Cooking With Deadpool

This was a birthday or Christmas gift from my Bride last year. You'd think that a cookbook by a fictional character would mostly be useful for entertainment enjoyment purposes and not be very useful to a professional chef and culinary teacher. Yet, this has got to be one of the most technically sound cookbooks that I have ever encountered in the celebrity chef/series franchise cookbook realm.

Segments are on advanced culinary terms like mise en place and spatchcock chicken. Articles on menu planning and the right types of knives to use abound in this book. There's some basic baking and chocolate work. Add in breakfast cookery, appetizers and breakfast and Cooking With Deadpool feels like the year-long Culinary Arts I course that I teach 9th-12th graders! Except Deadpool and his creative team don't seem to mind taking photos of work and the various steps more trickier recipes need in order to be successful executed!

That's not to say that this cookbook isn't oozing with Wade Wilson's signature off-kilter look on things. Each recipe has an introduction made by Deadpool that will dive into his past history as inspiration for the dish. Friend and X-Man Cable provides a couple of recipes for the book. Tex-Mex cooking gets a lot of love in this book. Spider-Man provides his Aunt May's famous recipe of wheat cakes! And yes! There is an entire chapter devoted to the Merc With a Mouth's beloved chimichangas!

While I did really appreciate the technical merits of this book, I did feel like some of the ingredient choices were odd. Okay- it's a cookbook written by Deadpool. It's not supposed to be totally normal. For instance, the tres leches cake uses pomegranate for moisture and garnish. That just sounds strange to me. The Latin American restaurant down the street from me uses cherries and it's A-MAZE-ING! So when it comes to the ingredient lists, feel free to adjust the recipe as needed without changing the steps. I'm making the ceviche recipe for my wife, but I didn't put as much onion or jalapeno as I know that's not quite her taste. As for some of the fusion dishes, like the beef stroganoff inspired meat pies, I admire the creativity and inspiration. Putting chopped celery in a tuna casserole is just blasphemy.

A book that teaches about cooking while very much full of Deadpool humor and lore!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Written by Marc Sumerak. Recipes by Elena P. Craig.

Marvel Comics Presents #97

The Ghost Rider/Cable story comes to a close. It was about 4 chapters too many. Good ending. But like I said earlier, it was telegraphed early on.

The Pioneer Wolverine story keeps getting better. There's some sort of Medusa creature terrorizing the Blackfoot tribe. It kills with a glance. It's up to Logan to stop it.

There's a Silver Surfer one-shot story that was okay. I appreciated the cameo by Mr. Fantastic. But with all the doctorate-level jargon, I don't really know all that was happening. 

Finally, we head down to the Bar With No Name. There's a ton of cameos from a bunch of baddies. There's the standard mix-up fight amongst friends- or enemies in this case. And a fantastic twist ending!

A .500 batting average is great in baseball. This is my reading enjoyment. Not good enough! No siree, Bob! 

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.

Marvel Comics Presents #96

The Nova story comes to an end. And just now, I remember what this story is about. Nova has been called to help a refuge train of ships from certain extinction. After a lot of destroyed ships, a dwindling population and a mutiny, the story ends with hope. But that level of hope is very small. I think only about 50 refugees survive this story. There were more survivors of the Resistance at the end of The Last Jedi than aliens left behind by Frankie Raye at the end of this.

I was a big fan of the Speedball one-and-done story. There's this cornball baddie named Class Clown. He's a cross between Groucho Marx and the X-Men villain, Arcade. And he's bound and determined to turn Speedball into the pariah of Robbie Baldwin's high school.

The Logan story still continues to impress. I think it's the best story of Wolverine in this entire MCP run. 

As for the Ghost Rider/Cable story, I really could be done with it. It's taking too long to end with the ending I have seen telegraphed for a good two or three previous chapters. Enough already!

3 great segments. One that I'm ready for it to be over with. A good read. Just not perfect.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

Marvel Comics Presents #95

MCP really seems to be all over the place at this point. One issue is a stinker. The next is brilliant and then the one after that is just okay. This is one of those ho-hum issues.

The Wolverine story set in 1800s Canada continues to entertain. Although we're dangerously close to seeing Logan's naked hairy butt, I think the artwork of Todd Foxx is actually pretty good.

The Ghost Rider/Cable story is getting a little long in the tooth. We're at chapter 6 and while I like this story, I'm also ready for the ride to end.

The Hulk story set in the days of Mr. Fixit is cute. But I think instead of Danny Fingeroth (Dazzler), I'd rather Peter David write it. I think the whole dynamic with the young boy meeting his hero but the hero being a grump just isn't connecting. It needs the finesse of a P. David or a David Byrne.

Lastly, I just have no recollection of this Frankie Raye version of Nova story. I really thought it was just a one-and-done story. Apparently, it was a multi-parter.

And don't get me started on the covers by Sam Keith. Neither are any good. I went with the Ghost Rider cover for this review just to spite the horrible hairstyle of Pioneer Wolverine.

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars.

Marvel Comics Presents #92

Since Marvel Comics Presents has transitioned from a 2-sided full cover to a flip cover, I'm going to select my favorite of the 2 images to represent the MCP issue I am reviewing. I was getting bored of seeing Wolverine's face all the time. And like I've been saying, some of these Sam Keith covers are horrid. 

The Beast story comes to an end. It was sad. 

The one-and-done story features Northstar from the Canadian super group, Alpha Flight. The story delves into the mutant's past history as an Olympic skier as in the present day, an international terrorist threatens to blow-up a ski tournament. My guess is that the terrorist is going to cause an avalanche with the bomb he's got. Because otherwise, I just can't fathom a bomb doing too much damage in such an open area. 

Oh, and the Wolverine story comes to an end. Seeing as this is the issue in which Wolverine mans up and beats the living snot out of Cyber, who up until this time had been giving Logan fits, I hated the ending. 

Sorry. I'm just getting bored with the same old Wolverine story for each issue. MCP at this point has lost its anthology essence and I'm not overly happy with the results.

Not Worth Consuming!

Rating: 3 out of 10 stars. 

Marvel Comics Presents #91

The main highlight of this series is a team-up between Daredevil and the Impossible Man! It's an 8-page single issue romp. But 8 pages is enough for once. 

The Impossible Man has been either forbidden from or gotten bored with his interactions with the Fantastic Four. That's not really made clear. In search of a new superhero to pal around, Impossible Man pals around Daredevil. Yes, he helps Daredevil fend off an assault from his old enemy, Kingpin. But since Daredevil is blind, he can't be impressed by Impossible Man's shape-shifting talents, it's back to the FF for the lone survivor of Poppup! Lucky them!

As for the other 3 stories, there's nothing really memorable. In the Wolverine story, Tyger Tiger enters negotiations with a rival crime lord. It's about as interesting as the trade embargo segments from that Republic Senate scene in The Phantom Menace. More of Hank McCoy's past is revealed. We know that Professor X erased the memory of an old girlfriend of The Beast's. We still don't find out the how and why. Then in the Ghost Rider/Cable story, the pair of unlikely allies join forces to save a young girl from a cult of undead killers. Mostly just action and adventure. But nothing really in terms of why this cult wants the girl yet.

An insane tale mixed into the middle of 3 stories that basically put the major players into place for what will hopefully be an action packed issue #92.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.

Marvel Comics Presents #90

Issue #90 of Marvel Comics Presents sees the series go from a single feature to a double! Now appearing in every issue with Wolverine will be the Danny Ketch Ghost Rider. 

In the first story, Ghost Rider teams with Cable in a story that involves a group of undead assassins. Called the Grateful Undead (cute name), these necromantic hit men are on the trail of a young girl. Both Ghost Rider and Cable witness the assault from different angles and in true Marvel fashion, assume that the other is part of these fiends. Thus an epic battle ensues before each other realizes their error and decides to join forces to rescue the lady.

Clearly, this decision to make Ghost Rider another featured player in this series was based on the time period. The early 90s was all about gritty and grim. Other than Wolverine and The Punisher, Ghost Rider was about as gritty and grim as Marvel could get what with demons and serial killers and all the S&M level whips, leather and chains. 

Unfortunately, I feel that with now filling 2 of the 4 segments with permanent featured characters, the essence of MCP has been sorely diminished. This was supposed to be an anthology series highlighting a rotating cast of characters, writers and art teams. Now this series has 2 full-time characters and a regular cover artist, Sam Keith, who is just gonna focus on Wolverine and Ghost Rider on the flip-side cover. I'm disappointed to say the least.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars

What If? The X-Men #1

Welcome to the world of the EXE/men: EXE/scape!

In the not too distant future, there's no such thing as mutants. At least not in the way you

would think of a traditional Marvel mutant. Instead in this tech driven Utopia in which

people upload their consciousness into the internet, some users have developed special

abilities. Able to hack into people's bank accounts, create firewalls and literally kill users

in real life without even touching them, these renegades have become enemies of the state.

Enter Erik Lehnsherr. Instead of being the powerful Master of Magnetism, he's an influential

computer developer and the leading advocate for EXE/men rights. But an equally powerful

computer virus is about to be uploaded that will neutralize these 'cyber-mutants.’ And it's

about to be uploaded into the brain of a kidnapped Lehnsherr. Thus it's up to the combined

efforts of Charles Xavier, Cable and Domino to save not only Erik but the fate of the

EXE/men as well.

If this premise sounds confusing, then I feel like I did my job as a reviewer quite well.

When I read the story synopsis for this one-shot, I didn't know what the hell Marvel was

talking about. After about 3 tries, I gave up. But I didn't pass up on this book and I am glad

I persevered!

When you actually read the book, it's actually pretty good. I think that the cyberpunk

premise is just so out there that only a fan of William Gibson could truly understand it

without reading it. There's such a thin line between the real world and the online one that

a 200 word description just will not be able to do the actual story by Bryan Edward Hill

(American Carnage) justice.

The artwork by Neil Edwards (Fantastic Four) was pretty cool. There's a definite change

in style between the two world's. That really helps to understand what is going on. I also

loved the cover by Luke Cage's Rahzzah. I couldn't tell if Domino was developed from a

real image or computer generated. Except for Cable's face. That was 100% not realistic

at all!

There was one part of this book that I was a little confused about. At the end are two

appendices. They look like entries in an issue of The Official Handbook of the Marvel

Universe. They're about the EXE/men Jubilee and Rogue. If you'll notice, I didn't mention

either in the synopsis. That's because neither appear in this book except in one panel.

Several normally mutant characters appear in cameo here. So I'm wondering if other

copies of this What If? have features of those other guest stars in them.

This one-shot was a lot better than the advertised teaser. If you can overlook it, you're in

for a treat with this book. And if anyone has read this comic and can attest if there's

different character appendices in the back, I'd appreciate the info. (It might raise my

rating somewhat.)

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Marvel Firsts: The 1990s, Volume 2

The 1990s was a touch and go time for Marvel. Believe it or not, the House of Ideas almost went belly up. It filed for bankruptcy and actually needed DC's help to bail it out. So for all of you who hate DC, just remember if not for the owners of Superman and Batman, who knows if Marvel would still be in existence???

Anyways, there was just as many terrible ideas and stories coming out of Marvel as there were successes. For every Venom or Web of Spider-Man there was The Nightstalkers or Beowulf. X-Men titles dominated but there were so many different X-series, the market was really over-saturated. Yet Cable, Gambit and Generation X managed to overcome the glut of mutant related titles to give the Uncanny X-Men a run for their money. 

There were a few glimmers of hope during the 90s. Iron Man got a chance to be a legitimate team leader with Force Works. Blade got his own solo title right before Wesley Snipes made him a household name. And though not as funny or self-deprecating as he was now, Deadpool was given an early chance to shine thanks to Fabian Nicieza, Wade Wilson's lesser known co-creator. 

Some of these stories were first appearances. Some were first issues of already established characters. And a few were of either completely or partially brand-new teams of heroes or even villains. It was a wild time for Marvel and this edition captures a large chunk of some of the more bizarre works from the Bullpen.

This isn't exactly my favorite time period of not just Marvel but comics in general. Yet, I want the other volume in the series. And for historical (and money saving) purposes, I plan on keeping this volume even if it's wasn't the greatest read of all-time.

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars.

Despicable Deadpool Volume 1: Deadpool Kills Cable

The reign of the Despicable Deadpool begins with this volume that takes place immediately after the events of Secret Empire!

SPOILERS: 

The reign of HYRDA Cap has been thwarted. But the damage has been done. The public still doesn't forgive or trust the true Captain America. Wade Wilson has been declared and enemy of the state! And the Preston family is in serious disrepair. 

On the run, Deadpool now must complete a series of 4 murders in repayment of his debt to Stryfe. His first target: Cable!

I must admit when I first heard that Deadpool was going back to a baddie, I was afraid that he was going to loose all of the elements that led to me falling in love with the character over the past couple of years. Thankfully, he's the same old Merc with a Mouth- he just doesn't give a damn anymore!

Another thing that should have led me to not worry is the fact that Gerry Duggan is still penning the further adventures o Deadpool. The quality of the stories haven't diminished and Scott Koblish continues to pencil the series in his 'pen is mightier than the sword' ways. 

Though it's a more gruff Deadpool, everybody's favorite mutant- besides Wolverine, and Cable, and Kitty Pryde, and Storm, and Professor X...(okay, I could go on for ever)- anyways Wade Wilson is still in very talented hands and this is a series very much Worth Consuming!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Deadpool 2

The Merc with a Mouth returned to theaters this week and he took zero prisoners. Literally nothing was off topic in the latest R-rated film to feature the mutants of the Marvel Universe. Racism, sexuality, politics, DC Comics, and Rob Liefield were all roasted by Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool. 

Most of the cast from the original film were back for the sequel including Morena Baccarin as Vanessa, Karan Soni as cab driver Dopinder, and Brianna Hildebrand as the X-Man Negasonic Teenage Warhead. But there were some new members as well added to the mix as well. Josh Brolin, who seems to be having the Spring movie season of his life, played time traveler Cable and honestly, I liked his Cable way better than Thanos. 

But the new character who stole the film was Zazie Beetz, who portrayed the very lucky mutant Domino. She was smart, funny, and well, very lucky. She might have dethroned Jennifer Garner's Elektra as my on-screen superhero crush. I hope she'll be back for the likely sequel, which is rumored to be called X-Force.

This film is definitely not for kids. There's more violence, gore and maiming in the sequel. Not as much sex as in the first Deadpool, but just about as much nudity. The big thing that was amped up in this sequel were the F-bombs, while rival some Tarantino films. 

There's really not much more that I can review about this film without giving away some major spoilers and I try very hard not to ruin them. I will say that there are two extra scenes during the credits and despite the fact that he did film a cameo, I didn't see Stan Lee anywhere in this movie. No- I did not leave to go to the bathroom or snack bar. Either they cut his scene or he was in the background of a very busy action sequence and if you blink, you miss him.

In my opinion, of the 3 Marvel films already released this year, Deadpool 2 was my favorite. It was insane, action-packed, and while it had some very poignant SJW moments added in that normally make a lot of fans angry, I didn't feel like I was being preached at. And yet, I feel that the way I look at some things on social media have changed for the better thanks to this film.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Uncanny X Men Annual 2000

A young girl just coming to terms with her mutant powers is brutally injured in a random school shooting. Now blind and possibly permanently paralyzed, the girl wallows in her misery. Only, these pity parties are having dramatic effects across the globe as millions are randomly subjected to her blindness and immobility. So, it’s up to Professor X and Cable to help ease the girl out of her cocoon, possibly coach her to walk again, and use her new powers for good.

It’s a good story, but there is one serious flaw here- the girl was shot point blank in the face. A scene shows her in an ER with blood and gauze covering her. Yet, the very next day, she’s shown in her hospital bed with a porcelain skin and not a blemish or stitch to be found. That’s just totally unrealistic. I know your thinking this is a comic book. But, she doesn’t have a healing factor like Wolverine, so her head should be covered with bandages and such.

Very poor plotting or poor art direction. Not sure which, but it’s not very forgivable.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.