You know your interest in a comic is waning if the only thing you really enjoyed was the cover. Make no mistake, Dave Johnson has been doing some great covers for this title. It’s a shame that Deadpool has such an unnatural hatred because it makes people miss out on some brilliant work by Johnson. (Who I think keeps getting screwed out of Eisners for ‘Best Covers’) I think what makes this stand out is the use of bright blue for the background. It makes the surreal image of Deadpool riding his brain all the more interesting to look at. But again, outside of the cover, I found very little to care about this issue.

I feel bad typing that last sentence because Daniel Way is doing something with Deadpool outside of bad jokes. He’s very subtly curing Deadpool of his problems because I completely didn’t notice the narration boxes were non-existent until Wilson pointed it out early in the issue. I think it’s interesting when Way goes outside the box and try to put a different spin on the character. He did it earlier when Ghost Rider showed us his true origins and he’s doing it again here. But outside of that portion of the comic, everything else is pretty damn boring to read. I don’t care about this nurse who is obviously trying to make Deadpool worse, or the Foolkiller who I know very little about, or just anything else in general. Also, it’s hard to believe that Deadpool is in Britain since Way isn’t doing much with the dialogue to point that out. And no Way, using words like ‘blimey’ or ‘bloody’ won’t change that.

It doesn’t help that Carlos Barberi, who is a very good artist, isn’t given much to work with here. When the book is non-stop action then he does a lot to keep the visuals interesting. But since this entire issue is talking heads it’s nothing but boring set pieces of Deadpool sitting around virtually doing nothing. It may look good on a practical level but it does nothing for me to keep me interested. Also, the head nurse helping Deadpool out seems to change her face every panel. It might be the Walden Wong inks because I didn’t notice these types of problems until he came on board.

So outside the fact that Way is ‘curing’ Deadpool, everything else is a bore. The secondary characters are one-dimensional and boring to read. The art is good, but nothing stands out because it’s just talking heads. Bottom line: This book has lost all of it’s luster since its first issue way back in 2008. It pains me to see that the only consistently good Deadpool book is finally following in it’s many step-brothers shoes as a mediocre title. But sadly that’s what its become.