Warning: SPOILERS for Strikeforce #7
Marvel’s Strikeforce team is a motley crew of superheroes thrown together by circumstance. The group assembled because they all happened to be targeted by the same enemy: the Vridai, a race of shapeshifting dark elves that reproduce with spores. Being bound by necessity means they can escape the usual circumstances behind the formation of a superhero team, such as having a shared ethos or liking each other at all. Strikeforce may not have anything in common, but in Strikeforce #7, the fourth-wall-breaking Deadpool has a better suggestion for a common theme that the heroes find hard to deny.
The members of Strikeforce are intentionally sourced from all over the Marvel Universe with little previous interaction. Spider-Woman, AKA Jessica Drew, is a street-level former Avenger who’s been sidelined from heroism in recent years by having a baby. Angela is an alien angel related to Thor who did temp work for the Guardians of the Galaxy. Blade’s a vampire who walks in the day and hunts his own kind. Spectrum was Captain Marvel before Captain Marvel and has been on both Marvel’s most successful team (the Ultimates) and its least (Nextwave). Wiccan was on the Young Avengers and may or may not become a dark god in the future. The team has also picked up Daimon Hellstrom, who’s “the son of Satan,” and Bucky, the Winter Soldier.
The newest issue, Strikeforce #7, takes the team to Monster Island, which is what Staten Island is called on Marvel’s Earth after being overrun by aberrant creatures seeking asylum. Thanks to the assassination clause in Monster Island’s rules of succession, they’re now ruled by Deadpool, and the Merc With A Mouth isn’t very welcoming of intruding humans. Fortunately - or unfortunately - for Strikeforce, Deadpool is perfectly okay with them. As far as he’s concerned, they’re all monsters, too. Check out his perspective from Marvel’s official preview:
As Deadpool lists out: Blade is a ‘vampire’ (his quotes), Daimon is a devil complete with goatee, Wiccan’s a witch, and Spectrum is a ghostbuster (thanks to an earlier arc). Spider-Woman is a spider woman, Bucky’s amnesiac murders make him basically a werewolf, and Angela spent time recently as Queen of the Dead. “That’s the point of your little team, right?” Deadpool asks. “Monsters fighting monsters?”
Some of these are dead on, while others are a stretch. A Ghostbuster is definitively not a monster; Spectrum could just as legitimately be called a ghost, since she can turn intangible at will and she’s effectively immortal from being made entirely of light. But Deadpool has authorial dispensation here. He asks if the team “got that,” then points outside of the panel to the readers and asks “you guys got that, right?” It seems series writer Tini Howard was happy to use Deadpool’s medium awareness to bring a point home.
Strikeforce #7, written by Tini Howard and illustrated by German Peralta, with a cover from artist Juan Jose Ryp, is available at your local comics shop today.
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