Deadpool (2nd series) #42

Issue Date: 
July 2000
Story Title: 
Silent Deadly Interlude
Staff: 

Glenn Herdling (writer), J. Calafiore (pencils), Mark McKenna (inks), Shannon Blanchard (colors), Chris Eliopoulos (letters), Mike Marts (editor), Bob Harras (editor-in-chief)

SPECIAL THANKS TO: Christopher Priest, Diaz & Holdredge (for framing pages)

Brief Description: 

At their home, Constrictor and Titania get a call from a begging Deadpool, who wants a ride back home, as thanks to Dirty Wolff, he is stuck in space. However, they ignore Wade and enjoy watching TV together instead. Wade gets upset and, as Dirty Wolff invites him to the party, he remembers an adventure he had from not so long ago. He was trying to kill Humbug, but his enhanced hearing overheard Wade pulling the trigger of his gun, and Humbug used his powers to make the clock tower where Wade stood on collapse on him. While panicking people tried to rescue Wade, Humbug ran away. As Wade got up, he noticed that Humbug ran into a building marked as a women’s dormitory. He accidentally ran into a women who had just gotten out of the shower and she kicked him, but Humbug too got kicked and punched by other women. Wade decided to give it a rest for now and returned home, trying to figure out who Humbug was instead. Wade also realized he was deaf, thanks to the effects of Humbug’s attacks. The Constrictor approached him, but Wade couldn’t hear a word he was saying. He found three college professors who could be Humbug. After making two mistakes, Wade felt a little disappointed, but eventually did track Humbug down and defeated him. The Constrictor approached Wade and put two leeches into his ear, which ate away all the fluid that blocked his eardrums, and gave Wade his hearing back. The memory stops, and Wade continues his battle in the outer space riot. But unfortunately, several aliens outnumber him.

Full Summary: 

Constrictor and Titania are watching the “Who wants to be a millionaire?” show when the phone rings. Frank answers it, and asks Deadpool what he wants. Wade is surprised that Frank knew it was him. Frank explains that the caller I.D. said the call came from “deep space.”

Titania angrily asks Deadpool where her money is. Wade, while calling from the ship in outer space, angrily tells Titania she won’t get her money because she set him up. Titania defends that Wade agreed to do the job. And she paid him 800 long to walk into the Taskmaster’s trap. Wade remembers that.

He asks Titania what’s going on right now. She smiles that they’re plotting against him. Wade already knew that, but wants to know what’s going besides that. She jokes that they are opening his mail, too. Deadpool freaks out, shouting at Titania that this time, she has gone too far. Frank freaks out when the guy on the show doesn’t say the “Cattle prod” answer and calls him an idiot, not knowing where Regis gets his candidates.

Titania tells Deadpool she’s hanging up now. He quickly tries to ask her to wait and ask for help to get back to Earth, informing her about Dirty Wolff, but she isn’t interested and hangs up the phone. Wade sighs. Dirty Wolff happily welcomes Wade into the party. Oddly enough, this reminds Wade of another adventure, it’s almost like an Untold Tale of Spider-Man (except for the fact that he won’t be the webslinger).

Not so long ago…

Wade sits in a clock tower, and has a clear mark on his victim, who was already trying to sneak into a building. Wade pulls the trigger, but this is enough to warn his victim’s enhanced hearing to warn him about the danger he’s in. Wade fires, but Humbug quickly ducks into safety! He uses his powers to shift the clock onto midnight, and the gongs of the bells are so loud that they cause Wade to go insane. He loses his balance and falls down, but luckily survives the fall. He tries to get up, but the entire tower collapses down onto him!

Humbug tries to escape into a panicking crowd, while some of them rescue Wade out of the bricks and stones. A man happily smiles at Wade, hoping he’s alright. However, Wade instead grabs the man by his clothes, making it clear that he’s a merc and won’t pay the man any money for his good dead. The man tries to shout back at Wade, whose attention gets drawn to something else: a building, which is marked “Roquelaure Hall Women’s Dormitory.”

Wade runs into the building, believing that is the place where Humbug escaped. He finds something that looks like a cape slip into a room, and he follows it. But, actually, it’s just a woman who just got out of the shower! Wade panics at first, but the woman smiles at him. Wade gets the idea. He pulls his mask up so he can kiss the beautiful, blonde woman, who gets closer to him. Once Wade is close enough, she kicks him in the groin! Deadpool is in pain, but then hears noises outside. He and the woman go to look outside, and find Humbug get beaten up by other women who just got out of the shower! He ignores him to recover from the rather painful kick he just got.

Not much later, Wade has returned home, and realizes he can’t hear anything anymore due to the loud gongs. He goes to the library room, and tries to figure out what causes deafness. Constrictor walks up to Wade and offers him food, but since Wade can’t hear anything Frank says, he ignores him and Frank walks away again. Wade decides to try and find out who Humbug is. After digging through some information, he finds three people who could be Humbug’s real identity.

The next day, he uses his image inducer to attend Professor Payne’s class, the first name on his list. He attends Payne’s lecture to “read between the lines.” Wade quickly switches his inducer off to transform into his real form and back, to make Payne aware of what’s going on. However, Payne is more confused than anything else. Wade quickly gets up and shifts back into Deadpool, and beats the guy up. But, when the Professor drops his papers and notes about the classes he has all day, Wade realizes he made a mistake.

He quickly runs out of the class, and attends Professor Lewis’ class, another of his suspects. Wade sees the Professor writing words on the blackboard, which he thinks mean, “Deadpool must die.” He quickly transforms back into Deadpool and takes out his sword, ready to kill the man. However, the poor Professor steps aside, showing Wade what he was actually writing down “Deadly viruses invade a pool and organisms must either adapt or die!” Wade realize he made yet another mistake.

Wade has one last name on the list, but decides to take a little break. Disappointed in his failures, he kicks a can when a bee flies passed him, trying to sting. But, he realizes what the bee represents. He finds a closed down lab, where Humbug is hiding out. He jumps through the window. Humbug panics and attacks Deadpool but, thanks to the fact he is still deaf, Wade isn’t affected by the loud noises that usually come with Humbug’s attacks. He throws a home of bees on Humbug, and he gets entirely covered in honey! Wade finds a jar filled with American fire ants, and smashes it apart. The bees are immediately attracted to the honey and fly onto Humbug.

Humbug tries his powers to protect himself, but they have no effect. Wade stares at the fallen villain. Once the bees are gone, Wade is pulled back by the Constrictor, who pulls his mask off and traps him onto a table! He sarcastically smiles, and shows him jar with green fluid into it, and sticks it into Wade’s ear. Wade panics and angrily shouts at the Constrictor what he thinks he’s doing!

Suddenly, Wade realizes he can hear the sound of his sweet voice again. He wants to know how the Constrictor found the solution to his problem. Frank explains Wade can hear again because the leeches he put into Wade’s ear are sucking out the fluid that were blocking his eardrums. He smiles that one can learn a lot about the healing powers of leeches when you spend as much time in the jungle as he has. Wade has heard enough bragging and wants to know the real reason why Frank helped him out. He smiles, just wanting to say that it has been awfully quiet at home.

Frank takes a look at Humbug, and congratulates Wade on the nice victory. As they walk out, Wade asks Frank what he is supposed to do about the chomping sound inside his skull. Frank believes that should pass in a couple of days. After all, how much can two leeches eat?

(That’s the end of this story, kiddies, but slither on to the next part of this summary to join the story that was already in progress!)

Space…

Wade shoots his way through the aliens, angry that Dirty Wolff destroyed his once chance to get back home. He tries to find an escape pod, hoping there is one on this ship. But, some aliens overpower Wade, and grab him tight…

Characters Involved: 

Deadpool

Constrictor

Titania

several aliens (all unnamed)

in the not so distant past:

Deadpool

Constrictor

Humbug

several people (all unnamed)

several students in Humbug’s class (all unnamed)

Story Notes: 

This issue is part of Marvel’s “Nuff Said” month, in which all of their comics from said month were supposed to be all about the drawings, and no words were allowed to be used. Unfortunately, some issues, like this one, partly broke that code.

The cover, as well as the title of the story, is a spoof of the famous G.I. Joe #21 "silent issue" (which probably partly inspired the "Nuff Said" concept). Deadpool is substituted for Snake-Eyes on the cover and the story "Silent Deadly Interlude" replaces "Silent Interlude."

Humbug is actually Professor Buck Mitty, who first appeared in Web of Spider-Man #19.

“Untold Tales of Spider-Man” was an actual, now cancelled, Marvel Spider-Man centered ongoing series, meant to attract a newer, young public to the company. The stories inside the comics were actually retcons and presented new Spider-Man stories but told in the first years of his career. The series lasted for 26 issues.

Issue Information: 
Written By: