With all of the paradigm shifting, world altering craziness that Wade has been through in the last couple of years or so, something had to give. And it did. Following his self-imposed mind wipe*, Deadpool has gone back to doing what he does best; the sort of repulsive, horrible jobs involving copious amounts of violence and murder for large sums of filthy lucre that nobody else will. With a little help from his new business partner, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Wade has set himself up as the premier one stop mercenary shop that’ll take care of all of the pesky hits that no-one else can and Mercin’ Hard for the Money details his initial foray back into the world of killing for cash that he loved, and loves, so much.

The thing with any new venture is letting people know that you’re out there, advertising your services and making sure that when a job comes up, you’re the first name that anyone thinks of. Which is what, in a very roundabout, sneaky and wonderfully Wade way, Deadpool does when a celestial apparently targets Earth for destruction and for reasons that are far too Wadelike to go into, the Merc with a Mouth is the only person in the whole wide world who can stop the godlike, ancient being dead in his tracks. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear the whole thing was a set-up wouldn’t you? But, no-one would go to those kind of lengths and put the lives of billions at risk for a bit of cheap publicity would they? Of course they wouldn’t, that would be all kind of irresponsible and insane and we don’t know anyone like that do we boys and girls? Anyways, as well as Wade not  putting the lives of billions in danger because it’s cheaper than an ongoing advertising campaign, he also gets caught up in a time traveling manhunt in Weirdworld, has to deal with a particularly vicious gang of bikers, the elderly undead and their chicken headed voodoo master and cope with a fellow assassin hellbent on revenge while tangling with the bluest  of blue funks. And you know what that means don’t you folks? That’s right, it’s business as usual and Deadpool  is back to doing what Deadpool does best. Bringing the pain for maximum financial gain.

You want to know who one of the best team-ups in comics are at the moment? Skottie Young, Nic Klein and Scott Hepburn that’s who.  While Klein and the ‘burn (for that is how Scott shall be known for the foreseeable future or at least until we receive the cease and desist letter) deliver an absolute masterclass in jaw-dropping, eye popping art, Skottie writes up a storm and serves up the sort of wise-cracking, flip the bird at the world Deadpool that we all know and love. His dialogue, character interaction and development is absolutely superlative and the fantastic and furiously paced plots that he throws Wade headlong into hit all the highest of Deadpool high spots and none of the lows. Killing is Wade’s business and in Mercin’ hard for the Money, business is good… Tim Cundle

*Yeah, it really happened. Seriously.