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Deadpool
Deadpool, from the recap page of Cable and Deadpool #26 Art by Lan Medina
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	New Mutants #98 (February, 1991)
Created by	Fabian Nicieza Rob Liefeld
In-story information
Alter ego	Unknown, commonly uses Wade Wilson
Team affiliations	Cable, Agency X, Weapon X, Landau Luckman & Lake, Department K, Maggia, Frightful Four, Bullseye, Secret Defenders
Notable aliases	Wade Wilson
Abilities	Regenerative healing factor, superhuman strength, speed, endurance, and agility. Expert marksman and swordsman. Teleportation.

Deadpool is a Marvel Comics character, occasionally portrayed as a villain, but usually as an anti-hero. Created by artist Rob Liefeld and writer Fabian Nicieza, he first appeared in The New Mutants #98 (February 1991).

Nicknamed the “merc with a mouth,” Deadpool is a high-tech mercenary who is known for his wisecracks and black humor. Like the X-Men’s Wolverine, he was the product of the paramilitary Weapon X program, which cured his terminal cancer by implementing a regenerative “healing factor,” but left him disfigured and completely insane.

Deadpool was originally an adversary of The New Mutants and their later incarnation X-Force, despite his infatuation with the X-Force member Siryn. Deadpool received his own series in 1996, which was known for its slapstick tone and willingness to break the fourth wall. It was renamed Agent X in 2002 and cancelled in 2003. Currently, Deadpool is paired with another X-Force character in Cable & Deadpool.

Deadpool shares many similarities with the DC Comics villain Deathstroke to the point that some fans alleged plagiarism, particularly concerning the characters' real names (Deathstroke's being "Slade Wilson" while Deadpool's is "Wade Wilson"). However, since Deadpool's introduction, Deadpool and Deathstroke have developed in vastly different directions.

Publication history

Deadpool, an irreverent and sardonic rogue of a mercenary, originally appeared in the pages of the New Mutants and later X-Force. He had a costume that resembled a cross between that of Spider-Man and the DC character, Deathstroke. He would also go on to appear in the pages of Wolverine and the X-Men. The character became quite popular and eventually a limited series featuring the character was created in 1993, written by Fabian Nicieza with art by future superstar Joe Madureira. It was a relative success, and a second limited series followed in 1994 by Mark Waid and Ian Churchill.

In 1997, Deadpool was given his own ongoing title, initially written by Joe Kelly, with newcomer Ed McGuinness as the artist. It firmly established his nickname, the "Merc with a Mouth", and created a supporting cast, including Blind Al and his best friend, Weasel. Blind Al is an elderly, blind woman who serves as a mother figure, though she is technically his hostage and in truth afraid of him. His book became a high-octane, lowbrow comedy parody of the cosmic drama, antihero-heavy plotlines in other comics of the time. The ongoing series gained cult popularity for its unorthodox main character and its balance of angst and pop culture slapstick.

The series began to falter in 1997, around the time that Marvel was undergoing massive financial problems. Within a year, the title's lagging sales brought it to the brink of cancellation. On at least one occasion, Marvel planned to cancel the title but reneged after a letter-writing campaign from the comic's rabid fanbase urged against it. Kelly, believing that the title would be cancelled with issue #36, plotted his story arc to conclude at this issue. When he learned that the book was not being cancelled, he decided to leave the book at this point anyway, out of frustration with lagging sales and lack of editorial support. Kelly's run on Deadpool was critically acclaimed and he gained a Harvey Award nomination for his Spider-Man satire in the double-sized #11. Due largely to the quality of his work on Deadpool, Kelly got wide attention in the industry and he went on to write major titles such as X-Men, Action Comics, and JLA.

The series 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. While exact details are sparse, rumors contend that this was a move by Marvel to cease paying artist Rob Liefeld for characters he had created for them. Thus, Deadpool became Agent X, Cable became Soldier X and X-Force became X-Statix. The title character of Agent X was eventually revealed not to really be Deadpool and the climax of that series saw the original character restored.

Agent X came to a close with issue 15 and with the cancellation of Soldier X, it was decided the characters Cable and Deadpool would share a teambook, simply called Cable & Deadpool. The series is currently still being published, written by Fabian Nicieza.

Character biography

Deadpool was formerly a government special operative who had contracted terminal cancer. He volunteered for the clandestine Weapon X program, where he was mutagenically altered. This process was supposed to grant him a superhuman regenerative healing factor allegedly based on the DNA of the mutant Wolverine, stopping the progression of his cancer and greatly enhancing his physique. However, the cancer interacted with the mutagenic process in unanticipated ways; the process (initially) failed, disfigured him horribly and made him mentally unstable.

Deadpool was quickly washed out of Weapon X and was sent to the "Workshop", a place for failed experiments, where he was tortured and experimented upon. In the Workshop, a game was played called "the Dead Pool", where inmates betted who of them would die next. As Deadpool was chosen as a special project by doctor Killebrew, his odds of dying were very low, making him the leader of the Dead Pool with thousand-to-one odds. Deadpool started to see Death and fell in love with her. He decided to break the Dead Pool by doing anything to get himself killed so he could be with Death. His rebellious behaviour inspired the other inmates of the Workshop. He was seen as a threat to the order in the Workshop and Killebrew ordered his death, but it was his execution that finally activated Deadpool's healing factor. Now unable to be with Death at all, Deadpool finally went completely insane. He escaped with many other Weapon X washouts and took the name "Deadpool" for himself. After bumming around, he eventually found his calling as a mercenary. Typically, he worked for villains such as the mysterious Mr. Tolliver. This initially made him an adversary of Cable, Wolverine and the New Mutants (later X-Force).

Eventually, Deadpool became less of a villain and more of a reluctant hero, though the element of his moral ambiguity always remained. It was later revealed that he had friends, such as Weasel and Blind Al, that he was loyal to and cared about (due to his insanity, he would mistreat them as well at times though). As the character became more developed it became obvious that although he carefully projected the guise of an invincible, merciless, gun-for-hire, he was actually an insecure and severely scarred man, emotionally and physically, who used his sardonic wit to cope with reality and deal with relationships.

The character frequented a hang-out spot for mercenaries called "Hell house" with its own odd cast of characters, an often comedic rivalry with a man named T-Ray and eventually the inclusion of Deuce the Devil Dog, who originally belonged to Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, best pal and partner of the Marvel superhero Daredevil. Deadpool ran into other mercenaries, such as the Taskmaster and Bullseye during his adventures. It was also at this time that Deadpool's relationship with Siryn was strengthened as she helped him deal with the loss of his full range of healing powers and with his insanity. Siryn's belief in him made Deadpool try to be a better person. It was at this point that Deadpool fought The Hulk and managed to impale him on a street sign. Deadpool also had a brief and disturbing relationship with Typhoid Mary.

Deadpool has died twice in the past. In the first occurrence, Wade had decided to rejoin the Weapon X program to regain his good looks. However after witnessing his girlfriend slaughtered by the program, he was heavily gunned down, while trying to get revenge on his former employees. Luckily, Thanos resurrected him because he was envious that Death was falling in love with Deadpool.

In the second occurrence, it appeared that Deadpool was killed in an explosion fighting the aristocratic (and telepathic) villain known as the Black Swan. Swan had infected Deadpool with a virus that would erase his memory in retaliation for several of his successful mercenary hits which had been erroneously attributed to Deadpool. This led to an escalation of events in which Swan murdered a man known as Nijo (who had discovered that Swan had killed his brother) and a duel with Deadpool. Deadpool and Swan fought, but as result of a miscalculation on Deadpool's part all parties were seemingly obliterated.

Weeks later, a mysterious figure showed up at the apartment of Deadpool's manager, Sandi Brandenburg. 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 with a case of amnesia. In fact, the truth was more complicated, as shown when the Black Swan showed up with a "tabula rasa" Deadpool in tow (who Hayden immediately shot in the head). It was revealed that "Hayden" was really Nijo's corpse, which had been revived and given Deadpool's healing factor by Swan's out of control mental powers (Swan had also received a copy of the healing factor) and whose mind was created from an amalgam of Deadpool and the Swan. Deadpool's own personality was slowly growing back (unwittingly accelerated by Hayden's bullet to his head).

In an attempt to regain the parts of his mind he had lost, as well as remove the pieces of their minds he wanted rid of ("You and Wilson have my skills, Mr Hayden. In return, I received a taste for Radiohead and an encyclopedic knowledge of pornographic knock-knock jokes. Yes, I'd like to switch back if possible"), including Nijo's sense of honour, Swan proposed a three-way mind meld. Hayden agreed. However the Swan, being an evil cad, attempted to double cross the other two and kill them as soon as the process was complete, but while he concentrated on Hayden, Deadpool immediately stabbed the Swan in the back. Deadpool, Hayden and Hayden's allies Outlaw and Taskmaster eventually defeated and killed the Swan and had him stuffed so that the healing factor couldn't resurrect him (Hayden would later be shown using the corpse as a surfboard).

Deadpool is currently partnered with his former enemy, Cable. Recently, Deadpool and Cable were involved with a terrorist plot aimed at unleashing the shape-shifting "Façade Virus" upon the world. After both were infected with the virus it was necessary to merge their DNA structure, so now Cable has some of Deadpool's DNA and vice versa. This means that whenever Cable uses his teleporter to "bodyslide", both he and Deadpool teleport together -- sometimes literally (a "bodyslide by one" results in them being badly integrated into a single body, forcing a messy separation, which, thanks to the DNA share with Wade, Cable is also able to recover from). As a result of the Façade in his system, Deadpool's face was temporarily cured of the hideous scarring. Once Cable shut down all infections of the virus worldwide however, Deadpool was returned to his usual self.

The X-Men, including Cable's father Cyclops, then hired Deadpool to put together the pieces of a mini-teleporter that they could use to stop Cable, who had achieved the peak of his powers and was causing worldwide political ructions in attempting to unite the world's populace, without quite knowing what it was.

After Cable then delivered a stark message to the world's leaders - deliberately setting them all against him by threatening to throw all their missiles into the sun - Deadpool and the X-Men mounted an attack on Providence, whereupon Deadpool promptly turned on the X-Men, shooting Wolverine and Bishop to prevent them attacking Cable. Cable then confessed to Deadpool that he'd wanted him to kill him, to show the governments that they could achieve something by working together. Cable was then attacked by the Silver Surfer and burnt out his powers in the ensuing battle, and Deadpool saved his life by removing the telepathic and telekinetic parts of his brain with the mini-teleporter, and then recovering non-viral techno-organic matter to replace the damage it had caused to Cable's body. The aftermath of this, however, left Deadpool unemployable - whereupon Cable began to covertly hire him to run missions for him, without revealing that he was the one doing so.

Shortly afterward, Deadpool would rescue Cable again, teleporting through several alternate worlds to retrieve him, and Cable returned the favour by repairing Deadpool's brain damage before his powers burnt out once more, though his personality remained unchanged.

Deadpool commonly develops obsessions with words and people, repeatedly mentioning the words duodenum and chimichanga, the phrase "Sphincter says what?", and is frequently preoccupied by thoughts of Bea Arthur, Ernest Borgnine, and the Olsen Twins.

A little known factoid is that in a past life, as seen in the Widdle Wade special, Deadpool was once a sumo-wrestler, though this may merely be a dig at Wolverine's memories of his past life, at that time heavily Ninja-and-Japanese-culture-themed. He also has been made a member of the X-Men on at least two separate occasions (once in Cable & Deadpool, and once in a current alternate world version of Weapon X). Despite this, Deadpool is not a mutant, a fact that others (especially Cyclops and other members of the X-Men) have pointed out numerous times. (This has not stopped non-mutants from joining the team; Mimic was not a mutant, for example). According to the villainous Taskmaster, whose powers allowed him to analyze and copy the mercenary's fighting style, Deadpool always dodges to the left. The X-Man Gambit has such respect for Deadpool's fighting abilities that he once paid him off rather than risk battling him, admitting that fighting Deadpool is comparable to suicide. Deadpool has defeated Wolverine, considered one of the best fighters in the Marvel Universe, in single combat on at least one occasion.

Powers and equipment

Deadpool has been artificially endowed with a superhuman regenerative healing factor by the Weapon X program. As Deadpool had cancer at the time of the gene therapy which endowed him with these abilities, it bound to the "healing factor" so that in a sense the cancer is his healing factor, which is why his skin is still horribly scarred. This causes his brain cells to be in a constant state of flux and regeneration, rendering him immune to psychics such as Professor X and Emma Frost. This constant flux is not what causes him to have his witty banter and ADD-type personality, "that's just the way I am, bitch!", as Deadpool once put it. The healing factor entails that he can regenerate and heal hundreds of times faster than a normal human and he has recovered completely from injuries that would have killed most humans, even those with superhuman abilities. He can regenerate whole organs and even severed limbs. In at least one instance Deadpool, after breaking nearly every bone in his body, had himself strapped to a rack so his bones set properly. It is unknown if this was necessary for his healing factor to work or simply accelerated his healing. As a byproduct of his unique physiology he possesses a degree of enhanced strength, stamina, agility and reflexes.

Deadpool was cursed for a short time by Loki, who had claimed to be his father, the curse made him look like Tom Cruise, rendered his face totally invulnerable, and his life to "fall to ruin." The curse was removed when Deadpool reconciled with his true father, who he met in a bar without ever realizing who it was.

Aside from his physical advantages, Deadpool is a superb assassin and mercenary. He is a master of multiple forms of armed and unarmed combat. He favors bladed weapons as his primary means of dispensing his enemies as he feels it is more honorable to meet opponents in single combat, but if he is having a bad day or in a hurry he will just shoot them. He typically carries a small arsenal of both experimental hi-tech and conventional firearms and bladed weapons. Deadpool has excellent, believed by many to be perfect, aim (though he's slightly better with his right hand), which was temporarily destroyed by the Black Swan. He owns a personal teleportation device, usually located on his belt. This device, created by Weasel, is used to teleport him out of, and occasionally into, trouble and has been prone to numerous malfunctions over the years. He now shares Cable's bodyslide technology, with the limitation that both Cable and Deadpool teleport at the same time. Early in his original ongoing comic, he also possessed an image inducer built by Weasel, which allowed him to manifest holographic disguises in order to go undercover, conceal his bizarre appearance or just plain goof off. (On one notable occasion, while trapped several years in the past, he used the image inducer to masquerade as Spider-Man's alter-ego Peter Parker.)

Deadpool has actually met and established a relationship with the personification of Death in the Marvel universe and as a result has been cursed by T-Ray, at the behest of Thanos to be unable to die. This is a plot point that may or may not be advocated by some writers. However, Deadpool himself needed to seek outside assistance about the right method to kill himself, so his immortality may still be extant.

Deadpool's speech and thought balloons and captions are usually colored yellow, to represent his distinctive voice (although nobody knows exactly what is distinctive about his voice, only that it sounds different). Cable has described his voice as having a "gravelly, Demi Moore" quality. Blind Al has also stated that Deadpool's voice sounds like a distinct mixture of "gasoline and gravel." In his earliest appearances, his speech balloons were normal balloons with red borders (soon changed to yellow borders); in later appearances, the interior would be colored yellow and the text would be written in a slightly mangled font. In his recent appearance in the X-Men Legends II: The Rise of Apocalpyse video game, he had a rather high-pitched, spaced-out voice and spoke in a fast cadence, maintaining his aforementioned "cerebral flux", but lacked any sort of gravelly or raspy quality to it.

Breaking the fourth wall

Deadpool is one of few Marvel comic books that have broken the "fourth wall" and called attention to his nature as a comic book character. This may be due in part that early in the series when Deadpool had dealings with the Norse god Loki, he was told the secret of the universe by the trickster god: "There is a man with a typewriter...". However, this explanation doesn't explain some instances that occurred before the Loki storyarc, particularly in the pictured exchange with Bullseye, but in those instances, it can possibly be attributed with his insanity and bizarre worldview; a comically accurate paranoia, of sorts. Whereas books like DC's Animal Man and Doom Patrol did so for the purpose of meta-textual analysis and postmodern deconstruction, Deadpool's banter to the reader was always more along the lines of Looney Tunes cartoon styled slapstick. In fact, early on in the series, some ads for the book came with the tag-line "Deadpool: Breaking down the fourth wall, brick by brick!"

At the end of Agent X #15, upon coming back from the dead, he wonders if he "still thinks in those little yellow boxes". In the current Cable/Deadpool ongoing series, Deadpool occasionally narrates previous events for the reader, on one occasion mentioning that the book's editor told him that the current reader is the only person who has actually bought the book. The character also makes frequent in-jokes about the comic book industry. After the events that took place in Agent X, Deadpool was thought to be cured of his knowledge of the fourth wall, but in Cable & Deadpool #23 while summarizing the previous issue, he makes blatant mention of the recap page. He then says "Hmm, I thought I was cured of that 'fourth wall' thing..." Also, in a recent conflict with Spider-Man, Deadpool actually refers to his "Tobey Maguire doe eyes." This is an obvious reference to the Spider-Man movie. An obvious question that arises is that if Deadpool has seen the Spider-Man film, does he actually know Peter's secret identity? Additionally, Deadpool sometimes answers his own letter column. Interestingly, although Deadpool frequently makes remarks to other Marvel Universe characters that reference their prescence in a comic book, the other characters never seem to make any attempt to figure out what he's talking about.

Inspiration

Liefeld's critics point out the number of similarities between Deadpool and Deathstroke the Terminator, a character created for DC Comics' Teen Titans by George Pérez in 1980. Both characters' costumes share similar themes, both are mercenaries who use similar weaponry, and (most tellingly) Deathstroke's real name is Slade Wilson, while Deadpool's was originally given as Wade Wilson. Additionally, Deadpool routinely clashes with X-Force, a group of teenage superheroes, which is not unlike Deathstroke clashing with the Teen Titans, another group of teenage superheroes. It is likely that Deadpool's rather insane sense of humor came about to differentiate his character from that of Deathstroke.

It is possible that the inspiration for Deadpool's name came from The Dead Pool, a Dirty Harry movie starring Clint Eastwood. Wade Wilson's own motivation for selecting this nom de guerre stems from his traumatic experience with the Weapon X project, where rejects from the program placed bets in a "dead pool" on who would be the next to die. It also helps that the "dead" prefix has so many possible endings - as an example, in the Deadpool comic series, Wade briefly had command of three other mercenaries, the so-called Deadpool Interns. He quickly discarded whatever monikers they had previously had, and renamed them Deadweight (an excessively large girl), Deadhead (a spaced-out man), and Deadend (a mutant that discharges energy blasts from his backside). Their prefixes are yet another link between him and the DC character. (Deadpool and Deathstroke, respectively.)

These similarities have been lampooned in the Deadpool comics, with Deadpool claiming, in the letters section, that he doesn't want to appear in a DC crossover for fear that someone will notice his striking similarities to a certain DC character (referring, of course, to Deathstroke). The third Ravager, Wade DeFarge, is a possible revenge parody of Deadpool: the character looks like Deadpool and shares his first name.

Additionally, some comparisons have been made between Deadpool and Marvel's signature hero Spider-Man. Deadpool possesses an exaggerated and darker sense of humor, but nonetheless constantly quips at his opponents, even during intense combat. His costume (particularly his mask) also bear some resemblance to the arachnid hero's attire. In acknowledgement of these similarities, one Deadpool story featured an accident with his teleportation belt shunting him back through time, where he masqueraded as Peter Parker and even served as a stand-in for Spider-Man in a battle with Kraven the Hunter. The cover of this issue parodied the cover of Spider-Man's first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15. Another Issue (Deadpool #36) shows him in a flashback buying his first real outfit in a costume store (where a whole bunch of superheroes seem to buy their costumes). A little note pinned to the suit read "Thanks but no thanks- S.M.", obviously referring to Spider-Man.

Alternate Versions

Age of Apocalypse

Deadpool makes an appearance in the Age of Apocaylypse miniseries as the character Dead Man Wade. His abilities are very similar to the mainstream version of Deadpool, but whereas the 616 Deadpool is psychoticaly fun-loving, Dead Man Wade is constantly depressed. Wade and the other Pale Riders are sent by Apocalypse to destroy Avalon. Once there, however, Damask switches sides, and Nightcrawler kills Wade by teleporting his head off and hiding it in a ditch.

In this universe, Wade makes a mention that not only is his body constantly healing, but constantly rotting as well.

Ultimate Deadpool

Deadpool first appeared in the Ultimate Marvel continuity along with the Reavers in Ultimate Spider-Man #91, where they assaulted the X-Men's Mansion during a visit from Peter Parker. He and his team used disguising technology to impersonate the X-Men and surprise them one by one with mutant-gene targeting stun guns. Deadpool was only truly seen in the last panel of the book, which confirmed the removal of his yellow worded speech bubbles and a change of his costume from his standard marvel "616" counterpart. His outfit is predominantly black and red.

Ultimate Deadpool appears to be a human supremacist working with the Genoshan government to hunt down mutants on live television as sport. According to the network, he was a sergeant named Wadey Wilson (a common alias of the original Marvel Deadpool) and after surviving death-defying action in the Wakanda Wars in the early nineties took the name Deadpool.

Likely as an ode to fans, in issue #93 of Ultimate Spider-Man his subtitles on television while he appears talking are uniquely yellow. He breaks the fourth wall only to televison audiences.

At the end of issue #93, it appeared that Ultimate Deadpool was actually Professor X, but this was quickly proved in the next issue to be a holographic ruse. Deadpool's true face was seen as having no skin and portions of his skull missing, covered by a small plastic helmet. Kitty Pryde phased through him, seemingly causing him to explode and killing him, but the end of the story arc he was revealed to have survived.

Other media

Deadpool recently made an appearance in X-Men Legends II as both a boss character (Brainwashed by Mr. Sinister) and playable character (upon completion of the game). As with certain character match-ups in the game, having Deadpool in your team for the boss battle instigates a pointless conversation where they argue over who's who ("You're me!" "No, you're me!"). His powers in the game include cleave and teleport.

In the X-men animated series, Morph briefly transforms into Deadpool. Deadpool's face is also seen in a flashback while Professor Xavier is probing the mind of Sabretooth.

David Goyer (Batman Begins screenwriter) has expressed interest in a Deadpool motion picture. At recent interviews, actor Ryan Reynolds has told of monthly meetings with Avi Arad over the possibility of a Deadpool or Sub-Mariner motion picture, with him as the lead role of either Wade Wilson or Namor. Due to increased fan backing of the Deadpool project, the idea is getting closer and closer to being made, with Avi Arad's son being a "hardcore Deadpool fan" helping the cause.

External links

• Official Marvel Wallpaper featuring Deadpool
• MDP: Deadpool - Marvel Database Project
• Yahoo Deadpool Group

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