Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular #1 Synopsis by
Rob Johnson
This issue is divided into 3 stories (1 main and 2 shorts) plus a Squirrel Girl story as untitled interludes around and between them, and everything's interconnected. The interludes have art by Kieron Dwyer and colours by Pete Pantazis.
Prelude:-
Continuing the tradition from the GLA series and the GLX-Mas Special, Squirrel Girl (and her squirrel sidekick Tippy-Toe) introduce the book in front of a stage curtain. She explains that (in the post_Civil War era of the Avengers Initiative) the Great Lakes Avengers have renamed themselves again as the Great Lakes Initiative (ie they are the official Initiative team for Wisconsin). But she also describes their apps since GLXMS:- Her app in the I (heart) Marvel Valentine Special and the team's apps in Thing #8 and Cable & Deadpool #30. At that point she's disgusted when Deadpool himself sticks his head through the curtain. And disturbed when he shows her a copy of Civil War: Frontline #10 where her crush Speedball has become Penance.
Story 1:- Drunk with power
Art by Nelson. Colours Giulia Brusco.
Some time ago the Greek god of wine Dionysus, drunk as usual, fell off Olympus and crashed on Earth where he was found by AIM.
Now Wade Wilson (in civvies) sees Human Torch careening around Manhattan randomly setting fire to things before crashing back into the Baxter Building HQ of the Fantastic Four. Deadpool goes inside (not stopped by any security system) and finds the rest of the current FF (Black Panther, Storm and Thing) equally seemingly-drunk. He tries to leave but Storm zaps him with lightning which leaves him dressed only in yellow panties. She introduces him to the others and denies his claim to be an X-Man. BP explains that they've been affected by a distortion effect. He's pinpointed the source but they're in no state to deal with it, so it's up to DP as he seems to be the only 'hero' unaffected.
It seems that the location is a funfair in Wisconsin and the also unaffected GLI are there investigating in their official capacity. They have split into 3 teams of 2:- Mr Immortal & Flatman, Big Bertha and Squirrel Girl, Tippy-Toe and Doorman (who's having trouble recognising the squirrel as a teammate). But DP (now in costume) intervenes because he wants the glory for himself. He keeps killing Mr I (because it doesn't matter) while he searches futilely for secret entrances. But Doorman follows the plan by making his own doorway inside the complex and then opens some real secret entrances for the others.
They all pile in (except Mr I who's still recovering) to face the hordes of AIM, who all start running away from Squirrel Girl because they've heard that she single-handedly (well, with squirrel help) beat Dr Doom, MODOK and Thanos. (Deadpool can't believe those tales are actually accepted in comics continuity). We learn from the AIM scientists that their inebriation wave simulates drunkenness without the necessity for actual alcohol. They've targeted the wave using the brainwave patterns of every superhero in the USA. DP is immune because his brain is continually regenerating. And it turns out nobody remembered to include the GL-whatever's brainwaves in the mix.
AIM troops make a last ditch defence in front of the lab door but our heroes make short work of them. Team leader (in the absence of Mr Immortal) Flatman wants to know what's inside the lab. He suggests he could slide his 2-D body under the door, or Doorman could make his own door to peek through. But DP favours a noisier method and plants a large amount of plastic explosive on the door. SG suggests the team run away. There's a large explosion ... and behind the door they find the GLA's old foe Dr Tannenbaum (from GLXMS) tied up in a broom closet. Big Bertha guesses this must have been his secret base until AIM took it over. FM suggests they release him and team up against the common foe, but nobody takes him up on it.
Deadpool leads them to the real secret lab where they find Dionysus a a captive source of the inebriation wave. But the scientists have now located the GLI's brainwaves and added them to their machine. They fire a beam at the GLI but Mr I rushes in and takes it all in himself ... and dies of alcohol poisoning. DP leads the charge to destroy the inebriation machine so the AIM boss remotely orders AIM troops to carry out the 2nd half of the plan - invade the Baxter Building, Avengers HQ in Stark Tower and the Initiative HQ to steal all their secrets. Big Bertha increases her mass to slow the drunk effect and smashes the machine with her weight.
The crisis is over as all superheroes recover from their 'inebriation' and we see as an example the FF dealing with the invaders of their HQ. Our gang arrest all the nearby Agents. DP learns that everybody gets free drinks when Dionysus is around, and asks if he'd like to become his sidekick. Mr I recovers from 'death' as usual.
The GLI take Wade to see their swanky new government-provided HQ. SG explains how she just helped the god get back to Olympus, and while she was there she helped Zeus with a problem he had with Pluto. DP is impressed with the place and how well the team is doing. When they realise he's serious Craig Hollis invites him to join. Wade says he's got his own team Agency X and he prefers to live in New York, but asks if he could be a reserve member. They've never had 1 of those before but decide it's a good idea.
Interlude 1:-
Doorman is showing us readers the GLI's new hangar bay with vehicles including Big Bertha's Bumper and Flatman's Flat-A-Maran. Squirrel Girl and Tippy-Toe get into their Squirrel-A-Gig gyrocopter and head out to find out what's happened to Speedball by breaking in to Thunderbolts Mountain.
Story 2:- A date with density
Pencils Paul Pelletier. Inks Dave Meikis. Colours Wil Quintana.
He may be a reserve member who prefers to live in New York but Deadpool seems happy enough to stay in the GLI HQ and slob out in front of the TV. The rest of the team want him to leave and blame Mr Immortal for inviting him in. So Craig Hollis goes to have it out with him but Wade Wilson just kills him yet again, this time by forcing the universal remote into his brain. Then Flatman and Doorman persuade Big Bertha that Wade Wilson fancies her and she should ask him for a date. She does and he accepts with enthusiasm.
He gets all dressed up with a tux over his costume (and his sword and ammo belt over that). But he seems somewhat disappointed when she meets him as supermodel Ashley Crawford. He takes her to the Chubby Whale diner for an All-You-Can-Eat meal, where he seems to eat all her food as well as his while she tries to tell him they want him to go home. She mentions that the government might not want to pay for all the Pay-Per-View porn he's been watching.
Meanwhile a Maggia boss and 2 underlings are enjoying the crab puffs when a rival gang bursts in and starts shooting. Ashley turns into Big Bertha to shield civilians from stray bullets. Wade seems happy with the transformation as he wades into the fray.
Later while the cops take the mobsters away Bertha accuses DP of being a 'chubby chaser'. He admits it but she says that's no better than the men who only fancy her supermodel body. She wants someone who likes the inner her no matter which body she occupies. Wade says he has the same desire and takes off his mask to show her his totally disfigured face. But her response is to retch.
Interlude 2:-
SG and TT have reached Thunderbolts HQ. Tippy sneaks in to Penance's room through a ventilation grill and uses a screwdriver to unfasten and remove it and let Doreen Green in. The room is a totally bare cell which is how the occupant wants it. She greets Robbie Baldwin and asks who did this to him, but he says it's *his* choice. He's doing penance for making Nitro destroy a town (and causing the Civil War). Doreen tells him it's *not* his fault. She shows him a SHIELD file that it was Damage Control's fault for increasing Nuklo's power with a super-drug (MGH - Mutant Growth Hormone). Penance can't believe that the company he used to work for as Robbie would do something like that. (SG doesn't tell him that Wolverine discovered (in his v3#43-47) that it was the company's evil new CEO Walter Declun that did it.) Doreen tries to reach Robbie by reminding him of his pet Niels the bouncing cat, but he shows her a photo of the new incarnation P-Cat the penitent puss in an outfit similar to his. (I'm sure this is the only mention of such a thing.) He continues to say how guilty he is despite SG reminding him of bad things that Hawkeye, Iron Man and the Avengers have done but been forgiven for. And he starts to increase his punishment by bashing his armoured head against the wall.
SG leaves with Tippy with another plan. She'll go back in time to change the past. So she heads the Squirrel-A-Gig to Latveria.
Story 3:- Fight or fold
Art by Clio Chiang.
Doorman and Flatman are still trying to figure out how to get rid of Deadpool. Dr Val Ventura is going to present him with a bill for all his expenses. DeMarr Davis thinks he's got a death wish. Ventura knocks on the bathroom door where DP has used up all the hot water, again. Wade Wilson is in the bath (presumably) naked apart from his mask. He tells his rubber duck to keep quiet and maybe the man will go away. 2-D FM slides his head under the door and ask if Wade is 'decent'. Obviously he isn't and drags the hero inside to use as a towel, and then throws him in the bathwater.
Donning a bathrobe DP checks for his duck and sees the elastic Flatman threatening to catapult the toy out of the window. Wade refuses to pay the bill and away goes the duck. DP then starts a martial arts fight, beginning with crane style. But FM counters with origami-fu with which he folds his body into an appropriate shape. Wade tries monkey style, tiger style and frog style, announcing each 1, but Val matches them all. But then Wilson calls out "Boat style" and FM folds himself into a boat. Which Wade staples together and floats him in the bath. And proceeds to have another bath after all those exertions.
Postlude:-
Dr Doom makes his usual bombastic entrance demanding to know who dares violate Latverian airspace. But when he discovers it's Squirrel Girl he immediately backs down (she and her squirrels defeated him in Marvel Super-Heroes #8). She asks if she can borrow a time-machine and he equivocates by saying he doesn't care whether she does or doesn't. But he tells her which way to go. She doesn't want to wind up in the Nitro explosion so she tries to make the machine take her to where Robbie was before that ...
... but instead she ends up in a version of 2099 where she meets the League Of Losers (from Marvel Team-Up (2004) #15-18 & 25) 1 of whom is Speedball. After she's kissed him (for only the 2nd time) he explains that they came from a past where a guy from 2099 killed nearly all present-day super-heroes except some he overlooked. So that small remaining group went to the future and stopped him before he could carry out his dastardly plan. But now they can't go back home because they changed history which means that there's another version of themselves there that *didn't* have a reason to go to 2099.
Doreen selfishly tries to persuade him that this wouldn't be a problem for *him* because his current version (Penance) is totally different. He says that from what she's told him of her present (Norman Osborn's Dark Reign) maybe it would be better if *she* stayed here. She's considering it when Mr Immortal pops up. He's lived through the intervening decades (and doesn't age) and is here to tell her that she *must* go back because the GLI need her for a vital task.
So she obviously makes the time machine do what she wants this time because we next see her doing the vital task. Which is to boot Deadpool in his Captain America boxer shorts out of the GLI HQ, and she throws his costume after him.
On the way out he meets Grasshopper (the 3rd of that name) heading for a GLI meeting. In a fit of pique DP snaps his neck.