Cable & Deadpool begins its second year - and, according the Marvel panel at this weekend's convention, it's actually going to run for the whole of that second year.  It's nice to have that confirmed, since even though there are still far too many X-books, Cable & Deadpool has been one of the more interesting recent launches.  At least it knows what it's there for.

It's taken the first year to get there, but Nicieza finally has his set-up established.  Cable's down to a sensible power level again, and he's now running a glorified commune called Providence, which he hopes is going to point the world in the right direction. 

Deadpool... well, Deadpool doesn't really seem to have much of a clue what he's doing, but he's been around long enough that inertia seems to justify him hanging around on Providence and wandering around looking for something to do.  Of course, there isn't anything for him to do, and the supporting cast spend half the book packing him off on pointless wild goose chases in a futile effort to stop him from interfering with their nice sensible plot.

In theory, the fact that Deadpool has no real reason to be here ought to be a problem, but Nicieza inverts it nicely.  The characters are a ridiculous mismatch, but the story builds on that rather than trying to sweep it under the carpet.  Cable and Deadpool seem to think that they're appearing in two completely different comics, which is precisely the joke.

This issue, Deadpool tries to make himself useful by helping out with Providence's first murder investigation.  The victim is Haji Bin Barat, a very thinly disguised Osama Bin Laden, who Cable dragged to Providence in the hopes that he might loosen up a bit.  After all, what could be more calculated to improve global relations than kidnapping Osama Bin Laden and trapping him in the land of the Guardian readers?

Of course, Deadpool's a dreadful detective.  He's not clever enough to work out any clues.  He doesn't quite follow what's going on.  And eventually, he just decides to take the Fox News route and randomly attack a mosque, since it was probably those dastardly Muslims.  ("Why let statistics, truth and reality cloud my judgment?")  I still can't quite believe I read that scene.

Strictly speaking, the whole concept of this story is remarkably tasteless.  There's really no answer to that.  Other than that it's very, very funny, so who cares?

A great start to the second year, and probably the strongest issue of the series so far.

Rating: A

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