Deadpool (3rd series) #1

Issue Date: 
November 2008
Story Title: 
One of Us
Staff: 

Daniel Way (writer), Pado Medina (pencils), Juan Vlasco (inks), Marte Gracia (colors), Chris Eliopoulos (letters), Clayton Crain (Cover), Rob Liefield (Variant Cover), Paul Acerios (production), Daniel Ketchum and Jody Leheup (assistant editors), Axel Alonso (Editor), Joe Quesada (Editor-in-chief), Dan Buckley (Publisher)

Brief Description: 

During a baseball game, a Skrull ship enters the stadium and announces the Skrulls are taking over the world. On board the ship, the Skrulls discover one of the people in the stadium isn’t human. After identifying the target, they open fire but, when they send a reconnaissance team to investigate the body, the dome above the ship closes. The body suddenly stands up to reveal itself as Deadpool, dressed in a baseball mascot costume. He fights the Skrull team until the commander deploys a super Skrull to finish the job. However, Deadpool has now climbed to the top of the ship and detonates explosive near the bridge, sending the ship crashing to the ground. As the commander crawls out of the wreckage, Deadpool parachutes down to the field and points a gun at him. Just after Deadpool reveals it’s a joke gun, the super Skrull suddenly grabs him by the neck. However, as the super Skrull is about to kills, Deadpool says he has a proposition and claims to want to work for the Skrulls.

Full Summary: 

A young boy and a middle aged man look up at the sky with a scared expression on their faces as the words “RESISTANCE IS FUTILE” are announced loudly. A bunch of shirtless men with the letters B-R-A-V-E-S written on their chests also look to the sky whilst the announcement continues with “SUBMIT AND BE SPARED.” In a dug-out, a baseball team looks up whilst one of the team asks their manager, Skip what they should do. Skip replies “What can we do?” as the announcement finishes with “THIS IS OUR WORLD NOW. AS IT IS WRITTEN.”

All the players, as well as the fans assembled to watch their game, are staring at a Skrull ship that is hovering just above the field in a packed out baseball stadium.

On the bridge of the Skrull ship, Commander Ak’Strk is observing the situation and muses about the humans “spirit of competition” and how it’s a hollow and meaningless victory. He says that erasing these spectacles will be a blessing for the humans. Suddenly, one of his sergeants alerts him to the presence of a non-human in the area. The sergeant continues saying that it has human DNA but it’s distorted. Commander Ak’Strk asks if it’s a mutation but the sergeant says it doesn’t conform to the definition of any current mutation.

The Commander is intrigued by this as he looks at the subject on a monitor. The monitor shows a larger furry creature dressed in a baseball uniform making the peace sign with his left hand. The Commander tells one of his sergeants to deploy a reconnaissance team to get a better look at the creature but the sergeant points out that their scans indicate it is heavily armed. Two large guns can be seen strapped to the back of the creature. The Commander says he didn’t specify whether the subject was to be taken alive. With that, the ship fires on the creature, knocking it to the ground. The Skrulls confirm the target is down as a squad of Skrull soldiers exit the ship onto the baseball field.

One of the voices in Deadpool’s head says he often sees the world from a different P.O.V. Another voice is confused by the acronym, to which the first tells it that it stands for “Point Of View.” As they are talking, the Skrull squad starts examining the body and finds lots of small balls on the ground coming from the “wound” on the creature. On the ship, the science bay reports they are a synthetic pellet and guesses that they might be used for heat dispersion. The Commander suddenly realises that the creature wasn’t what it seemed and that it was wearing body armour. The dome above the baseball stadium starts to close – trapping the Skrull ship inside it.

As the Skrull squad on the pitch look up at the dome as it’s closing, the first voice in Deadpool’s head says you only get one chance to make a first impression. The voice introduces itself as Wade Wilson also known as Deadpool “The Merc with a mouth.” The creature has now stood up to reveal itself as Deadpool dressed in a baseball mascot uniform and brandishing two large rifles.

On the bridge of the Skrull ship, the commander swears whilst one of his sergeants rhetorically asks who he is. The commander replies that, if this guy was a significant threat, then they would know about it. Watching Deadpool on the monitor, the sergeant remarks that he is cutting the squad to pieces on the pitch. The commander tells him to pull himself together and not to be rattled by a lone gunman. The sergeant points out that he has trapped them in the dome but the commander says that their foe has just narrowed the field of view. All the other humans in the stadium have now fled and the only humanoid left is Deadpool. “We’re not trapped in here with him….he is trapped in here with us” the Commander says.

On the field, Deadpool is facing off against five Skrull soldiers. One of the voices in his head remarks how it likes the five to one odds, to which the other voice seconds that remark. Deadpool says “me three” whilst in his mind he views the Skrulls as a bunch of star-struck fan boys. He sees the Skrulls as looking child-like with big eyes and asking for his autograph. One of the voices in his head suddenly realises he is hallucinating as the Skrull ship gets ready to fire at his from the air.

As the ships weapons begin to charge up, the Skrull squad pile on Deadpool. He sustains a head-wound that exposes part of his brain but he nevertheless continues to fight the Skrulls off. He muses to his voices that “is this the best plan we could have come up with?” The voices reply says that this wasn’t their plan… it was his plan. On the ship, one of the sergeants points out that he won’t be able to neutralize the target without hitting their ground troops surrounding him. The commander simply replies “As it is written” and then orders him to fire.

The ship fires a barrage of gunfire down on everyone down on the field. After the weapons have stopped firing both Deadpool and the Skrulls are lying lifelessly on the ground. The sergeant on the bridge monitors the life-signs of everyone on the field and notes that they are sporadic but fading, as those who survived the initial shots succumb to their injuries. The commander asks about Deadpool’s vitals but the sergeant replies that they are nil. Once this has been confirmed, the commander orders a secondary team to be sent out to retrieve the bodies of the Skrulls and the humanoid.

The Skrull team starts recovering the bodies of their fallen comrades and they begin to examine the mascot costume. They pull the head off of the mascot suit to reveal that it’s empty inside. Furious, the commander chastises his crew and calls them failures, due to their ignorance and incompetence. He goes on to tell that it’s time to show them and the humanoid how a real Skrull handles this type of business. With that, he says “Deploy the Super Skrull” and presses a button on one of his consoles.

High above the field, a figure leaps out of the ship and lands on the ground among the bodies of the dead Skrulls. As he stands up, the Super Skrull is revealed with an armoured body reminiscent of Iron Man’s, with one arms covered in fire and another covered in ice. On his forehead, he has a tuning fork, similar to that of Black Bolt’s.

As the commander starts to give him his orders, a Skrull soldier on the ground below interrupts over the radio, saying that the target has been sighted. The sergeants on the bridge leap into action and demand to know where he was sighted. A loud THUNK suddenly comes from the ceiling above the bridge, to which the commander asks what that was. The transmission starts to break up and the sergeant has trouble getting a location on Deadpool. The Skrull who spotted Deadpool is now on the monitors and he simply says “–on top of the ship.”

On the top of the ship, Deadpool, who is now wearing a backpack, is singing to himself and holding some rope and packages. He sets down one of the packages, labelled “TNT.” Still singing, he ties the rope around the TNT and lowers it down to the level of the bridge. Once in position, the TNT explodes, sending a fireball and debris through the bridge. Further explosions occur throughout the ship and it starts to plummet to the ground, directly into the super Skrull. Above the chaos, Deadpool’s backpack turns out to be a parachute and he is calmly drifting to the ground whilst observing the scene. The voices in his head say that normally the acronym P.O.V. stands for “point of view” but in this case it means “Pool-O-Vision” as, below him, he sees all the bodies of Skrulls as computer game bodies with scores next to them.

As he glides down, he spots the commander crawling out of the wreckage. Needing to get down faster, he undoes his parachute and freefalls down, bouncing off the wreckage to the ground. One of the voices in his head says that, even though his point of view is warped, he isn’t blind and he definitely isn’t stupid. The commander is kneeling on the ground as Deadpool walks over to him with a gun drawn. He points the gun at his head and asks if his medical plan covers massive head wounds. The commander says if Deadpool expects him to beg for his life then he is mistaken.

The commander closes his eyes as Deadpool pulls the trigger. However, after nothing happens, the commander looks up to see a white rag poking out of the barrel of the gun with the word BANG written on it. Deadpool starts joking, saying that he’ll be here all week, but he doesn’t notice the super Skrull walking up behind him. The super Skrull grabs him round the neck and lifts him high into the air. Other survivors of the crash emerge and point guns at Deadpool as the super Skrull asks him if he really thought he could go toe-to-toe with the might of the Skrull Empire.

With the super Skrull’s hand tight around his neck, Deadpool splutters that he only wanted to make an impression on them and that he has a proposition for them. The commander tells the super Skrull to put him down and demands Deadpool speak. He introduces himself as Wade Wilson but says most people call him Deadpool, the merc with a mouth. With that, all the Skrulls around him arm their guns and point them at him but Deadpool startles them by saying he is reporting for duty and he stands to attention, his hand at his head in a salute.

Characters Involved: 

Deadpool

Commander Ak’Strk

Skrull sergeants

Skrull Soldiers

Super Skrull

Baseball players

Baseball fans

Story Notes: 

This issue is a tie-in to the Secret Invasion crossover event.

The super Skrull here isn’t the widely known Super Skrull, made famous in the Fantastic Four series, but instead he is one of many super Skrulls designed for the Secret Invasion, each having various powers of various Earth heroes. This particular super Skrull seems to have powers relative to Iron Man, Iceman, the Human Torch & Black Bolt.

The lyrics Deadpool is singing is from the song “Coconut” by Harry Nilsson.

At the end of the issues is an 8-page recap of Deadpool’s history called “Deadpool Saga.”

Issue Information: 
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