Today, we’re going back 25 years to see Deadpool pull a forrest gump of time travel in a 1967 issue of Amazing Spider-Man!.
This is Look Back, where every four weeks of a month, I’ll highlight a single issue of a comic book that appeared in the past and talk about that issue (often on a larger scale, like general series, etc.). Each spotlight will be a look at a comic from a different year that came out in the same month as X years ago. The first spotlight of the month looks at a book that came out ten years ago this month. The second spotlight looks at a book that came out 25 years ago this month. The third spotlight looks at a book that came out 50 years ago this month. The fourth spotlight looks at a book that came out 75 years ago this month. Casual fifth week (we look at weeks broadly, so if a month has either five Sundays or five Saturdays, it’s considered the fifth week) looks at cards from 20/30/40/60/70/80 ago years.
This time we’re looking at November 1997 dead pool #11 by Joe Kelly, Pete Woods, Nathan Massengill, Joe Sinnott, Al Milgrom and, in typical fashion, John Romita Sr., as Deadpool pulls a forrest gump in a problem of Amazing Spider-Man since 1967.
WHAT DOES “PULL A FORREST GUM” MEAN?
It just occurred to me that while this comic book came out only three years after forrest gump was released (and became a massive box office hit on its way to winning the Academy Award for Best Picture), it’s now been 25 years and therefore forrest gump The look of this comic might seem a little out of place as a pop culture reference, especially since the movie wasn’t a time travel movie, whereas this issue IS a time travel issue.
forrest gump, directed by Robert Zemeckis, followed Tom Hanks’ Gump as his life reached various major moments in the mid-20th century. Using highly advanced computer graphics effects (which still look good today, but looked VERY good in 1994), Gump was edited to share moments with important historical figures, such as receiving a medal from President Lyndon B. Johnson. .
Thus, the reference for this issue is that Joe Kelly and Pete Woods basically “edit” Deadpool in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man #47 (by Stan Lee and John Romita).
HOW DID DEADPOOL TRAVEL IN AN ISSUE OF AMAZING SPIDER-MAN?
In this issue, Deadpool and his captive/companion, Blind Al, are sent back in time. It lands, oddly enough, in the pages of an old issue of Stan Lee and John Romita Amazing Spider-Man. Deadpool uses an image inducer to take Peter Parker’s place, while Blind Al disguises himself as Aunt May. Then they actually make Mystery Science Theater 3000-style jokes about the plot of this 1967 issue of the magazine. Amazing Spider-Manas Deadpool needs the help of the teenage version of his tech-type, Weasel, to help him get back to the future…
The jokes work so well because they are all clearly having fun…
This is obviously a very well regarded era for Amazing Spider-Manso no one is seriously making fun of these issues, they’re just making fun of some of the aspects of ANY pop culture storytelling of the era, like the slang or the outfits….
Blind Al’s take on Mary Jane taking drugs is probably my favorite of the entire issue.
The fascinating thing is that Woods adjusts his art style to match Romita’s 1967 style, but not just in terms of the art itself, but also the heavy grid format of the older comic book, which is very different from the much wider. open style that most comic book artists were using at the time, including Woods. In fact, as we contrast past and present (where the team formerly known as the Great Lakes Avengers, now mimicking the Thunderbolts instead calling themselves the Lighting Rods, unaware that the Thunderbolts were, of course, the Masters of Evil), we were trying to find a way to bring Deadpool and Blind Al back to the present), we get to see how different the styles are and it’s really cool to watch.
There’s even a fight scene between Deadpool and Kraven the Hunter, with Woods having to work with the set Romita fight sequence between Kraven and Spidey…
This really was such a creative comic book, and Kelly and Woods did an amazing job of editing it all together to be so fun, but also make sense. It was a real triumph. One of the best #11’s of all time, I’d say (not saying much there of course, but hey, it’s still something!).
I’m surprised I haven’t seen another comic book attempt this sort of thing since then.
If you have any suggestions for December (or any subsequent months) 2012, 1997, 1972, and 1947 comic books for me to highlight, drop me a line at [email protected]! Here is the guide to book cover dates, though, so you can make suggestions for books that actually came out in the correct month. In general, the traditional amount of time between the cover date and the release date of a comic book for most of comics history was two months (sometimes it was three months, but not in the periods we’re discussing here). So comic books will have a cover date that is two months before the actual release date (so October for a book that came out in August). Obviously, it’s easier to tell when a book was released 10 years ago because there was internet coverage of books back then.