Currently, Sean McKeever and Filipe Andrade are releasing Onslaught Unleashed, the latest chapter in the saga of Marvel’s sinister hybrid of Charles Xavier, Magneto, Juggernaut and Apocalypse. With the recent surge of popularity of this once-toxic property, it made me reflect on the recent comic miniseries Onslaught Reborn by Jeph Loeb and Rob Liefeld. I’ve always felt the need to talk about it, but never got around to it.

I rag on Jeph Loeb a lot. A LOT. A WHOLE. FREAKING. LOT. It was my bread and butter for a couple years, but with Onslaught Reborn, I can’t continue that hate. It’s no Long Halloween, but this comic is Jeph Loeb’s best work in the past decade. There’s no murder mystery, so that helps a lot. There’s also a reason for there to be a big ensemble cast instead of adding in extra guys from all over for no reason.

Then again, the whole Earth/Counter-Earth thing boggles my mind. Didn’t the Heroes Reborn characters stop existing or something when things returned to the status quo? I mean, I guess not, but in that one Thunderbolts storyline… No, I’m not falling down this rabbit hole. I have a review to write.

To catch you guys up on what’s going on for this story: Onslaught was this big bad from the 90’s created from Xavier mind-raping Magneto and gaining his powers and corruption. Once defeated by the team of Mega Man and Venom (with Arthur as their helper character), Onslaught turned into some kind of evil black hole fog thing and a bunch of superheroes sacrificed themselves like lemmings. Franklin Richards used his childhood omnipotence powers to create a second Earth on the other side of the sun where these dead heroes would live on in EXTREME recreations.

That brings us to our story, which takes place a day after House of M. As Scarlet Witch has removed the powers of most mutants, the mutant magic of Xavier and Magneto has merged together to recreate Onslaught as his own being. Now he’s out to track down and I guess take over Franklin Richards. Franklin sneaks away to the Counter-Earth he created, where he meets the teenage girl version of Captain America’s sidekick Bucky. He and all the heroes of Counter-Earth, as well as a couple villains, have to team up to take down Onslaught.

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There’s a lot going on in the world of Deadpool. The guy has like a million different comics going on at the moment with Deadpool, the soon-to-be-ending Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth, Deadpool Corps, Deadpool Team-Up, the miniseries Deadpool: Wade Wilson’s War and some other miscellaneous appearances. He’s been revealed as a new character in the long-awaited Marvel vs. Capcom 3, where his quirks include Moonwalking, beating his opponents with their own life bar, doing a Shoryuken, yelling, “YOU PRESSED THE WRONG BUTTON!” when losing and getting tentacle raped by accident via Morrigan Aensland in the opening cinematic.

He also, as recently revealed, is going to have three more comics coming out. One is Deadpool: Pulp, which is in the alternate universe decade-specific retelling spirit of the Marvel Noir series. All I know is that the Jae Lee covers are completely stellar, so that at least has my attention.

The second comic is Deadpool MAX by the team of David Lapham and Kyle Baker – a team that’s been making several comic fans weep in frustration. Isn’t that right, Mr. Brothers?

Then again, I’ll weep in frustration too if the interiors are done in Baker’s current ugly-as-sin computer generated art that makes me pray for the day when his trial copy of Poser finally expires. Come on, man. I know for a fact that you’re better than this.

Even more recently announced is Uncanny X-Force. In the wake of Cable’s death and the revelation that Cyclops put together the latest version of X-Force, Wolverine decides to keep the black ops dream alive himself with an even more secret team made up of Wolverine, Archangel, Psylocke, Fantomex and Deadpool. Deadpool and Fantomex in the same book? I’m completely there. It’s rather interesting how the recent arc in Deadpool’s core book where he joined the X-Men for all of several hours foreshadows this development several times over.

Oh, and Deadpool’s dimensional counterparts are going to be getting their own one-shots, so add that to the pile. Plus that Deadpool #1000 issue.

With Deadpool everywhere, I think it’s about time to get past the groaning and joking about how Deadpool is everywhere. I know I’m just as guilty as everyone else, rolling my eyes when they revealed a third on-going series, but I’ve long reached the state of acceptance. Why? Because most of the time, I’m enjoying the spread shot of Deadpool they’ve been handing us.

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