Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Forty-Two: Ultimate Deadpool

Ultimate Deadpool

First Aired: July 14th, 2013

Synopsis: Spider-Man is swinging around in the rain and having a bad day, while unbeknownst to him, nearby Deadpool is fighting thugs working for Taskmaster. When Spider-Man goes to the helicarrier he finds Deadpool there, talking to his team - he used to train with them before Spider-Man started working with SHIELD, but left to become a freelance hero. Deadpool explains that he's there because an agent stole a SHIELD list with a bunch of superhero secret identities, and he's going to get it back. His computer searching finds Taskmaster's base, and he heads off - but Spider-Man asks to come with him as he's impressed by Deadpool. While they're flying to the base in Deadpool's jet they're attacked by Taskmaster's thugs, using jetpacks. Deadpool evacuates Spider-Man and himself from the jet and they fight the thugs as they fall to the ground, but for the sake of humour Deadpool sabotages Spider-Man's web-parachute. They land near Taskmaster's base, but Deadpool reveals that he plans to kill Taskmaster.

The two heroes go into Taskmaster's base, but Spider-Man works to sabotage Deadpool and stop him from killing the thugs. Taskmaster shows up and is effortlessly defeated by the unpredictable Deadpool, before Spider-Man webs him up. They find the SHIELD list of secret identities on a drive and take it, but Taskmaster reveals to Spider-Man that he stole the drive from Deadpool - Deadpool was actually the person that stole it from SHIELD, and he only got it back so that he can sell it. Spider-Man realises what sort of person Deadpool is, and the two of them fight before Spider-Man confronts Deadpool with his morality. Deadpool reveals his origin - he had a bad life and started working with Nick Fury before realising he was better off going on his own so he could take it out on the world - but admits that Spider-Man got to him. He leaves, and Spider-Man breathes a sigh of relief since he still has the drive.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• Taskmaster refers to his base as a school. In the comics, Taskmaster ran schools to teach henchmen how to fight properly, which he's presumably also doing here.

Review: In general I've got mixed feelings on Deadpool. I like him a lot when his humour and zaniness is an exaggerated mask for how angry and sad he is, rather than the "lol XD so random" personality some people have written him with *cough* Daniel Way *cough*. This version of Deadpool is more of the latter than the former, but with his (very brief, very truncated) origin that we're shown we do get to see some of his darker side, so I think I'm okay with it. Him openly trying to kill Taskmaster and his thugs is also something I didn't expect to see, and it's a good source of conflict once Spider-Man finds out about it.

The reveal that he was the person who stole the SHIELD list should be a better twist than it is, but it's a bit too obvious - even if you aren't aware of Deadpool's mercenary ways, we never see a picture of the agent who supposedly stole the list or evidence that Nick Fury is aware of this and really did hire Deadpool. The fact that the supposed agent's name is McGuffin is also a bit of a giveaway. It also feels like a bit of a missed opportunity that we don't see anything with Spider-Man telling his team about what Deadpool is - they're shown to love him when he's on the helicarrier, and presumably they don't know how cutthroat he can be now. It could have been a good angle to explore - are they hurt? Do they trust Deadpool more than Spider-Man? What if they had to work together to take down their former coworker?

Deadpool manages to fit the tone of the show a lot better than I expected him to, and while I wouldn't want him to have his own series in this style, I do think that he's a good fit as a guest star. Spider-Man's fourth wall monologues getting interrupted by Deadpool works surprisingly well, and there's a somewhat surreal part of their fight where they're doing a mixture of fighting in real life and fighting in fourth-wall-breaking imagine spots that I think worked better than I would have anticipated. While the episode could be tightened up a little (side note: how does Spider-Man get home from Taskmaster's base?), this is definitely one of the better episodes so far.