Deadpool (comics)

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Deadpool
Deadpool, from the recap page of Cable and Deadpool #26
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	New Mutants #98 (February, 1991)
Created by	Fabian Nicieza Rob Liefeld
In-story information
Alter ego	Wade Winston Wilson [1]
Species	Human (mutate)
Team affiliations	Agency X Great Lakes Initiative Weapon X Landau, Luckman, and Lake Maggia Frightful Four Heroes For Hire Six Pack
Notable aliases	Jack, Wade T. Wilson, Mithras, Johnny Silvini, Thom Cruz, The Crimson Nutcase, Chiyonosake ("the Wolf of the Rice Wine")
Abilities	Regenerative healing factor Superhuman strength, stamina, agility, and reflexes Expert marksman, swordsman, and martial artist Teleportation "Comic awareness" Telepathic immunity "Cursed with life" (inability to die) by Thanos

Deadpool is a fictional comic book character sometimes depicted as a mercenary or antihero; he appears in books published by Marvel Comics, originally in the X-Men family of titles, but branching out into the more mainstream Marvel Universe in recent years. Created by artist Rob Liefeld and writer Fabian Nicieza, Deadpool first appeared in The New Mutants #98 (February 1991).

Nicknamed the "Merc with a Mouth," Deadpool is a high-tech mercenary known for his wisecracks, black comedy, and satirical pop-culture references. Like the X-Men's Wolverine, Deadpool is the product of the Canadian government's paramilitary Weapon X program, although his place of birth is unknown. After Weapon X cured his terminal cancer by implementing a regenerative "healing factor" extracted from Wolverine, Deadpool is left disfigured and mentally unstable.

Deadpool was originally an adversary of The New Mutants and later X-Force. Deadpool received two limited series: Sins of the Past and The Circle Chase. He graduated to an ongoing series in 1997, which was known for its slapstick tone and willingness to break the fourth wall.

Ryan Reynolds will appear as Deadpool in the upcoming 2009 film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Wizard Magazine ranked Deadpool the 182nd best comic book character of all time, of their list of the Top 200 Comic Book Characters of All Time. ^[2] Empire has also rated him as the 45th best comic character of all time.

[edit] Publication history

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Cover to the Harvey Award-nominated Deadpool #11.
Art by Pete Woods, in homage to cover of Amazing Fantasy #15 featuring Spider-Man.

Deadpool originally appeared in the pages of the New Mutants and later X-Force, always trying to kill either Cable or Domino (who later turns out to be Deadpool's girlfriend in disguise). The character became quite popular, and eventually received his own miniseries, The Circle Chase in 1993, which was written by Fabian Nicieza with art by Joe Madureira. It was a relative success, and a second limited series, Sins of the Past was created in 1994 by Mark Waid and Ian Churchill. At this point, Deadpool began making guest appearances across the Marvel Universe in titles such as Wolverine, Nomad, Silver Sable, and Heroes For Hire.

In 1997, Deadpool was given his own ongoing title, initially written by Joe Kelly, with then-newcomer Ed McGuinness as the artist. It firmly established his nickname "The Merc with a Mouth" and 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.

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 at the same time that Cable became Soldier X and X-Force became X-Statix. The title character of Agent X was eventually revealed not to be Deadpool, and the climax of that series saw the original character restored.

Deadpool's next appearance came in 2004 with the launch of Cable & Deadpool written by Fabian Nicieza. This title was canceled with issue #50 and replaced by a new Cable series in March 2008.^[3] 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.^[4] Medina is the main series artist, with Carlo Barberi filling in on the first issue after the Secret Invasion tie-in^[5]

Following Secret Invasion is a two-issue story "Horror Business",^[5] and then a storyline, "How Low Can You Go?", which deals with the implications of Dark Reign, the Secret Invasion aftermath, which also sees the return of Bob, Agent of HYDRA.^[6] After this concludes, "Magnum Opus" begins, which is a 4-issue crossover^[7] with Thunderbolts.^[6][8]

[edit] Deathstroke similarities

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 contacted Liefeld, saying "this is Deathstroke from Teen Titans." As two fans of the series and character, Nicieza knew Domino and Gideon (also debuting in the same issue) were serious, so he had Deadpool become an annoying jerk. Nicieza gave Deadpool the real name of "Wade Wilson" as an in-joke to being "related" to "Slade Wilson", Deathstroke.^[9]

In Superman/Batman Annual #1 (2006), Joe Kelly, a classic Deadpool writer, takes a new twist on this story as he creates a nameless antimatter universe analogue to Deathstroke who looks and talks almost exactly like Deadpool, though his costume also reflects Deathstroke's own (the eye, for instance, is on the opposite side of the mask). Though his powers weren't stated, he managed to live through the whole ordeal despite having various objects stuck in and through him, most of them sharp and stuck in lethal places (such as a katana being sheathed through his brain). Though he and Deathstroke fight each other over Bruce Wayne (Deathstroke to kill Wayne and the double to protect him), they eventually retire from the fight and, even as it continues around them, talk about their pasts, coming to the conclusion that their pasts are identical, save for a few facts that lead to their differences.

[edit] Fictional character biography

The plot summary in this article is too long or detailed compared to the rest of the content. Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot. (November 2007)

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[edit] Early years and Weapon X

Wade Winston Wilson was born to an army general father and terminally ill mother. After Mrs. Wilson's death from incurable lung cancer, Mr. Wilson began to abuse Wade and turned to alcoholism. The influence of his violent father turned Wade into a teenage delinquent. Around age seventeen, Mr. Wilson was killed by one of Wade's drunken friends in a bar fight and Wade soon dropped out of high school to enroll in the United States Army Special Forces. He was kicked out of the army after a short tenure and then turned to mercenary work, soon establishing a formidable reputation.^{[issue # needed]} This however, conflicts with T-Ray and Mercedes Wilson's story of a man believed to be 'Wade Wilson'. In this version, the man met Mercedes in college and eventually married and lived off the land. Eventually a man known as 'Jack' was found in a river near their secluded home. The man eventually betrayed the couple and attempted to kill Wade Wilson and accidentally killed Mercedes. Unable to deal with the grief of killing an innocent woman, he lost his mind and adopted the identity of "Wade Wilson".^[10] Deadpool's restored memories revealed this to be a lie; in T-Ray's account Wade was wearing his Deadpool costume, which he did not have until he joined Weapon X.^[11]

Unbeknownst to Wade, around this period, the interdimensional law firm Landau, Luckman, and Lake had discovered from their precognitive department that he was destined to play a significant role in a future golden age for humanity and started to monitor him via their agent, Zoe Culloden, a.k.a. the Expediter, while their principal precognitive, Montgomery, researched Wade's whole life.^[12] During visits to Boston, he developed a relationship with then-runaway and prostitute and future fellow mercenary Vanessa Carlyle, later known as Copycat.^[13][14] However, he developed terminal cancer within the few following years and having, perhaps deliberately, botched a mission that was meant to end in the murder of his future prisoner/roommate Blind Al (although he killed every other individual at the army base in which she had been stationed, and Zoe intervened to protect Vanessa from a revenge attack by his former employers). He indifferently broke up with Vanessa, whose love he genuinely returned, in order to spare her the burden of his illness.^[12]

Dying and desperate for a cure, Wade volunteered for the second Weapon X program, where his body and mind were altered on a genetic level. The genetic manipulation was initially supposed to grant him a superhuman regenerative healing factor (based on the DNA of former Weapon X experiment Wolverine), stopping the progression of his cancer and greatly enhancing his physique. However, the cancer interacted with the genetic process in unanticipated ways; the process (initially) failed, disfiguring him horribly and making him significantly mentally unstable. He was initially assigned to a field team alongside Garrison Kane, Sluggo, and Terraerton a.k.a. Slayback, who were all deemed to be successful subjects at the time. Despite outwardly appearing as a man with a good background (a wife, children, and a home — all things that Wade lacked), Terraerton proved to be completely psychotic, and Wade killed him with explosives. ^[15]

Wade quickly washed out of Weapon X and was sent to Doctor Killebrew's "Workshop" at The Hospice, a place for failed experiments, where he was tortured and experimented upon among other washouts. In the Workshop, he became part of a game called "the Dead Pool", where inmates bet on which one of them will die next. As Wade had been chosen as a "special project" by Dr. Killebrew, his odds of dying were very low, making him the leader of the Dead Pool with over nine thousand-to-one odds. During near-fatal experiments, Wade started to see visions of Death and fell in love with her, while she became interested in him as it was unheard of for a mortal to perceive her ahead of death. He decided to break the Dead Pool by doing anything to get himself killed so he could be with Death, attempts which were repeatedly thwarted by his rival and Killebrew's enforcer, Ajax, then named The Attending. Showing no fear due to his desire for Death, he continually baited and played pranks on The Attending, taking particular delight in mocking his true name, Francis, who retaliated by sending him to Killebrew for further experiments. His erratic behavior inspired the other inmates of the Workshop to rebel; he was seen as a threat to the order in the Hospice but Dr. Killebrew refused to let anyone die or be killed, unless one inmate was to murder another. It is only after Deadpool killed his friend Worm out of mercy after The Attending intentionally lobotomized him in order to escalate the hostilities between them that Killebrew ordered his death as The Attending had expected. It is this attempted execution that finally activates Deadpool's healing factor, much to the chagrin of himself and Death. The kick start of the regenerative process accompanied by the culmination of his disfigurement (which should have theoretically reversed itself) and the accumulation of the various traumatic events he had undergone to this point caused him to finally snap completely. Because of the healing factor's emphatic prevention of his death, Death rejected him. He managed to escape, (temporarily) killing The Attending and freeing many other Workshop experiments, taking on the name "Deadpool" and returned to mercenary-for-hire work.^[16]

[edit] Early appearances and X-Force

Not long after leaving Canada, Deadpool met Weasel, whom he employed as an information broker and technology specialist and developed an abusive best friendship (on Deadpool's side) with him. Deadpool began work for villains such as the mysterious Mr. Tolliver, Wilson Fisk, and as a stand-in for the first Hobgoblin. His work for Mr. Tolliver initially made him an adversary of Cable and his team of the New Mutants (later and better known as X-Force). In Deadpool's first fight with the New Mutants, he defeated most of them using a combination of hand-to-hand combat and gadgetry but was shot in the back by ex-girlfriend Copycat, who was masquerading on Tolliver's orders as Cable's old partner and confidante, Domino. Cable mailed Deadpool back to Mr. Tolliver.^[17] Tolliver next assigned Deadpool to steal software in Canada. He was defeated in combat by Kane, and shot by G. W. Bridge, and teleported to safety.^[18] He was then assigned by Tolliver to intimidate Vanessa when he considered her allegiance in question. He overcame Siryn and Shatterstar, then battled and defeated Vanessa.^[19] This led Cable to discover her treachery and the two tracked Tolliver, Deadpool, and the real Domino down only for Deadpool to stab and nearly kill Vanessa. He battled Cable, but then was shot by the real Domino, and revived later.^[20] He briefly joined the Secret Defenders alongside Luke Cage.^[21]

His experiences with X-Force would cause him to meet and develop a crush on Siryn,^[22] the daughter of Banshee (although on their first meeting when he infiltrated X-Force's Adirondacks base to intimidate Copycat/Domino, he easily knocked her unconscious^[23].

After the apparent "death" of Mr. Tolliver at Cable's hand, Deadpool and Weasel traveled through Sarajevo and the Middle East to claim the (hitherto-unrevealed) spoils of Tolliver's will, "the most powerful weapon in the world." This quest lead Deadpool to fight Siryn's uncle Black Tom Cassidy and Juggernaut, and in one of his more creative victories, he dangled Black Tom out of a plane in order to gain an information disk from their possession and when Juggernaut surrendered the disk, he let Black Tom fall as Juggernaut leaped out after him, hijacking the plane to Sarajevo. Also involved in the chase were former Weapon X experiments/teammates Garrison Kane, Sluggo, and Slayback, who, being totally cybernetic in nature by then, had reconstituted himself from Deadpool's attack. At the same time, Deadpool sought to protect his former girlfriend Copycat — who had also joined the hunt and had arranged for Sluggo's arrest after he killed her best friend — from his Weapon X enemies. Kane sought to protect her (or possibly use her as leverage) since the will made her a prime target for other mercenaries and opportunists looking to gain information on the mysterious prize. For his part, Slayback merely desired to use her against Deadpool. In a climactic battle at a Far East temple where Tolliver had hidden a cache of ordnance and the true prize — Zero, an ADAM-Unit from Cable and Tolliver's future time period designed to nullify weapons of war — all parties were thrown together and Copycat attempted to sacrifice herself to save Deadpool from the vengeful Slayback. Having been activated by the use of weaponry by the 3 main combatants, Zero discorporated Slayback (while deeming Weasel as harmless and Kane as primarily benevolent) and would have done the same to Deadpool until the mercenary chose to save Copycat's life by causing her to duplicate his regenerative powers at speed to partially restore herself from her wound. Deeming Deadpool a conundrum, Zero teleported away, Kane took Vanessa (who had fallen in love with Cable during her time with X-Force and rejected Wade in spite of her gratitude) away for medical attention and Deadpool, musing on whether he was more multifaceted than he realized, looted the temple. ^[24]

During or after her convalescence Vanessa and Kane became lovers as she accepted that Cable — who had felt manipulated by her as she had posed as Domino during their relationship, with whom he was never physically intimate with beforehand — would never forgive her or return her affection. When he discovered this new development, an incensed Deadpool obsessively chased after them, eventually leading to his first run in with Wolverine. Deadpool fought Wolverine and defeated him by puncturing his lungs and slicing his face, as Wolverine's healing factor had been pushed to its absolute maximum by the near death experience of having the adamantium forcibly removed from his body at the hands of Magneto on Asteroid M. Obviously not thinking clearly (even for him), Deadpool then fought both Kane and Copycat at once to "reclaim" her and Wolverine saved Copycat's life from Wade's violent "passion", forcing the Merc with a Mouth to teleport away.^[25]

Deadpool would later encounter Dr. Killebrew, Black Tom, and Juggernaut again when a dying Tom, being operated on by Killebrew to stem the growth of a plant virus in and around his body, was rescued by Juggernaut and the doctor then indicated Deadpool's regenerative powers as a potential source of Tom's salvation. In New York, the two villains sent groups of mercenaries after Deadpool, leading him to partner with Tom's relatives, Banshee and Siryn, while discovering that his cellular regeneration was mysteriously failing. Black Tom was imbued with part of Wilson's regenerative abilities (taken from Deadpool's severed hand) to counteract the growth, although he rushed the process and was driven to extremes by the ensuing pain. Successful in saving Banshee's life, defeating Tom, negotiating with the Juggernaut for his friend's life once more, stopping terrorist Daniel Peyer, and acquiring Killebrew to fix his powers, Deadpool formed a friendship with Siryn, made more intimate by the reveals of each other's various vulnerabilities, including Deadpool's disfigurement.

[edit] Misadventures and freelance mercenary work

Eventually, Deadpool became less of a villain and more of a reluctant hero, though the element of his moral ambiguity remained. Although careful to project the guise of an invincible, merciless gun-for-hire, he often showed himself to be an insecure and severely scarred man, emotionally and physically, who used his sardonic, off-the-wall wit to cope with reality and deal with relationships. At some point, he had reacquired Blind Al, and installed her as his prisoner, roommate, and den mother in his permanent base in San Francisco, aptly titled "the Deadhut", a rotting house in disrepair that he disguised as outwardly normal via holographic projection (the house serving as something of a metaphor for him as he would do the same for his own appearance). Besides Siryn, Al and Weasel are the two people that he is most loyal to and cares about (although he would often mistreat them at times, such as stabbing Weasel in the leg over the last cheese puff, or confining Blind Al in a room filled with sharp objects in his San Francisco home known as "The Box"). The final resident of the Deadhut was Deuce the Devil Dog, supposedly Al's seeing eye dog, who originally belonged to Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, best pal and partner of the Marvel superhero Daredevil, and who lost the dog to Weasel in a drunken poker game in New York while Deadpool was teamed with Daredevil. Wade also once sent some of his own blood to the X-Men when it was thought the cure for the Legacy Virus could be found in it somehow. Sadly, this was not the case.

Wade also eventually developed friendships with some of the staff at the interdimensional firm known as Landau, Luckman, and Lake — in particular, Zoe Culloden and Montgomery after Zoe and Noah DuBois approached him in person for the first time to inform him of his "great destiny". They had noted his recent string of more merciful and "pro-bono" acts and having engineered a scenario in which Deadpool nearly caused a meltdown at a gamma facility headed by his former psychiatrist Sasquatch that would have harmfully irradiated the entire Southern Hemisphere, they felt vindicated when Wade chose to risk his life to set things right. Rejecting their initial offer as nonsense based on their assertion that he was ready to become a "hero", events would lead him back to them as Zoe refused to give up on him.^[26] At this point, Deadpool had begun frequenting a hang-out spot for mercenaries called the "Hell House" with its own odd cast of characters, such as Patch, the short-statured, short tempered handler of each regular's mercenary assignments and the odd pair of baseball-obsessed Fenway and super-malleable, obese C.F., who was often the target of Deadpool's job-related frustrations. The only significant challenger to Deadpool's "top dog" status was T-Ray, a mysterious, humorless, and sadistically efficient assassin, with whom Deadpool shared a rivalry based on mutual loathing and mockery. Deadpool often ran into other high-profile mercenaries such as the Taskmaster and Bullseye, the latter of whom was a long-standing associate during his adventures.^[27] In his first encounter with the former, they clashed over the retention of Weasel's abilities and Deadpool was finally victorious at the cost of his left middle finger, which mysteriously did not regenerate.^[28][29]

At this point, Dr. Killebrew returned to Deadpool's life once again to try and restore his regenerative powers, now suffering from a guilt complex brought on by his bloody actions at Weapon X. He baited Deadpool into trailing him to his home in the Alps by mailing a copy of Deadpool's glove to Hell House attaching a mocking note "signed" by Black Tom. On Blind Al's advice, Deadpool recruited Siryn into his revenge mission and after finding Killebrew, both were shocked by the revelation that Deadpool's cellular structure was breaking down and that Wade was in fact dying — he had actually absconded after rescuing Killebrew before, refusing to trust his former experimenter and torturer with his life, even though he was aware the loss of the regenerative abilities would result in a cancer relapse. When Killebrew determined that his encounter with Sasquatch's gamma core weeks earlier had retarded the cellular degeneration, Deadpool was forced to attack the gamma-spawned Hulk for a sample of his blood. Killebrew was able to bring Deadpool's healing factor back up to most of its operating capacity but aside from regrowing the recently severed finger, his full range of healing powers were lost for the time being, specifically his appendage regrowth^[29][30]. Still harboring a grudge, he would have executed Killebrew but Siryn's belief in him encouraged Deadpool to try to be a better person and he set Killebrew free to assist the other survivors of the Hospice. Siryn later promised Wade that she would remain his friend and would explore their relationship further when she had less responsibilities and he subsequently began to refrain even more from murder-for-hire jobs and killing in combat^[31].

However, a brief and disturbing relationship with Typhoid Mary, who played a dramatic foil to Siryn, occurred almost immediately afterwards after he was tricked into rescuing her from a mental institute^[32]. At the Hell House, T-Ray and Typhoid acknowledged each other in front of Deadpool as former partners and now rivals, and T-Ray upped the ante against Deadpool by magically burning off his mask in front of the assembled crowd. Deadpool then knocked Typhoid Mary out of a window which triggered a repressed memory she had about her former lover Daredevil.^[33] When Typhoid then escaped to New York from Hell House to begin a killing spree against her former criminal associates, Deadpool followed her, determining to deal with T-Ray later, and planning to rehabilitate Mary by trying to get her to come to terms with her past as Siryn had done for him. Yet when events spiraled out of his control as her killings escalated, Deadpool joined with her frequent enemy and former emotional victim Daredevil to stop her and he then imprisoned her in San Francisco. In return, Mary went on another murder spree, plunging Deadpool deeper into his own dark side as she mocked his attempts to become a hero by pointing out he had no true conception of how to achieve it. As Wade tried to keep the body count down, Mary goaded him into delivering her a vicious beating to prove that they were two of a kind.^[34] Mary also knew full well of the attraction to Siryn and her inspirational role, using this knowledge in her manipulations. As events brought Deadpool to a dark point, T-Ray then openly challenged him to a fight at Golden Gate Park, not far from Deadpool's home, while Wade desperately searched for Siryn to validate his attempts to be a better man now that Typhoid had shown him how far he was from his goal. Although he successfully tracked her down, Deadpool instead alienated Siryn, first fighting with her best friend, Warpath, and then mishandling her while trying to force her to help him.^[35] Typhoid then slept with a drunken Deadpool when she used an image inducer stolen from Zoe Culloden to masquerade as Siryn later that night. She dropped the disguise the following morning and the further unbalanced and disheartened Deadpool, initially deciding against accepting T-Ray's challenge, changed his mind on discovering Weasel had broken an unspoken rule and entered his home more than once to meet with Blind Al. Punishing the pair by throwing them into his torture room, The Box, he met with T-Ray and though he easily outmaneuvered the assassin blade to blade, he was unprepared to discover the extent of T-Ray's sorcerer-like abilities and, although he kept fighting, was defeated and frozen in a block of ice as T-Ray revealed himself as the source of the deconstruction of Deadpool's life (and later that he had arranged for his old ally Typhoid's involvement).^[36]

[edit] Deadpool's destiny

After recovering from his battle with T-Ray, Deadpool finally accepted Landau, Luckman, and Lakes' offer of employment. It was revealed to him that Zoe Culloden had been tracking his life for years, after the precognitive Montgomery named Wilson the "Mithras", a being destined to be of great importance to the world.^[37] An alien being of great power, dubbed "The Messiah" was to come to earth and bring with it an unprecedented period of peace and harmony. However, another being called "Tiamat" would destroy the Messiah unless prevented to do so by the Mithras. It was Deadpool's function to kill Tiamat and see to it that the Messiah arrived safely.

Wilson was initially reluctant to accept the assignment, even though as first presented to him by Zoe, Noah and Overboss Dixon, the head of the "Mithras Directive", he was to simply protect the ascension of the Messiah and would be hailed as a hero. He initially panicked at the idea and was feeling more inadequate as usual after his alienation of his friends caused Weasel to end their friendship and Blind Al to act towards him in consummate and humorless subservience. Even Bullseye, a longtime "friend" and occasional missions-partner, took the high ground against Deadpool, pointing out how his recent failures and non-killing stance were damaging his edge and his professional reputation. However, when Montgomery made an accurate series of predictions to Wilson that culminated in Wade setting Al free and regaining her friendship, although she refused to leave him, witnessing the death of Dr. Killebrew and forced to confront and kill the returned Ajax, Deadpool declared himself on board.

Even so, LL&L's manipulative streak started to emerge in force, primarily in the form of Dixon, who believed him to be nothing more than a psychotic buffoon, that Monty had predicted wrongly, and the "Second String" (later revealed to be none other than Captain America) was the true Mithras. On his return, Deadpool abducted Montgomery to Monte Carlo in order to thank him for his predictions and the pair bonded. Though even more disfigured than Deadpool, Wilson encouraged Montgomery's crush on Zoe, only for Dixon to mind-wipe Monty of the trip's events after he returned to his station a happier man. Zoe then revealed the involvement of Tiamat and when revealing Deadpool's true function in the events — killing Tiamat — to him, made a remark that it was exactly what Deadpool should have expected. Believing that he had come too far ethically to return to killing, Deadpool became despondent and retreated home once more, only to teleport in search of Siryn when Zoe and Monty teleported into his San Francisco home. After "speaking" with a sleeping Siryn and a subsequent conflict with and talking to from old enemy Cable, he eventually decided to do what was required of him. As this occurred, Dixon forced the events leading up to the Messiah's arrival by arranging for Noah and a survey/assault team's death by Tiamat in his organic starship in Egypt in order to preserve his true intentions to replace Deadpool with the Second String. Concurrently, Montgomery and Blind Al forced Zoe to face up to her Dixon-like behavior — she was becoming similarly removed from humanity, having developed a blind spot for the feelings of others, including Deadpool's as she had completely misunderstood his response to her revelation, and for trying to mind-wipe Al after Zoe herself had come to Monty's support over his own mind-wipe by Dixon. Although Deadpool, Zoe, and Monty were now more aware of Dixon's ruthlessness, their confrontation with him was postponed by discovering Noah's death and they placed it aside to battle the apparent threat — Tiamat.

Deadpool and a holographic projection of Zoe, whose body remained at LL&L's interdimensional head office, traveled to Egypt as Dixon's manipulations began to play out. Deadpool eventually confronted Tiamat and gained the upper hand but during the fight Zoe discovered wall paintings displaying the exact occurrence of Deapool's entry into his lair and their subsequent fight and realized Tiamat was setting Deadpool up. Before she could warn him, Dixon cut off her connection, having already taken out Monty. Tiamat then turned the tables on Deadpool and disabled his equipment — the wounded mercenary escaped using Noah's teleportation belt. Zoe escaped to San Francisco to find a yet again demoralized and upset Deadpool being comforted by Al, before spotting Dixon's attempt to have Deadpool killed by planting a bomb in his house. Thinking all three dead, Dixon then summoned the Second String, Captain America, to face Tiamat in Wilson's place. Deadpool and the others survived the attempt on their lives when they were rescued by Gerry, the homeless hippie he had befriended. Gerry revealed himself as Gerald Lequare, the "Fourth L" of LL&L, who had faked his own death years ago to see to it that the Mithras Directive was successful. He had discovered a terrible truth about the Messiah and believed Deadpool was necessary to his plans. However, Deadpool had separated from the others and using Noah's belt, returned to the events of his conflict with Sasquatch in issue #1. Effectively a ghost there, he instead regained some measure of his self esteem when he heard the past Noah support Zoe's assertion that Deadpool possessed some capacity for heroism. Returning to the present, he then listened as Gerry explained events.

It turned out that the Messiah truly would bring peace and happiness as predicted...by robbing the entire population of earth of free will. Humankind would exist as blissfully happy mindless slaves. Tiamat had been sent to destroy the Messiah and prevent this from happening. Deadpool was still hesitant until Blind Al effectively communicated to him that even the heroes whom Deadpool had held up as achieving an impossible standard of nobility and success were also plagued by fears and self doubts and were just people driven to do the right thing. He then returned to save Captain America and complete the mission but when Tiamat became too obsessed with destroying the Mithras to accomplish his goal, and Captain America fell under the influence of the Messiah, it fell to Deadpool to take up Tiamat's mind-shielding armor and destroy the Messiah himself. Although he agonized over the decision, knowing he would be responsible for mankind's continuing suffering if they kept their free will, he made the right decision and slew the Messiah.^[38]

In the aftermath, Tiamat was left broken, Dixon was institutionalized, Montgomery lost his powers and was "decommissioned" after he kissed Zoe (a display of "unauthorized emotion"), and Zoe was promoted to Overboss status. Deadpool was once again angered by his existence, feeling he had nevertheless foiled a chance for world peace and allowed the world to remain the same in his nihilistic view. Blind Al left him, leaving the question of why she felt so indebted to him unresolved and Wilson instead acquired the now alone Montgomery as his new "roommate."^[38][39]

[edit] Death and rebirth

Deadpool and Agent X, his erstwhile double, with his reluctant current partner Cable in the background. Art by Patrick Zircher.

Deadpool has died three times in the past. First was the aforementioned event at the Workshop that kick started his healing factor. Later, Wade had decided to rejoin the Weapon X program to regain his good looks. However, after witnessing his girlfriend, Copycat (Vanessa Carlyle), slaughtered by the program, he was gunned down while trying to get revenge on his former employers. Luckily, Thanos resurrected him because he was envious that Death was already in love with Deadpool. Four false Deadpools appeared upon Wade's death, each personifying a different aspect of his personality. The first was an idealistic superhero with traditional ideals reminiscent of Superman's. The second was a Punisher-esque crime fighter and mercenary who took pleasure in killing his targets. The third was an absurdist pop culture star along the lines of Tom Green or Bam Margera. The final Deadpool was completely insane, but uncharacteristically for Deadpool said only two words the entire arc: "No Pickles." These four, as well as Deadpool's inner child, his feminine side, his inner geek, and his inner stand-up comedian (sharing the appearance and catch phrase of Rodney Dangerfield) were absorbed accidentally into T-Ray, wiping the villain's mind clean.

Lastly, 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 initially had thought Deadpool responsible for his brother's death only to discover that it was Swan who 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 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. In fact, the truth was more complicated, as shown when the Black Swan showed up with a "tabula rasa" Deadpool in tow (whom 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 to get 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 honor, Swan proposed a three-way mind meld. Hayden agreed. However, the Swan 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). Shortly after, Deadpool became one of the villains to find the Identity Disc.

[edit] Pairing with Cable

Deadpool became partnered with his former enemy, Cable, teaming up in various adventures. When the Superhuman Registration Act (SHRA) was passed, Deadpool became one of the "hero hunters" much to the disappointment of Cable.

During Cable's more serious adventures and apparent death, Deadpool attempted to become a serious superhero. When his former secretary Sandi Brandenburg and Outlaw approached him with the news that Alex Hayden disappeared while fighting HYDRA, Deadpool rescued Agent X and took Bob, Agent of HYDRA prisoner. Becoming part of Agency X after this, Deadpool went on several adventures teaming up with a variety of different heroes.

[edit] Wolverine: Origins

Deadpool is hired by a disguised James "Bucky" Barnes to kill Wolverine and after fighting throughout San Francisco, Deadpool is eventually able to incapacitate him. While gloating over his victory Deadpool is interrupted by Daken, Wolverine's son. Deadpool is then beaten by Daken in a short battle during the course of which Wolverine was released. Wolverine then distracts Daken long enough for Bucky to paralyze him by firing a carbonadium bullet into Daken's head. Wolverine then reveals the whole event was a setup to bring Daken to him.^[40]

[edit] Secret Invasion

A new Deadpool ongoing series written by Daniel Way with artist Paco Medina begins as a Secret Invasion tie-in.

The Skrulls have invaded a Braves game and plan to wipe it out entirely. The Skrull ship's crew notices an anomaly amongst the humans. Upon inspection a mascot stands in the center of the field. They notice that it is armed. After an initial blast, the downed mascot is examined and it is determined that the insulation was not actually insulation, but body armor. Deadpool then bursts up and begins slaughtering the Skrulls. Despite lapsing in and out of "Pool-O-Vision" Deadpool is easily handling the Skrulls. He even outsmarts them at one point, getting to the roof of their ship and dropping a massive load of dynamite, taking down the entire ship. Once he comes face to face with the commander, however, Deadpool surrenders and offers his services to the Skrulls.^[41]

Deadpool offers himself to be cloned for the newest Super-Skrull batch. He also trains these Deadpool Skrulls and has them fight the former Super-Skrull patch for "training." Because of the flaws of his powers, his clones have the same propensity for insanity he does, a process he accelerates before he sets them loose to attack all members of the crew aboard the Skrull ship. He is later seen in a communication room, talking to the now renegade Nick Fury, bragging about how he brought down a Skrull ship. Nick Fury then tells Deadpool that a Super Skrull is behind him so Deadpool leads the Skrull into several traps which causes it to freeze itself. Deadpool then becomes cornered by the lead Skrull scientist and the Deadpool Skrulls. The Deadpool Skrulls start to deform due to the fact that they do not have cancer to keep their healing factors in check and eventually burst. Deadpool then ensues to kill the lead scientist and return to the communication room. Deadpool sends the information that he retrieved from his mission to Nick Fury. Nick Fury says the information does not show up due to Norman Osborn secretly capturing the data, which may have contained information on how to kill the Skrull Queen Veranke.^{[42] [43][44]}

[edit] Secret Invasion Aftermath

After the job for Nick Fury went bust, Deadpool found himself poor and reduced to poverty, he had become so poor he had to make a chair out of plastic explosives, just to watch television. Deadpool eventually found a job working for Zeke, a crime lord that is exploiting the lack of law enforcement in the wake of the Skrull Invasion, especially in Russia and Eastern Europe. He orders Deadpool to kill the doctor that has taken his wife captive in Eastern Europe. The doctor has created a process that turns people into vampiric zombies ("zampires"). If they have recently been fed, they will look youthful and beautiful. But if they go too long without feeding, they enter a zombie like state.^[45]

When he got to Eastern Europe, he was gunned down from behind by the local cops because they thought he was a zombie. When Wade awoke he found himself in a cell with other zombies where he escaped with fellow mercs only for Wade to kill them as well. He eventually found the castle where the surgeon worked and was greeted by a hunch-backed minion who gave him a bottle of water while he waited to be let in. When Wade drank it he found it was poisoned and was knocked out at the surgeons feet. The surgeon then received a phone call from Zeke, who was asking for his wife.^[46]

Deadpool wakes up hours later, tied up with Zeke's wife holding his pants. He tells the wife to free him since he came there to save her, but she says Zeke sent Wade as payment for her surgeries. She reveals Zeke is actually broke and everything he owns was bought with her credit. Dr. Lovosno comes in and says he usually won't perform surgery if his clients can't pay, but Zeke's wife is so beautiful that they came to an arrangement. However, Zeke didn't like the doctor and his wife's relationship so he decided to pay, in this case a trade. Deadpool says that if the doctor intends to use his DNA for his experiments, he should forget about it. Lovosno says that because of interruptions by the local police, he needs to keep his high-class clients happy. When he heard about Deadpool's healing factor, Lovosno realized he can use him to feed his clients: a meal that never ends. Deadpool realizes he won't get paid again and that Zeke betrayed him. Lovosno's zombie nurses are about to feed on Deadpool, when he tries to stop them and says he'll find a way to get free. Lovosno doesn't believe him and the nurses begin feeding on Deadpool, but immediately spit him out. They say he tastes like fake meat and puke. Lovosno comes to the conclusion that the procedure Wade has been through ruined him as a food source. He orders the nurses to get rid of him, but Deadpool stops Lovosno and offers him hundreds of humans that won't be missed (one of them being Zeke) if he lets him go. Deadpool gets free and tells Lovosno that as part of the plan he needs to make some preparations. He asks for the big bag he came with. Seven hours later, Deadpool is done and calls Zeke, telling the surprised traitor to meet him in the castle.

Deadpool takes Zeke's wife, as they walk out of the castle and meet Zeke at the front door. Zeke hopes Wade forgives him, but Deadpool won't do that without his money which Zeke doesn't have. Actually, instead of money he brought his mercenaries to back him up. Zeke asks for his wife and the mercenaries load their guns. Wade refuses to let go of his only bargaining chip and holds the wife as a human shield. Zeke promises she'll be fine and that his people won't shoot her in the head. Right then, Lovosno and his zombies surround the mercenaries. The zombies attack and feed on the mercenaries. Zeke begs his wife to save him, but she and Lovosno laugh. Suddenly the castle explodes (Thanks to Deadpool's chair made out of plastic explosives) the explosion kills both the mercenaries and the zombies. Deadpool says goodbye to Zeke and goes home, once again without compensation for his work.

Two days later: Deadpool is traveling back home hiding in the refrigerator of a ship. He's frozen and thinks it can't get any worse, but suddenly the ship crashes into something and Deadpool finds himself in deep water. From behind him someone is ready to attack: Tiger Shark.^[47]

[edit] Dark Reign

In a Dark Reign tie-in, after the job from Zeke, Deadpool appeared heavily injured on the shores of a San Diego beach after he was attacked by Tiger Shark. Meanwhile later on the same day, Tiger Shark got a call from the person who hired him to kill Deadpool. After Tiger Shark stated that he had killed him, the caller made themselves more clear by saying they wanted Deadpool's head. Tiger Shark was then offered twice his going rate if he could do this, or death if he couldn't.^{[issue # needed]}

Deadpool was woken up by a nurse named Rosario in a refugee center. Deadpool thanked her for her help and tried to leave. Rosario tried to stop him after she saw the blood that Deadpool left on the bed. Deadpool managed to argue his way out of staying and left. Once outside, he found Tiger Shark in the alley carrying a machete. He quickly went back inside and argued with himself as to whether or not to fight in front of Rosario so as to impress her. Tiger Shark then burst through the wall and the two began to fight. Deadpool gained the upper hand on Tiger Shark but was then shot in the shoulder by a rubber bullet. He turned to see that a group of police offices had been called. Turning back to deal with Tiger Shark, he discovered that the villain had disappeared. Deadpool fled to a room where Rosario and the refugees had hidden. He found Rosario scared and talking with one of the police on her cell phone. Deadpool told her to call him sometime, as the police burst into the room and shot him "dead".^{[issue # needed]}

Deadpool woke up in a body bag. He discovered that rather than be taken to a morgue, he had been taken to a dock. Tiger Shark then appeared wielding an axe. As the two were about to fight, Tiger Shark was shot at and missed by Bob, Agent of HYDRA, who had come to save Deadpool. Tiger Shark quickly jumped into the water in order to make a counter attack. Deadpool told Bob to throw him the rifle, but the rifle failed to reach him and fell in the water as Bob 'throws like a girl'.^{[issue # needed]}

Seconds later Tiger Shark struck back and knocked Bob to the water. Deadpool jumped into the water as well in order to get the rifle back and fight Tiger Shark.^[48] Strangely, Tiger Shark did not kill Bob in the water, instead he went away. As a result Deadpool understood that Bob was there to kill him in name of the same person as Tiger Shark. Bob begged for his help after Deadpool confronted him and told him who the mystery man was that had put a price on his head: Norman Osborn. After shooting Tiger Shark and shooting Bob through the hand as punishment, Deadpool sent a letter to Norman Osborn demanding money for the information Norman stole from him, with a note reading "PS I killed Bob". Instead of paying the amount of money Deadpool asks, Norman Osborn sends the Thunderbolts to kill him.

Deadpool decides to make a direct assault on Avengers tower in New York City. Upon shooting the door open he is confronted by one of Osborns robots where Deadpool makes fun of Norman's hair and throws 2 smoke grenades on the ground. He is then shot by Norman's robot, much to Osborn's surprise Deadpool gets up and walks away, where it is revealed he took the breast plate from an Iron Man suit of armor in the lobby for a bullet proof vest. He proceeds to argue with himself and scale the elevator shaft using a grappling gun and continuing to make fun of Osborn's hair. He goes off into Deadpool vision and sees himself climbing a giant beanstalk to get his golden cows from a giant Osborn. He is then attacked by Osborn's bat-bots and hijacks one riding it up the shaft where he then destroys it. Upon reaching the top and knocking on the door he believes Norman Osborn to be behind he is confronted by the Thunderbolts and it is shown that Osborn is several blocks away in a different building watching the events unfold.^[49] The Thunderbolts chase Deadpool throughout the entire building trying their hardest to kill him. Deadpool eventually escapes the Thunderbolts. He lures the Thunderbolts into a trap and quickly incapacitates most of them. He confronts Black Widow on the top of the roof and, amazed at her beauty, asks her if she has a boyfriend.^[50]

[edit] Breaking the fourth wall

Deadpool acknowledges that he is a comic book character.

Deadpool is one of few Marvel comic book characters that have regularly broken the "fourth wall" and called attention to his nature as a comic book character. Marvel has officially referred to this as Deadpool's "comic awareness," a play on Captain Marvel's "cosmic awareness."

Joe Kelly was the first writer to show him breaking the fourth wall, with minor mentions as early as Deadpool #4, when Deadpool is informed that he will have to fight the Hulk in order to obtain his DNA; he protests and begins to sing the theme song from the 60's Hulk cartoon: "No shinola I'm scared! This is the INCREDIBLE HULK here! Doc Bruce Banner, pelted by Gamma Rays, turned into the Hulk - Ain't he unglamorous?!? The FREAKIN' HULK!" The same issue also had the three characters in the story (Siryn, Dr. Killebrew, and Deadpool) break the fourth wall on the title page by talking to the reader for a story recap, a practice Cable & Deadpool writer Fabian Nicieza would later copy. In #20, he refers to Marvel's financial troubles of the time ("Where were you when I bought all that stock in Marvel Comics?") while on a jaunt with the precognitive Montgomery. In issue #28, Deadpool again has a clear cut example of breaking the fourth wall when telling Bullseye what issue they had last met. Furthermore, in #29, Deadpool, interrogating a geneticist, referred to the Spider-Man Clone Saga story and its implications for the franchise's popularity, stating "I don't know if you keep up with these things but the kids hate clones. I'd be crucified if there was a clone in this book." Issues #28 and #29 also contain an in-story moment in which Deadpool turns to the "camera" and comments on an aspect of the story. Later in Deadpool #30, Deadpool again breaks the fourth wall for a recap, dressing himself like Hamlet and using Blind Al's skull in place of Yorick's saying this was a way to replace the now missing gatefolds (for a time all Marvel comics had a fold out recap page that has been discontinued). In Kelly's final issue, #33, Death told a disembodied Deadpool that he was now hers for 30 days, the amount of time before #34 would be released. The Wizard Magazine special, Deadpool #0, also written by Kelly during his run, has Deadpool note, "Isn't it cool how quickly we get to the story when we only have 12 pages?"

Later in the series, Christopher Priest took it several steps further. In fact, at the time, some ads for the book came with the tag-line "Deadpool: Breaking down the fourth wall, brick by brick!" Priest's first issue in the book has Deadpool walking into a trailer park that's populated by all the heroes whose books were written by and canceled during Priest's run, including Ka-Zar, Moon Knight, Hawkman. Deadpool also throws a duffel bag with the inscription "Every good idea Joe Kelly ever had and everything that made this book work" down a tar pit in this prologue to Priest's run. In Priest's final issue, Deadpool is back in the trailer park, and throws away another bag with Priest's corpse inside, much to the disbelief of the "canceled" heroes. Deadpool himself makes several in-canon mentions to his knowledge of the universe, first to Loki (in disguise at the time) and repeatedly throughout Priest's run as a mantra: "None of this is really happening. There is a man. With a typewriter. This is all part of his crazy imagination."

Deadpool, unlike most characters, is aware that he is in a comic book and able to express his thoughts via captions.

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, recapping the events of the ongoing Marvel Civil War in Cable & Deadpool #31, he says, "And the Boy Scout branch made a big show of cooperating, by having Spider-Man reveal his identity on national TV...as if we hadn't seen the movies already and didn't know it was dreamy doe-eyed Tobey Maguire under the mask!", having previously referred to Tobey Maguire's portrayal and the movies directly to Spider-Man himself in Cable & Deadpool #30. In Cable & Deadpool #30, while fighting the Great Lakes Avengers, Deadpool wonders how they know what he is saying in his little yellow thought boxes. They reveal that he's actually been saying everything out loud. Deadpool then ponders how this is happening, as he was fairly certain he was thinking in the first person narrative. This continues throughout the rest of the issue. The "faulty first person narrative" is also referenced in Cable & Deadpool #31. Currently, he can be found making brief statements explicitly referring to existing in comic book panels. For example, in issue #36, he makes the statement to the reader after knocking out Taskmaster that "that was probably cheap, even by my standards, probably, but now we can just move on to this..." and jumps to the next panel. Additionally, Deadpool answers his own letter column. Interestingly, although Deadpool frequently makes remarks to other Marvel Universe characters that reference their presence in a comic book, the other characters never seem to make any attempt to figure out what he's talking about. This is probably because nobody takes anything Deadpool says seriously anyway, due to his insanity (his knowledge of the fourth wall may indeed be a result of his insanity, or, at least, that's how it would be perceived by other characters. The idea of a character's insanity revealing to them knowledge of being in a comic book has been used by other characters, in other continuities, such as the Joker).

Deadpool also had a fourth-wall-breaking recap page in Cable & Deadpool. While it featured him (and/or, on occasion, Cable, supporting cast members, featured villains, or guest stars) recapping the storyline in various ways, such as in the form of a late-night talk show monologue, in Cable & Deadpool #36, he is seen in the offices of Marvel Comics, harassing his book's editor Nicole Boose about the current storyline, until she distracts him by convincing him that he needs to speak with the editor of the then-ongoing Civil War event. Earlier, during The Burnt Offering story arc, he is interviewed by Irene Merriweather for the recap page (Cable is similarly interviewed by Irene during each part of the story) and clearly disparages his co-creator, Fabian Nicieza, as his writer, while stating his preference for two of his former writers, Joe Kelly and Gail Simone, referring to their present assignments at DC Comics, all of which baffled Irene.

During an encounter with Spider-Man in Cable & Deadpool #50, speaking of Agency X, he says "I call them a loyal supporting cast, Mr. Holier-Than-Thou-Fugitive-From-The-Law, Spider-Man. And I don't have to make a deal with Mephisto to have it either." Spider-Man wonders why he said that and Deadpool replies, "Never mind," having been referring to Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson's deal with Mephisto in Spider-Man: One More Day, which Spider-Man himself had forgotten about due to Mephisto's time manipulation. (Deadpool also knew there was a question mark in Spider-Man's speech balloon).^[51]

[edit] Powers, abilities, and equipment

Deadpool has been artificially endowed with a superhuman regenerative healing factor by the Weapon X program that is at times shown to be superior to that of Wolverine's or Sabretooth's. As Deadpool had cancer at the time of the gene therapy, it has been suppressed by the "healing factor", which continually regenerates every cell in Deadpool's body, keeping the cancer at bay. However, an unanticipated side effect resulted in a rapid acceleration of the tumors as well, causing them to quickly spread across his entire body as soon as his powers fully activated. Though the healing factor keeps them from becoming what would otherwise be a horribly debilitating condition, this causes his body to be in a constant state of flux and regeneration. His powers' full manifestation also appeared to contribute to his insanity, he himself declared awareness of a growing detachment from reality moments after. Removal of his powers would cause him a cancer relapse, as he himself is aware. As a by-product of his healing factor, he possess enhanced strength, agility, and reflexes.

The healing factor enables him to regenerate damaged or destroyed tissue with much greater speed and efficiency than an ordinary human. He can regenerate whole organs and even severed limbs. In at least one instance, Deadpool, after breaking nearly every bone in his body, strapped himself to a rack so his bones set properly. He has survived being decapitated, though his head did not regenerate; it was simply replaced and healed back to his torso.^[52] Deadpool can also come back from the dead, as a direct result of his healing ability. The reason for this is unknown.^[53] This has the apparent effect of slowly causing Deadpool to become more insane every time he dies, to the point of sociopathy, hallucinations, and multiple personality disorder.

For a brief time, Weapon X heightened his powers to a point where he was able to regrow body parts at will - better and stronger than before - enabling him to regenerate a severed arm in mere seconds.^[54] This augmentation also restored his normal appearance.

Additionally, Deadpool's healing factor is proportional to the amount of injury he receives. An excellent example of this is in issue 30 of the Cable and Deadpool series.^[55] In one part of a battle with the Great Lakes Avengers, he set off one of his own grenades, blowing a large hole in his abdomen, but regenerated this in relatively little time. Conversely, during the same fight, Squirrel Girl beat him into submission by clawing him furiously, apparently not severely enough to cause his healing factor to respond as powerfully. His regenerative ability also greatly enhances his stamina. Domino once referred to him as a living 'Energizer Bunny'.

Deadpool's brain cells are similarly affected, rendering him immune to psychics such as Professor X and Emma Frost. This constant flux may or may not be what causes his irreverent banter and ADHD-type personality. His more recognizable demeanor established itself from the moment his healing factor began working at the Hospice. He is completely unpredictable, which has even extended itself to his physical coordination when he so desires. After checking Weapon X's files, Cable stated that Deadpool's cognitive functions would never be normal as long as the regeneration was in his system, and later used the last vestiges of his telepathic ability to correct the damaged areas of the latter’s brain. This allowed greater access to long and short-term memories, but Deadpool's behavior otherwise remained completely unchanged.

When Deadpool's genetic map is added to the Super Skrulls, it is implied that Deadpool's insanity is caused by his healing factor. Once his matrix is input into the Skrulls, they begin to go insane and act much as Deadpool does. The lead geneticist even goes so far as to say "I've infected them with his mental illness." A fact which, seemingly proved true, would lead one to believe that Deadpool's mental faculties are largely influenced by his regenerative abilities.

Aside from his physical advantages, Deadpool is a superb assassin and mercenary, and an expert in multiple forms of armed and unarmed combat. He favors using bladed and martial arts weapons to meet opponents in single combat, but will just shoot them if he has a bad day or is in a hurry. His trademark weapons seem to be his twin katanas that he wears on his back when not in use, and his dual-wielded pistols. On occasion, Deadpool comically produces previously unseen weapons from thin air. This was only addressed outright once in a Heroes For Hire story where Deadpool returned Misty Knight and Colleen Wing's various weapons to them through mystery concealment. When asked how, he replied "It involves an awful lot of lubricant".

Deadpool has excellent aim (though not with any given object, like Bullseye), which was temporarily destroyed by the Black Swan. He owns a personal teleportation device, usually located on his belt. This device, created by Weasel, teleports him away from, and occasionally into trouble, and has been prone to numerous malfunctions over the years. For a time he shared Cable's "body-slide" transporting technology, with the limitation that both of them automatically teleport at the same time. Early in his original ongoing comic, he also possessed an image inducer built by Weasel. It projected holographic disguises in order to go undercover, conceal his bizarre appearance, or goof off, for example to masquerade as Spider-Man's alter-ego, Peter Parker, while trapped several years in the past.

A master martial artist, Deadpool has fought evenly with Iron Fist before the latter's increase in power in Immortal Iron Fist. In a Cable and Deadpool tie-in to the Marvel Civil War event, Deadpool singlehandedly engaged a group of five other superheroes including Goliath, Captain America, Hercules, Falcon, and Iron Fist (disguised as Daredevil) in hand-to-hand combat, though the outcome of the battle was forestalled by Captain America and the arrival of Cable. He has also fought Shen Kuei, a rival of Shang-Chi also known as Cat. Although Deadpool lost in their initial confrontation, Cat admitted the possibility of losing his life should they fight again. Later on in the same issue however, Deadpool was unable to beat Shen Kuei directly (or simply didn't have the time to do so) and resorted to taking a hostage. The combination of his battle-prowess and enhanced physique enabled him to defeat the non-superhuman grandmaster combatant, the Taskmaster, while both his hands and feet were manacled. Deadpool believes Taskmaster had let him win, but Taskmaster tells him he was really trying, just that "The truth is...You're that good. You've always been that good. Which won't get you a cup of coffee until you figure out how to be a professional..." Deadpool also holds a number of victories against Wolverine, though it is generally portrayed however that the two are more or less evenly matched as they stalemated each other on countless occasions. Deadpool is also shown to hold his own in a battle with Wolverine's son Daken; after Daken cuts both Deadpool's hands off, he manages to temporarily gain the upperhand in the battle after dizzying Daken by kicking him face first into a wall.

Deadpool uses his continuous, off-the-wall banter to distract, insult, frustrate, and infuriate his opponents. Even when losing, he has refused to keep quiet and his constant chatter has even slightly muddled Daredevil's enhanced senses. Domino has claimed this to be the most dangerous aspect of his combat style, since he can appear to be completely distracted and disorient his opponent while still focusing on the battle.

[edit] Other versions

[edit] Messiah War

An alternate version of Deadpool as made his presence known in the upcoming X-Men crossover Messiah War, where he had been locked up in a "fridge" for 800 years.^[56]

[edit] Age of Apocalypse

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Deadpool's counterpart in the alternate reality Age of Apocalypse is Dead Man Wade, one of the Pale Riders, Apocalypse's covert strike team. In keeping with the dark tone of the setting, this version seems to have no knowledge of his existence as a comic book character, although he was introduced before the mainstream Deadpool acquired this characteristic.

His abilities are similar to Deadpool's, with a healing factor acquired through Apocalypse's eugenics program. However, whereas the Earth-616 Deadpool is usually psychotically fun-loving, Dead Man Wade is even more confused, depressed, and disturbed. Wade compares his body to the state of the Earth, mentioning that his body is constantly rotting, not just healing, which is consistent with the inability of Deadpool's regenerative powers to restore his original appearance. Dead Man Wade does not wear a mask, looking exactly as an unmasked Deadpool would.

Apocalypse sends Wade and the other Pale Riders to destroy the sanctuary known as Avalon. Once there, however, Damask betrays the team. In the battle that follows, Nightcrawler kills Wade, decapitating him by teleporting his head off.^[57]

[edit] Earth X

The Thing believes Deadpool has taken on the identity of Daredevil (who is dead in this reality) and become a circus stunt-man, using his amazing healing powers to overcome even the most horrific of injuries.

[edit] Exiles

The Exiles are a group of superhumans (originally mutants) from different realities recruited by the Timebroker to repair broken timelines. The Timebroker also recruited a second team, who called themselves Weapon X, created to deal with morally ambiguous missions, in which the timelines required assassinations and massacres in order to be corrected. An alternate version of Deadpool was a founding member of the team. Personality and power wise, this version of Deadpool does not differ significantly from the Deadpool of 616. This version of Deadpool was thought to be dead after Sabretooth broke his neck in a reality that was controlled by Sentinels. It was later revealed that any incapacitated members of Weapon X and the Exiles had been kept in stasis. Deadpool was one such member. Deadpool was revived by an alternate version of Dr. Strange who was attempting to research a cure for Mimic who was frozen in stasis due to injuries received fighting King Hyperion. After being revived, Deadpool instantly murdered Strange by snapping his neck. Deadpool took over the Exiles' base, unfreezing She-Hulk (Jennifer Walters), using her as a potential ally. However, he was later defeated by Mimic, who had been revived earlier. Mimic had absorbed Deadpool's healing factor. After the battle, She-Hulk judged Deadpool guilty of various murders she had witnessed him committing. She then smashed him into a pulp. This version of Deadpool is presumed dead.

[edit] Heroes Reborn

In the Heroes Reborn universe, the Avengers were joined by universe's native version of the Swordsman. It turns out that this character is revealed to be a counterpart of Deadpool during his time with the cast-off heroes known as the "Remnants."^{[issue # needed]}

[edit] 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. He is hired by Mojo to kill mutants for sport on television. Deadpool was only truly seen in the last panel of the book, which confirmed the removal of his yellow-worded speech bubbles and a few changes of his costume from his standard Marvel mainstream counterpart. His outfit is still predominantly black and red.

This 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 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 television audiences.

At the end of issue #93, it appeared that Deadpool was unmasked as 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 clear plastic helmet that made his face appear human-shaped when masked. Kitty Pryde phased through him, seemingly causing his cybernetic enhancements to explode and kill him, but by the end of the story arc, Deadpool appears to have survived, with a grip on his mask, ready to fight again.

While Deadpool shares very few similarities with his mainstream counterpart, his backstory has much in common with Donald Pierce, who in the mainstream comics was a mutant-hating cyborg who led the Reavers.

[edit] House of M

A field commander Wade Wilson is mentioned in New Avengers #45, which deals with the Skrulls' involvement in House of M.

[edit] Marvel Zombies

A zombified Deadpool is seen for one panel in the original Marvel Zombies, and again for one panel in Dead Days.^[58] The zombie Deadpool is once again seen in the first issue of Marvel Zombies 3, who have been transported from the Marvel Zombies universe to Earth 616. He speaks in his expected yellow text boxes, calls himself the "Merc With Half a Mouth" (due to his lack of most of his jaw) and he is still a wisecracker who exhibits a wide range of knowledge, which he used to take out Jennifer Kale's magic, and then attacks her. He appears to be killed when Wundarr the Aquarian throws him and Kale retaliates by luring Deadpool into the blades of a nearby skiff, completely tearing him apart. However, as the "Prime Carrier" he is contained within A.R.M.O.R.^[59]

In solicits for Marvel Zombies 4, due to his status as a fan favorite, he will have an expanded role and a new nickname: "The Merc With Only A Mouth".^{[citation needed]}

[edit] In other media

[edit] Television

• In season 2, episode 3 of the X-Men animated series, Morph briefly transforms into Deadpool while tormenting Wolverine. In season 1, episode 4, Deadpool's face is also seen in a flashback while Professor Xavier is probing the mind of Sabretooth. In season 3 during the miniseries Phoenix Saga (part 2), an evil psychic projection of Xavier also created an illusion of Deadpool while tormenting Wolverine.

[edit] Film

• Deadpool will appear in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, played by Ryan Reynolds.^[60]
• Deadpool appears in the Hulk Vs Wolverine section of the animated film Hulk Vs,^[61] voiced by Nolan North. Deadpool acts as one of Professor Thorton's henchmen (alongside Lady Deathstrike, Omega Red, and Sabretooth) in the Weapon X program, seeking to capture Wolverine and the Hulk in order to brainwash them and convert them into the ultimate weapons.^[62] This version of the character constantly jokes around, much to the annoyance of Omega Red and shows characteristics similar to that of the comics. He even carries on his tradition of breaking the fourth wall by telling the other Weapon X members to "strike a pose" during a wide shot of them getting ready to go after Logan.

[edit] Video games

• Deadpool has so far appeared in two video games based on Marvel comics. In both games so far, he was voiced by John Kassir and fights by using martial arts, handguns, explosives, katanas, and his teleporter belt.
  • In X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, he initially appears as a boss, having been hired and brainwashed by Mister Sinister. He fights the united X-Men and Brotherhood in the New York City's North Side during Act 4. Deadpool is also unlocked as a playable character once the game is completed for the first time. Like in the comics, Deadpool breaks the 4th wall if the player stalls enough. If the enemy Deadpool is fought using the playable Deadpool, they will argue about which one is the real Deadpool.
  • In Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Deadpool is a playable character from the beginning of the game. He makes many jokes, some of which are existential in nature, while talking to familiar people and associates. These special dialogues are with Weasel, Black Widow, a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent, Edwin Jarvis, the Ancient One, Hank Pym, Valkyrie, Nick Fury, Black Bolt, Arcade, and Dark Spider-Man (the last two are in Deadpool's simulator mission). Another meta-reference occurs in his simulator mission: while other characters' missions begin with the character discussing his/her origin, Deadpool initially tells a pastiche of the origin stories of Thor, Blade, Daredevil, Storm, and The Hulk as his own before proceeding to tell his real origin. He is also the only character to manage annoying Arcade, by refusing to admit that Murderworld is in fact a giant deathtrap, rather than an actual theme park. Deadpool annoys him again when he and Dark Spiderman have their pre-battle conversation, which eventually develops into dating advice. Gameplay-wise, he fights in nearly the exact same manner as he does in X-Men Legends II. His costumes include Classic, Ultimate, Weapon X, and Assassin. The Ultimate costume is from the Ultimate Universe version of the character, the Weapon X costume is from the Deadpool: Agent of Weapon X arc of his series, while the Assassin costume is simply his Classic outfit as it has been updated for the Cable and Deadpool series, with the black and red colors reversed and short sleeves. Sometimes when he levels up, he makes a joke about Wolverine's catchphrase, saying, "And now I'M better at doing whatever it is Wolverine does!, and also makes fun of popular culture saying "Oh great! I won a new car too?"" Deadpool carries a pair of Heckler and Koch MP7s as his firearms in the game. Deadpool also makes remarks about being in a video game as well, such as, Dude I need health...And a pony when he's low on health.^[63]

[edit] Merchandise

Bowen Designs has produced two Deadpool mini-busts (one with a changeable, unmasked head) and a Deadpool statue. Over the years Deadpool has also had a ToyBiz X-Force action figure, a second figure with a removable mask from the revisited X-Force line, a 12-inch (300 mm) Toybiz figure, and another figure in Marvel Legends Series 6. A review with pictures of this figure can be found here. He also makes an appearance in the X-Men Origins: Wolverine 3 3/4th" line, in both his classic costume and his movie version. He has also appeared in the Upper Deck Vs. CCG and WizKids' HeroClix Collectible Miniature Game.

[edit] Bibliography

• Deadpool: The Circle Chase #1-4 (1993)
• Deadpool: Sins of the Past #1-4 (1994)
• Deadpool (vol. 1) # -1, 0, 1-69 (1997-2002)
• 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/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular (2007)
• Deadpool (vol. 2) #1— (2008-Present)
• Deadpool: Games of Death (2009)

• • Appearances
• New Mutants #98 (1991)
• X-Force #1-2, 4-5, 10-11, 14-15, 21-24, 46-47, 56, 71, 73, 76 & 100(1991-1998)
• Nomad #4 (1992)
• Marvel Age #126 (1993)
• The Avengers #366 (1993)
• Secret Defenders #15-17 (1994)
• Silver Sable #23, 30 (1994)
• Wolverine #88, Annual '95, Annual '99, 154, 155 (1994-2000)
• X-Calibre #1-3 (1995)
• Heroes For Hire #10-11 (1998)
• Contest of Champions II #1, 3-5 (1999)
• Heroes Reborn: Remnants #1 (2000)
• Gambit #17-18 (2000)
• X-Men Unlimited #28 (2000)
• Black Panther #22-23 (2000)
• Exiles #5-6,12-13,67-68 (2001-2005)
• X-Men: Millennial Visions #2 (2002)
• Agent X #13-15 (2003)
• Identity Disc #1-5 (2004)
• X-Force (vol. 2) #4-5 (2005)
• Weapon X: Days of Future Now #3 (2005)
• Ultimate Spider-Man #91-94 (2006)
• New X-Men #22 (2006) (Featured on cover only)
• Marvel Team-Up #25 (2006)
• White Tiger #5 (2007)
• Wolverine: Origins #20-25 (2008)
• Marvel Comics Presents (vol. 2) #10 (2008)
• Wolverine Unleashed #148-150 (2008)
• Marvel Zombies Vol. 3 #1 (2008)
• Weapon X: First Class #2 (2009)
• Thunderbolts #130 (2009)
• X-Force/Cable: Messiah War (2009)
• Cable (vol. 2) #13 (2009)

[edit] Collected editions

The stories have been collected in a number of trade paperbacks:

• Deadpool: The Circle Chase (collects The Circle Chase, 96 pages, Marvel Comics, March 1997, ISBN 0-7851-0259-0)
• Deadpool II: Sins of the Past (collects Sins of the Past, 96 pages, Marvel Comics, January 1997, ISBN 0-7851-0554-9)
• Deadpool:
  • Volume 1 (collects The Circle Chase and Sins of the Past, 196 pages, Panini Comics, June 2008, ISBN 190523984X)
  • Volume 2 (308 pages, Panini Comics, July 2009, ISBN 1846534275)
• Deadpool Classic:
  • Volume 1 (collects New Mutants #98, The Circle Chase, Sins of the Past , and Deadpool #1, 264 pages, Marvel Comics, May 2008, ISBN 0-7851-3124-8)
  • Volume 2 (collects Deadpool #2-8 and -1, and Daredevil/Deadpool Annual 1997, 256 pages, Marvel Comics, April 2009, ISBN 0-7851-3731-9)
• Wolverine/Deadpool: Weapon X (collects Wolverine #162-166 and Deadpool #57-60, 240 pages, Marvel Comics, August 2002, ISBN 0-7851-0918-8)
• Wolverine: Origins Volume 5 - Deadpool (collects Wolverine: Origins #21-27, 168 pages, Marvel Comics, hardcover, October 2008, ISBN 0-7851-2639-2, softcover, January 2009, ISBN 0-7851-2615-5)
• Deadpool:
  • Volume 1: Secret Invasion (collects Deadpool #1-5, 120 pages, Marvel Comics, March 2009, ISBN 0-7851-3273-2)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Deadpool at Marvel.com
• Deadpool Covers
• Deadpool Bugle
• MercWithAMouth.com's New Deadpool Blog and Forums
• Deadpool at the Comic Book DB
• Deadpool at the Internet Movie Database