Deadpool's Logo
A disfigured and mentally unstable mercenary, Deadpool originally appeared as a villain in an issue of New Mutants, and later in issues of X-Force. The character has since starred in several ongoing series, and sharing titles with other characters such as Cable. The character is famous for his tendency to break the fourth wall and is frequently referred to by the moniker "Merc with a Mouth."
Publication history: 1990s
Created by artist Rob Liefeld and writer Fabian Nicieza, Deadpool made his first appearance in the pages of New Mutants #98 published in February 1991. Rob Liefeld, a fan of the Teen Titans comics, showed his new character to then writer Fabian Nicieza. Upon seeing the costume and noting his characteristics (killer with super agility), Nicieza told Liefeld, saying "this is Deathstroke from Teen Titans." Nicieza gave Deadpool the real name of "Wade Wilson" as an in-joke to being "related" to "Slade Wilson", Deathstroke.
In his first appearance, Deadpool was hired by Tolliver to attack Cable and the New Mutants. After subsequently appearing in X-Force as a recurring character, Deadpool began making guest appearances in various different Marvel Comics titles such as the Avengers, Daredevil, and Heroes for Hire. In 1993 the character received his own miniseries, entitled The Circle Chase, written by Fabian Nicieza and pencilled by Joe Madureira. It was a relative success, and Deadpool starred in a second, self-titled miniseries written in 1994 by Mark Waid and pencilled Ian Churchill.
Cover to the Harvey Award-nominated Deadpool #11.
Art by Pete Woods, in homage to cover of Amazing Fantasy #15 featuring Spider-Man.In 1997, Deadpool was given his own ongoing title, initially written by Joe Kelly, with then-newcomer Ed McGuinness as an artist. The series firmly established his supporting cast, including his prisoner/den mother Blind Al and his best friend Weasel.Deadpool became an action comedy parody of the cosmic drama, antihero-heavy comics of the time. The ongoing series gained cult popularity for its unorthodox main character and its balance of angst and pop culture slapstick and the character became less of a villain, though the element of his moral ambiguity remained. The writer Joe Kelly noted, "With Deadpool, we could do anything we wanted because everybody just expected the book to be cancelled every five seconds, so nobody was paying attention. And we could get away with it."
The series was taken over by Christopher Priest who noted that he found Kelly's issues to be 'complex and a little hostile to new readers like me' and that by issue 37, he realised that 'it was okay to make Deadpool look stupid'.
2000s
Deadpool lasted until issue #69, at which point it was relaunched as a new title by Gail Simone with a similar character called Agent X in 2002. This occurred during a line wide revamp of X-men related comics, with Cable becoming Soldier X and X-Force becoming X-Statix. Simone notes that 'When I took the Deadpool job, the revamp hadn't been planned, so it was a complete surprise. Thankfully, we heard about it in time to make adjustments to the early scripts'.It apeared that Deadpool was killed in an explosion fighting the aristocratic (and telepathic) villain known as the Black Swan. Weeks later, a mysterious figure showed up at the apartment of Deadpool's manager, Sandi Brandenberg. The man took the name Alex Hayden and together they started "Agency X", with Hayden dubbed Agent X after the company. Most believed that Hayden was Deadpool suffering from amnesia. The title character of Agent X was eventually revealed not to be Deadpool and the climax of that series saw the original character restored. Simone left the title after seven issues due to creative differences with the series editor.
Deadpool's next appearance came in 2004 with the launch of Cable & Deadpool written by Fabian Nicieza, where Deadpool became partnered with his former enemy, Cable, teaming up in various adventures. This title was canceled with issue #50 and replaced by a new Cable series in March 2008.Deadpool then appeared briefly in the Wolverine: Origins title by writer Daniel Way before Way and Paco Medina launched another Deadpool title in September 2008.Medina was the main series artist, with Carlo Barberi filling in on the first issue after the Secret Invasion tie-in.
A new Deadpool ongoing series written by Daniel Way with artist Paco Medina began as a Secret Invasion tie-in. In the first arc, the character is seen working with Nick Fury to steal data on how to kill the Skrull queen Veranke.Norman Osborn steals the information that Deadpool had stolen from the Skrulls, and subsequent stories deal with the fallout from that. Writer Daniel Way explained, "the first thing Osborn does to try and take care of the situation is to bring in a hired gun to take Deadpool down, which would be Tiger-Shark. That would be the standard thing to do, but of course everything about Deadpool is non-standard. So it goes completely awry and Norman has to to get more serious about things."The story also sees the return of Bob, Agent of HYDRA, "I don't want the book to become 'Deadpool and Friends' so characters will drift in and out, but Bob was someone I definitely wanted to bring in. It just had to be at the perfect moment and when I was putting this storyline together that moment presented itself.".This all led directly to a confrontation with the new Thunderbolts in "Magnum Opus" which crossed over between Deadpool Vol. 4 #8-9 and Thunderbolts #130-131. Thunderbolts writer Andy Diggle said, "it's a natural progression for Deadpool to go after Norman, and for Norman to send his personal hit-squad after Deadpool."
Another ongoing Deadpool series, Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth launched in July 2009, written by Victor Gischler, with art by Bong Dazo. In it Deadpool teams up with the head of the zombie Deadpool from Marvel Zombies 3 and 4.
A special anniversary issue titled Deadpool #900 will be released in October 2009. It will feature stories written by several authors, with the main feature written by the original Deadpool series writer Joe Kelly and drawn by Deadpool's creator Rob Liefeld.
A third Deadpool ongoing series, Deadpool Team-Up, will launch in November 2009 (starting with issue 899), written by Fred van Lente, with art by Dalibor Talajic. This series will feature Deadpool teaming up with different heroes from the Marvel Universe in each issue, such as Hercules.
Deadpool was ranked 182nd on Wizard magazine's list of the Top 200 Comic Book Characters of All Time and ranked 45th on Empire magazine's list of The 50 Greatest Comic Book Characters.
Following the Utopia storyline, Deadpool has recently come to the decision of joining the X-Men.
It has also been confirmed by Chris Yost that Deadpool will soon join the cast of the new X-Force team, which unlike previous incarnations is Cyclops' private black ops team.
Powers and abilities
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Deadpool's primary power is a regenerative healing factor, depicted by various artists and writers with varying levels of efficiency. Said healing factor, which was artificially endowed by the Weapon X program, enables him to regenerate any destroyed tissues or organs very quickly. Unlike Wolverine’s natural healing factor, Deadpool’s is mentally driven to a partial extent. As a by-product of his healing factor, he possesses enhanced strength, agility, and reflexes. At the time of the gene therapy that gave the character his healing factor he was dying of terminal cancer. An unanticipated side effect of the therapy was a rapid acceleration of the tumors as well, causing them to quickly spread across his entire body as soon as his powers fully activated. Deadpool's brain cells are similarly affected, which renders him resistant to telepathy.
Aside from his physical advantages, Deadpool is a superb assassin and mercenary, and an expert in multiple forms of armed and unarmed combat and possesses excellent skills of marksmanship. He favors using bladed and martial arts weapons to meet opponents in single combat. His trademark weapons seem to be his twin katanas that he wears on his back when not in use, and his dual-wielded pistols.
Over the years, Deadpool has owned a number of personal teleportation devices. Also, during Deadpool's first ongoing comic, he possessed a device which projected holographic disguises, allowing him to go undercover or conceal his appearance.
In other media:
Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.Deadpool, voiced by Nolan North [21], appears in the Hulk Vs Wolverine section of the direct-to-dvd animated film Hulk Vs. Deadpool is confirmed to appear in the second season of Wolverine and the X-Men with Nolan North reprising the role.
Ryan Reynolds portrays Deadpool in the feature film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Reynolds is also attached to reprise his role in a Deadpool centered spin-off.According to Empire, a script is in early development, and the studio is searching for a director.
John Kassir voices the character in the video games X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse , Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2. Steven Blum voices the character in the X-Men Origins: Wolverine video game based on the film of the same name.
Bibliography
List of Deadpool series
Deadpool: The Circle Chase #1-4 (1993)
Deadpool: Sins of the Past #1-4 (1994)
Deadpool (vol. 1) # -1, 0, 1-69 (1997-2002)
Deadpool: Agent of Weapon X #57-60 (2001-2002)
Deadpool: Funeral For A Freak #61-64 (2002-2002)
Daredevil/Deadpool '97 Annual (1997)
Baby's First Deadpool Book (1998)
Deadpool Team-Up Starring Widdle Wade (1998)
Encyclopedia Deadpoolica (1998)
Deadpool/Death '98 (1998)
Cable & Deadpool #1-50 (2004-2008)
Deadpool vs The Marvel Universe #43-50
Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular (2007)
Deadpool (vol. 2) #1— (2008-Present)
Deadpool: Games of Death (2009)
Deadpool: Suicide Kings #1-5 (2009)
Deadpool: Merc With a Mouth #1— (2009-Present)
Deadpool #900 (2009)
Deadpool Team-Up #1-
Collected editions
See also: Cable & Deadpool#Collected editions
The stories have been collected in a number of trade paperbacks:
Deadpool: The Circle Chase (collects The Circle Chase,
Deadpool II: Sins of the Past (collects Sins of the Past,
Deadpool (Panini Comics):
Volume 1 (collects The Circle Chase and Sins of the Past
Volume 2
Deadpool Classic (Marvel Comics):
Volume 1 (collects New Mutants #98, The Circle Chase, Sins of the Past , and Deadpool (vol. 1) #1,
Volume 2 (collects Deadpool (vol. 1) #2-8 and -1, and Daredevil/Deadpool Annual 1997
Volume 3 (collects Deadpool (vol. 1) #9-17
Wolverine/Deadpool: Weapon X (collects Wolverine #162-166 and Deadpool (vol. 1)
Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 16 - Deadpool (collects Ultimate Spider-Man #91-96 and Ultimate Spider-Man Annual #2,)
Wolverine: Origins Volume 5: Deadpool (collects Wolverine: Origins #21-27,
Deadpool:
Volume 1: Secret Invasion (collects Deadpool (vol. 2) #1-5
Volume 2: Dark Reign (collects Deadpool (vol. 2) #6-7
Dark Reign: Deadpool/Thunderbolts (collects Deadpool (vol. 2) #8-9 and Thunderbolts #130-131,
Volume 3: X Marks the Spot (collects Deadpool (vol. 2) #13-17
Deadpool: Suicide Kings (collects Deadpool: Suicide Kings #1-5 and Deadpool: Games of Death,
Deadpool: Merc With a Mouth Volume 1 - Head Trip (collects Deadpool: Merc With a Mouth #1-6
Deadpool
