Entertainment Geekly: From ’90s comics punk to a 2016 blockbuster star.
Deadpools first appearance was inNew Mutants#98.
The issue was co-written by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza, and illustrated by Liefeld.
Credit: David Dolsen
By 1991,New Mutantsstarred Cable, Rictor, Boom-Boom, Cannonball, and Sunspot.
And now, Deadpool will be in a movie, too.
Brief pause to point out that we recorded a podcast aboutDeadpool.Give it a listen:
3.
Deadpool was co-created by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza.
The word co-created looms large and lingering in comic book history.
Some people claim Deadpool was created as a direct parody of a DC comics character, Deathstroke the Terminator.
(Assassin, check.
Carries guns and swords, check.
Mask covers entire head, check.
Deathstrokes real name is Slade Wilson; Deadpool is Wade Wilson.)
Liefeld hasalready described theTimesstory as a hit piece, andNicieza tweeted his support of Liefeld.
I am in a somewhat unique position, with Deadpool the character andDeadpoolthe movie.
This would seem to make me something of a Deadpool novice.
But, counterargument: Maybe Im a Deadpool expert.
Kelly and McGuinness launched Deadpools first solo ongoing series withDeadpool#1 in January 1997.
Kelly departed the book withDeadpool#33 in late 1999.
Deadpool travels back in time and body-swaps with Peter Parker.
He falls in love with Death.
He kicks Captain America in the crotch.
He steals Girl Scout cookies from actual Girl Scouts.
The whole Joe Kelly era isavailable on Amazon.
Its a steal at any price.
Many of the key foundational elements in theDeadpoolfilm derive directly from the Joe Kelly era.
Thats all in the movie.
Not the Death stuff.
But theres Blind Al, and the merc bar.
One element the movie didnt get from Joe Kelly: The women.
This is kind of a bummer.
As written by Kelly, Deadpool had a series of troubled relationships with female characters.
TheDeadpoolmovie has two female characters.
One is Vanessa, played by Morena Baccarin.
Like the Comic Vanessa, Baccarin is a stripper slash maybe prostitute.
Unlike Comic Vanessa, Baccarin isnt a shapeshifter.
The other female character inDeadpoolis Negasonic Teenage Warhead.
Comic NTW never interacted with Deadpool.
And also, the movies NTW has completely different powers.
And yet, the presence of Negasonic Teenage Warhead actually strikes me as the most ineffably Deadpool-esque thing aboutDeadpool.
InDeadpool#11 the best issue of the whole run Deadpool time-travels to an issue ofThe Amazing Spider-Manfrom 1967.
Its a showcase for Pete Woods art, and you could enjoy it just for the funny inside-baseball meta-riffs.
(Deadpool is the first comic book character to point out thatNorman Osborns hair is insane.)
Then Deadpool learns that the Messiah is only a Messiah because it takes away free will.
ThisMessiahcan pacify an entire global population, making them blissful and orderly and ignorant and brain-dead.
So Deadpool is a world-saving hero, and also kind of the Antichrist.
This newDeadpoolmovie does nothing remotely akin to everything I just said in #15, which is totally fine.
I stopped reading comic book regularly not long after Kelly left Deadpool.
Since then, Deadpool has become a kind of mascot for a certain kind of superhero fan.
A newDeadpoolseries launched a few years back to rave reviews.
Most superhero movies are set in a plastic worlds sealed off from anything resembling actual reality.
So theres something so utterlyfreeingabout howDeadpooladds layers within layers of playful referentiality.
Deadpool has anAdventure Timewatch.
He talks about Ryan Reynolds other (bad) superhero movies.
At one point, Colossus tells him that its time to meet Professor X. Stewart or McAvoy?
ButDeadpoolhasthe same problem asGuardians of the Galaxy.
It wants, badly, to be a post-superhero movie.
It casts a charming caddish lead whose character specifically doesnt want to be a hero.
In KellysDeadpool#1, Deadpool steals from those Girls Scouts.
(Reynolds gives the stalkera really stern warning.
Comic Deadpool wouldve tied him to a missile and launched him to the moon.)
The movie presents Vanessa and Wade as an utterly perfect couple with no problems whatsoever.
Im all for low stakes in superhero movies the world is never at risk!
but there are cut-rate, third-string rom-coms with more emotional stakes thanDeadpool.
(The movie makes fun of Wolverine but only to remind you how sexy Hugh Jackman is.)
InDeadpools vision, Deadpool is a handsome grown-up dork.
And other things that are 30 years old!)
Deadpool uses guns, butDeadpools safety is on.
There are plentiful bits of fan service.
The names of the co-creators flash onscreen.
Anyhow, maybe we like our superhero movies orderly, blissful.
In the 90s, Deadpool felt like a rebel.
Every rebellion becomes the establishment, eventually.
And every heroic Antichrist becomes the cosmic squid-rock brain-deadening Messiah, eventually.
