword he can use in the meantime. “I don’t know why you guys came back intent on destroying America. Maybe you were giant #$%&s when you were alive, but you’re even worse dead. I don’t give a damn either way, but you’re not going to win.”
He sticks the sword through Reagan’s abdomen. “You stabbed my jelly belly!” he cries as jelly beans spill out of his gut into the anti-gravity chamber. “My jellies! My precious jellies!”
Reagan may have destroyed the weapons control console, but Deadpool is certain that the main helm has SOMETHING that might prevent America from exploding like so many Pearl Harbor incidents. Ah, here’s what it has: controls that can accelerate the spaceship right through Earth’s atmosphere, burn up upon reentry, and prevent any missile launch to happen anywhere! It’s go time, nerds.
Reagan SMASH!!
It’s working, because Reagan is gettin’ upset! Deadpool throws a feral monkey at him. Reagan tears off its head. Deadpool shoots Reagan with a gun. “Bad news punk,” Reagan retorts. “Just because you shot me doesn’t mean that you’ll get to date Jodie Foster.”
But Deadpool wasn’t aiming for him, oh no no no. The bullets punched a few holes in the hull of the spaceship, sucking President Dipshit against the wall and, eventually, through the tiny little holes. “Playing Star Wars isn’t fun after all,” he says, dejected, as his bits and pieces are sucked into the vacuum of space.
Deadpool cracks open the emergency locker and finds a pile of old ship parts. He crafts a weird escape vessel, sort of, and it ends up looking like the thing you see on the cover art. “Preston, if you can hear me, I’m going to need a ride,” he says as his makeshift pile of shit gets pulled toward Earth. “Somewhere between California and Colorado.”
His junk ship starts breaking apart in the atmosphere, ready to land at 25,000 mph. Deadpool is just like Superman except, as far as I know (which is not a lot), he doesn’t even have his own version of kryptonite. Just can’t die! Just WON’T die!
We don’t get to see the epic plummet. The helicarrier hovers over Washington D.C., and Deadpool is there eating a pile of burritos. The table has a bucket full of beer bottles. Agent Preston’s Boss I Keep Forgetting His Name, he has a map of the United States up on a screen with a bunch of the western states projected in red. Space debris was discovered scattered in eight states, with all the warheads accounted for and nobody killed, which is absolutely miraculous. Not even one heart attack after a nuclear missile lands through someone’s upstairs bathroom? Deadpool tells him to “stop bitching about the mess”.
Gotta love the Three BAMF Boys.
Preston says that he did an excellent job, and Deadpool is like “huh?” Don’t get her wrong, it’s her job to make sure he’s not fucking up and she doesn’t really care one way or another at the end of the day, but it’s good to see a modicum of giving-a-shit from this hapless half-dead weirdo. “You know, the more you ‘thank me’, the less complimented I feel,” he sneers, mouth full of burrito.
Well, now that Michael and Ben have shown up, the gang’s all here! Time to keep at it, there are still a couple dozen presidents left, give or take. Let’s stick some swords in them and go play some minigolf.
Before anyone else can say “boo”, electricity fills the air and Washington + Lyndon B. Johnson pop into the ship ready to kick some S.H.I.E.L.D. ass! Boo!
Washington holds Michael’s giant tome of Magic Tricks and Nifty Spells and he’s ready to fill these fools with some of that cool black magic the kids are into these days. Preston’s going to get her secretary out of the way while Deadpool is going to try to take that book. That sweet, sweet book. Then it’s minigolf time.
That’s gonna leave a scar.
Deadpool tries to slash Johnson with his sorcery sword, but he stops it with his hands. “I learned me some Chinese boxing,” he declares, stymying the Deadpooled one. For about three seconds. Then he Al Pacinos this guy with his little friend.
“ENOUGH!” yells Washington, having seen enough (by yelling “enough”). Deadpool has almost impressed him with his resilience and his decomposing good looks! He would’ve made a great addition to his army back when he was alive 230 years ago. But alas.
Washington lifts Agent Preston by the neck and demands a surrender. And surrender he does… but Preston won’t let him. He tries again… but Preston won’t let him. “Wade, finish this ugly, undead, wooden-teeth-having mother–”
KRAAAK! That’s the sound of the First President of These United States twisting Preston’s head all sorts of 180 degrees.
Now you’ve gone and done it. Deadpool is mad now. Like, legitimately mad. He stabs Johnson through the chest while Washington leaps toward him. “Not so jovial now, are you?”
“There’s nothing you can do to stop me from killing you,” Deadpool growls.
“Fool. There’s nothing you can do to stop me from killing everyone,” Washington counters. “You can’t even protect your friends–”
Washington grabs Deadpool’s own Leonardo TMNT dual katana swords. This really makes for some exciting comic bookin’, doesn’t it? Mr. Cherry Tree wants to kill Michael first, who is about twelve kinds of barely conscious. Ben Franklin urges him to get up, but who ever listens to horny ol’ Ben Franklin?
He doesn’t get up, but he starts speaking his rune language and disappears along with Deadpool and Deadpreston.
Michael cries outside of the Washington Monument, truly sorry for what he has done.
Washington intends to burn down the Capitol. Then the world.
Insurrection time!
Final Thoughts
Have I seen an actual good character get killed yet in Marvel comics? I don’t think so. I didn’t even know people could die in the comic book world. I thought it was all “hurff durfff I got you but I’ll get you next time too”.
Ben Franklin is totally going to turn Preston into a ghost so they can both bone ghostily.
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