I had originally planned to do this next year, but then I started bouncing various ideas around in my head and decided it was something I wanted to do now. I'm not sure why, but I was thinking about it and I decided that as his popularity is soaring higher than Keith Richards with wings, now is a good time to say: "I WAS THERE FIRST!". I'm speaking in jest of course, but you get the point.
The title is Deadpool & Me because I've slightly altered the idea of this post.
It was going to be a massively detailed retrospective on Deadpool's entire existence up until now, someone actually raised a point to me: "I think people would be more interested in what Deadpool means to you, how you discovered him and why you like him as opposed to reading things they can just Google.".
This is true, and without trying to be pretentious, people are a lot more likely to appreciate this character if they're told why he rules in contrary to a biography.
If you would like all the details, go here:
Deadpool's/Wade Wilson's Full Biography at The Marvel Database.
It really is a tragic story, something that is all too often ignored in the modern day.
Anyway, on with the post! If you want to read about the Christmas Competition, skip to the end.
With that said, here're the ins and outs of my reading relationship with this guy:
Deadpool.
I suppose I should just start from the beginning...
That is X-Force #2 (Vol. 1); my first experience with Deadpool. It was a LOOONG time ago, and I do mean a LONG time. We're talking EARLY '90s here, 1991 actually. It came not long after I first fell head-over-heels in love with comics as a whole, actually.
I don't know precisely why we were there, but my parents and I were at a friends' place for one of their semi-regular parties/get-togethers and I was upstairs hanging out with all the kids of the parents. The much older brother of one of them was a big comics buff, but I never had much exposure to them besides thumbing through them before on a few occassions. One day, I was permitted to read a few in depth. So, I thumbed through this huge stack of comics in detail for the first time and found myself agape at just how intense these things were.
One of the comics I read on that fateful night was X-Force #2. Despite the appearance being brief, something about Deadpool just hooked me and dragged me in. The way he moved and fought whilst simultaneously making corrosive and sarcastic jokes was amazing to me. Of course, I didn't GET the sarcasm and such at that point. I just saw it as a badass (Garrison Kane) fighting a badass (Deadpool) who was so unafraid of the other badass that he was making jokes at his expense. I was just thinking: "Dude is hardcore, making jokes while fighting a guy who just broke his jaw, and doing well!".
I had no means of buying my own comics at that point, but I read them whenever I could. Thankfully, the aforementioned person bought them regularly, so even at that age I had a semi-decent grasp of the storyline that would be happening in any given comic.
Eventually, those comics were handed down to me. I fell in love with The Silver Surfer, The Hulk and Daredevil most of all and these stuck with me to this day. Deadpool was different. Being that the guy I inherited all this comics from did not continue reading comics up until Deadpool had his first series, I lost touch with the character outside of the mini-series'(The Circle Chase and Sins of the Past).
It wasn't until the end of his first main series and the start of Cable & Deadpool that I started being able to read him again. Even then, it was through someone else who bought them. I wasn't a regular visitor to the West End until early 2000s due to my Mum not trusting me to go alone (I lead a sheltered life, amazing as it was), so I couldn't keep up.
Eventually, I started going down there with a friend and began to pick up whatever Deadpool issues I could. I was still amazed at how, in a few issues of reuniting with the character, I had a love for him unlike the comics I HAD been reading for all the years past.
That's why I had only recently finished my Deadpool collection, you see. I had read them, but never really owned them. Most of them anyway.
So, in a nutshell, that's how I ended up here with a love for this character beyond any character I've known. The degree to which I have an affinity for this character has actually caused people to associate me with him and him with me, which is flattering. I even plan to get his logo tattooed on my shoulder at some point.
After hearing all this, you must be asking: "David, you handsome carbon-based lifeform, why Deadpool?".
Something about Deadpool is truly unique. I don't know what it is, but it's there.
In this day and age it's cool and marketable to be some kind of brooding, at-war-with-yourself loner, but Deadpool was an anti-hero before anti-heros were spelled with a $ on the end. He wasn't the first, but he was one of the early ones of the '90s.
Deep down, Deadpool is like me. I never really relate to anybody or any thing as such, but Deadpool is definitely a character and idea that I can relate to now, and could relate to growing up.
He doesn't really like people, but the individual folks he values he would probably die for (If he could die). He is capable of deeply loving someone, and has done so before with depressing results. One of his truest loves was killed by Sabretooth, the other one continually rejected him in an on-going "Will they? Won't they?" dynamic. It's been bad.
As cliche as it is, for someone with a healing factor he is capable of being hurt the most by emotions. The latter love interest - Siryn, then from X-Force - always loved him as a friend, and a little more, but it never really took off. One day, Typhoid Mary took the form of Siryn and slept with Deadpool, only to insult him after waking up next to him and revealing it was all a game. After he asked why, she said: "Because I can.".
He wears a mask, but when you read that scene you can honestly see how badly it fucked him up. Everyone sort of sees me as this strong, emotionally-solid person, but that's where I've always been most vulnerable and where I've endured most of my pain; chicks. Every guy and girl can probably relate to an opposite sex story, somehow.
Deadpool does things and says things that not many would agree with, but he's over looking for acceptance. Underneath it all, he is morally grounded, or would like to be. For example, I think marriage is archaic, out-dated and needless. If anything, it shouldn't exist. Yet, since it does, it should be open to EVERYONE; gay or straight. See my point? Initially that's a premise that not a lot of people are fans of me for, but I'm all for supporting the right to do it.
Deadpool is similar in that sense. Sure, he goes around killing for money (USED to anyway) and that isn't exactly a moral thing to do, but he had limits and he had boundaries he wouldn't cross (No kids etc).
What I love most about the character is that he is so drastically unbalanced that he has come full circle to being mostly accepting of who and what he is. Deadpool yearns to be a hero, he really does. Nothing would make him happier than to see his name in lights, have his picture on a kid's shirt etc. Over the years, he's tried...but due to the way he does things he is always met with scorn, rejection or self-rejection upon realising that it's not who he is to be an out-and-out hero.
He's cool with that, though. Not happy with it, but accepting of it. The man is 100% at truce with what kind of person he is. He'll keep trying for a spot on the X-Men or The Avengers, and he'll keep getting rebuffed and eventually end up doing a job for money...but that's ok with him.
Most recently he showed that if he can't be a hero, he'll make himself look bad enough that others look good. Deadpool is a total contradiction; full of things that contradict each other, and that's what makes him interesting. On top of it all, when he signed up to get his healing factor in an attempt to cure the cancer he had, it left him trapped in a horrible scenario. Not only did HE get the healing factor, but so did his cancer. His healing factor is both the only thing keeping his cancer from killing him, and the only thing keeping it in his body, as it allows the cancer to heal.
If you want a story of how shit goes from bad to worse, there's not much more of a tragedy than Deadpool. In that sense, his triumph over this tragedy (That is living with it and having a life despite it) is one of the best success stories in comics.
That's what depresses me most about how he's being handled right now. If you just started reading Deadpool over the past year, you'd never, EVER know that he had such a layered and depressingly intricate past. You'd think he was just this funny ninja-type character who makes jokes and occassionally breaks the fourth wall (Which he doesn't even do much of now, if at all).
Deadpool's popularity is massive as of 2009/2010. He has gone from being a name nobody knew to a name that comics fans can't avoid, he's Marvel's new cash cow. On one hand it's good because it means his comics are easier to buy (Unlike in the '90s when I was trying to get them) and we get awesome toy commissions like THIS upcoming bad boy:
On the other hand...it's terrible how over-exposed he is now. The only reason I'm doing this post is because, besides my love of Deadpool, I'd rather you hear about him from a real fan.
He has three series' right now, and none of them are what Deadpool deserves. Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth is very fun, his main series has been mostly poor for the last six issues and Deadpool Team-Up is a chuckle at best. I'd trade three series' for one amazing series, I really would. I do not doubt that someone in Marvel's ranks could write the main series back to the glory days (Van Lente, Benson, Yost/Kyle), but that won't happen.
You know, it's up and down with regards to the question: "Is Deadpool's popularity a good thing?". It's not good, it's not bad, it just is. It's done more negative than positive right now, but that's something that cannot be helped. One of the main positives is that Marvel are now re-releasing all of the older series in trade paperback!
If you're interested in Deadpool at ALL, I swear you will not regret picking these things up. They're called Deadpool: Classic, there are three volumes so far and they're available at most comic stores or large bookstores I'd guess. Read Deadpool as he deserves to be read, guys. With a full-length feature film coming out in 2011, get on it before he gets even bigger.
It even feels weird saying that Deadpool has an actual big-budget Hollywood movie in production. Most of me is really scared it'll suck and bitter that he's so popular now, but if the movie rules...I'll be in there with a smirk in my heart, thinking to myself: "You made them see, sir. You made them see.".
---
That's my story of life with Deadpool, I suppose. I know this post was very long and VERY self-indulgent, but I did do it with educational purposes in mind. If you read it, THANK YOU SO MUCH.
As it's Christmas, I'm going to up the ante and have a competition here. I have a few spare Deadpool comics lying around, INCLUDING the first ever trade paperback of Sins of the Past, Deadpool's second ever mini-series (The two mini-series' came before he had an actual series).
If you can answer the following question in a comment, it's yours! Free of absolutely any charge. Bearing in mind, I have an insane amount of shit to post that won't get posted until the New Year, simply because Christmas post sucks. If waiting isn't an issue, and you DO win, you WILL get it.
Here's the question:
Deadpool has one of the most unconventional and disturbing celebrity crushes of all time; who is it?
If you answer this, by any means necessary, the book is yours.
Until next time, peace.
-The Mast
