The character was created by the renowned team of Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld, and in its initial appearances in the 98th issue of The New Mutants and in X-Force, it was largely portrayed as a supervillain.
Later, Deadpool evolved into the more recognisable antihero he is today. Wade Winston Wilson, his true name, is a scarred mercenary who loves to shoot things. He is extremely skilled in martial arts and swordsmanship and also boasts a remarkable aptitude for fast healing.
Deadpool’s character is sometimes referred to as the “Merc with a Mouth” because of his never-ending capacity to talk and joke while also breaching the fourth wall for comic out-turns and running gags.
The focus of today’s film will be on the character’s beginnings. Played by one of our all-time favorite actors, Ryan Reynolds, who frequently gives credit to the second issue of the comic book series Cable & Deadpool for getting him invested in the role and finally bringing it to the big screen. You had best be prepared for this!
Deadpool Tragic Backstory Explored
Movie
Hip deep in hookers and a dishonorable discharge from the Special Forces, Wade Wilson is seen working as a mercenary for hire and he is anything but a hero. Post one of his shenanigans, Wade goes to Sister Margaret’s, a place that he addresses as a job fair for mercenaries and also one where his best friend Weasel works only to end up meeting a prostitute called Vanessa.
What starts as a one-night fling has them romantically involved with each other and soon there comes a time when Wade ends up proposing to Vanessa, an offer she gladly accepts. Well, everything seems to be working out in Wade’s favor until he is diagnosed with late-stage cancer in his liver, lungs, prostrate and brain.
A swing by at Weasel’s later has him encounter Agent Smith, a recruiter who tells him that his organization is not only capable of curing Wade’s cancer but also make him a superhero at the same time giving him abilities than most men can only dream of. Wade eventually makes up his mind to take up the offer only to be cured for Vanessa and leaves without telling her anything.
At the facility, Wade is introduced to Ajax and Angel Dust, both of them being artificially mutated members of the program. Ajax manages the whole workshop and tells Wade that it isn’t a government-led program but a private institution that turns reclamation projects like Wade into men of extraordinary abilities.
As part of the process, Ajax injects Wade with a serum that is bound to activate any mutant genes lurking in his DNA but for it to be effective, Wade has to be subjected to extreme levels of stress. It goes without saying that he is tormented beyond imagination for days in the hopes of having his latent mutant genes activate and manifest in a spectacular fashion. A multitude of new and different ways are tried, each more painful than the last one but without any success.
However with Wade making fun of Ajax post-learning his real name ‘Francis’, the latter finally discloses to him about the reality of the workshop, the fact that they make super slaves instead of superheroes. He also tells them how they are going to fit Wade with a control collar and auction him off to the highest bidder. Post this, Ajax straps him into a barometric chamber unit and periodically lowers the oxygen concentration in the air to the exact point where Wade feels like he is suffocating.
The process raises Wade’s stress level high enough to trigger a mutation thus curing him of his cancer and activates a superhuman healing ability too but at the same time takes a toll on his entire body leaving him horribly deformed. With Ajax attempting to make Wade go through the whole process again just for the sadistic pleasure of it, the latter manages to cause an explosion in the lab and escapes the chamber.
He engages in a fight with Ajax and is about to gain an upper hand with his new-found reflexes but with the latter telling him that he is the only one capable of curing his disfigurement, Wade retreats and Ajax overpowers him leaving him for dead in the crumbling facility.
Of course, Wade survives and while he initially starts looking out for Vanessa, he decides not to reveal himself to her given the dreadful changes to his appearance. He pays a visit to Weasel, who initially gets shocked by his disfigured sight but ends up helping him with his new name ‘Deadpool’.
Wade as Deadpool is determined to go after Ajax to make him fix what he did to him. Therefore, he makes his own masked vigilante costume, moves in with an elderly, blind woman named Al in her home, and starts butchering the men of Ajax one after the other confirming his list of confirmed kills to 89 until he crosses paths with Agent Smith. The Recruiter gives in the location of Ajax and no points for guessing, the list of confirmed kills next stands at 90.
Deadpool interrupts Ajax and his armed men on a highway; he kills all of them leaving for Ajax whom he impales with his katana and shows him his scarred face but with the intervention of X-Man Colossus and his trainee Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Ajax easily manages to escape. Aware of Deadpool’s real identity, Ajax heads to Weasel’s bar and post finding a picture of Wade and Vanessa together, he ends up kidnapping her while also letting Deadpool know that his girl has been taken.
Deadpool is highly infuriated and blames Colossus and Negasonic for the current situation. He visits the duo at their mansion and convinces them to aid him in exchange for joining the X-Men. The trio makes their way to a decommissioned Avengers helicarrier in a scrapyard, one where Ajax is holding Vanessa as a hostage.
Fair to say it is an intense battle between the two groups and Ajax has similar plans for Vanessa putting her in a barometric chamber unit. Deadpool while battling with Ajax is able to let Vanessa escape from the barometric chamber but a powerful blast from Negasonic destabilizes the helicarrier.
The ships crashes down but not before Deadpool is able to make Vanessa land to her safety. As for Ajax, he is seen to attack Deadpool yet again but the latter eventually has him pinned down and demands that he cures him. However, with Ajax revealing that there never was any cure in the first place, Deadpool ends up shooting him straight in the head and making sure that he doesn’t revive back from that injury.
Comic – X-Men Origins: Deadpool “The Major Motion Picture”
It is a bright sunny afternoon in Hollywood Hills. A man is seen parking his car at the destined location and he gets out of the car only to step on blood. In fact, there’s blood everywhere; on the stairs, on the welcome doormat, literally everywhere.
Suddenly, another man with a gunshot wound on one of his legs is seen running out of the house, screaming and alerting the man who has just arrived to leave the place at once and not to venture inside. However, the newly arrived man decides to step inside the house only to find Deadpool waiting for him with a gun.
Well with everything being made into movies, Deadpool has also made up his mind to have a kick-ass film made based on the events of his life. We learn that he has been interviewing screenwriters all day and so far no-one has been able to get his concept.
Needless to say, he has gotten rid of the ones that he did not like and the last one running like a lunatic out of his house was categorically one of those screenwriters. The newly arrived man also happens to be a screenwriter and with Deadpool asking him what he has on offer, the latter simply states to him that he is just here to listen to his story. Of course, this startles Deadpool given that the screenwriters before him have only been giving him pitches of their stories. Nonetheless, Deadpool decides to tell him his origin story from his point of view.
He begins with how he had volunteered himself for a subset of the Weapon X program, one that was attempting to give a human Wolverine’s healing factor. He says how he deliberately chose the experimental trials in Canada thinking it would be better than a painful death from Stage IV Cancer.
Of course, he was wrong and soon realized what he had stepped forward for was nothing short of a crazy-ridiculous amount of pain. The doctors called the experiment a mixed bag; while it did give his body the ability to regenerate at an amazing speed, the experiment pretty much left his whole body horribly disfigured. Of course, Deadpool had no intentions of rotting himself in his cell and post realizing that he had signed on for a fate that is much worse than cancer and the probability of it going on forever and ever, he made up his mind to break out of the facility.
Luring in one of the guards inside his cell and taking advantage of the solitary fact that he cannot be killed no matter what they throw at him, Deadpool easily escaped. But with Deadpool emphasizing on how post his escape, he made a vigilante costume and fell back on the whole mercenary thing now that he had certain advantages, the screenwriter stops him from going ahead with his story. He doesn’t want to know about Deadpool, he wants to know about Wade Wilson – the man he was before he volunteered for the experimental program and put on the mask.
Obviously, Deadpool is taken by surprise for the second time and takes the route that the screenwriter wants him to take. He addresses Wade Wilson as an idiot and tells the screenwriter how he was a mercenary, who followed a strict moral code. He only took assignments that he believed in and wasn’t in it for the money.
He would kill people who deserved it and then go back home happy to his girlfriend. But alas, all happy things come with a timer and a certain trip back home to his girlfriend made him learn the bitter truth – he was diagnosed with cancer. Not wanting his girlfriend to watch him die and be a burden to anybody for that matter, he decided to hit the road and got to know about the medical experiments in Canada.
At this point, Deadpool for obvious reasons wanted to move his storyline to the cooler aspects but with the screenwriter wanting him to delve deeper into the childhood of Wade Wilson, Deadpool started giving him a peek into his early days. We along with the screenwriter learn that Wade was born a normal person to a highly dysfunctional family in Ohio. His father made terrible jokes and abandoned him and his mother when Wade was just a small boy.
With his father leaving, his mother turned to alcohol and ordering random things from cable tv channels as a coping mechanism. Wade didn’t want to be a burden on her and ran away from home as a teenager. When he grew old enough, he had an army stint post which he got into business for himself – he’d pull the trigger when he believed in the cause and then there came a time when he simply stopped giving a shit about the cause.
With Deadpool starting to stress on his epic fight with Hulk, the screenwriter stops him right there and tells him that he has all the information that’s needed on his part to make an amazing movie. But before he leaves, he asks Deadpool if he could ever see his father again, what would he ask him? Deadpool does have a punch line but the readers are fast forwarded to thirty five months later.
It is the world premiere of Deadpool’s new movie, his origins to be more precise. Deadpool’s come to attend it and he can hardly believe that things are actually happening and this time for real. The screenwriter assures him telling him that he is going to love it and the movie is everything that they have talked about. But with the film unfolding, Deadpool is furious and it suddenly dawns upon him that he doesn’t need Hollywood; his whole life has been a movie so far.
Infuriated, he takes out his guns and starts massacring all the spectators. He doesn’t even spare the popcorn guy. Outside, the screenwriter is showered with commendations; some are even asking him if he has a sequel ready. As the screenwriter wonders where Deadpool is, he goes outside and clicks on his car key fob only to have the vehicle explode right in front of him.
As for Deadpool, he is seen driving to an address that he had apparently dug years ago but never even for once thought of going until this very day. He parks his car in front of a house and knocks at the door. An old man asks who is it and Deadpool says it’s Wade. With the old man further asking who Wade is, Deadpool simply says, “Wade until you see what happened to me, Dad”.
Deadpool’s Name Explained
To be honest, initially, Deadpool was just a name that sounded cool and also fit itself into the early 90s of the Marvel Comics era. The name was given its own origin much later in the 90s. In fact, it was in the 1998 annual issue of Deadpool & Death, which had on display the origins of the name. It shows Wade coerced to recall his past, how he got his powers and all for the sake of his first love, Lady Death.
Now, we are aware that Wade volunteered in the Weapon X program in the hopes of both becoming a superhero and getting himself cured of his cancer. Wade was eventually sent to a facility where the program carried out their experiments on the Weapon X rejects, and further experimentations led to Wade’s hideous appearance. Well, in addition to all of this, Wade had also learnt that the other test subjects had some kind of an ongoing betting pool on the ones that would be the first ones to die.
The fact that the whole thing was pretty excruciating on the part of Wade made him see Lady Death waiting for him. No wonder, Wade made it his sole goal to boost his chances of dying. For instance, he went to the extent of making fun of the facility attendant Ajax’s real name, in order to die as soon as possible.
But, Ajax took the opposite route and punished his friends instead making them go through unthinkable ways. This prompted Wade to look for revenge and in a way look for ways that would cause him his own death. So when Ajax did kill Wade, it only triggered the latter’s healing abilities whilst pointing out a very simple fact that no matter what, he just cannot die. This made Wade go crazy and also take on the new name, being the sole winner of the running betting pool.
Interesting Facts About Deadpool
You think you know everything about the Merc with a Mouth? Well, let’s figure that out right away. Here’s our list and you tell us what’s yours in the comments section.
With similar designs and civilian names, there is this common belief which states that Deadpool was actually inspired by Deathstroke. Like it or not, Wade Wilson does rhyme with Slade Wilson. But Rob Liefeld has always been of the opinion that the similarities are absolutely coincidental. In fact, Liefeld has constantly been more candid about his actual inspirations such as Spider-Man, Wolverine, Boba Fett as well the 1988 American buddy comedy flick, Twins.
The inspiration for Deadpool’s name to be honest came from the Harry Callahan character in Buddy Van Horn’s 1988 action thriller film, The Dead Pool. Also, in case you weren’t aware of, Captain America happens to be the childhood superhero of Deadpool. Furthermore, he is a huge fan of Star Trek, especially the original Star Wars trilogy. Speaking of his sun sign, he is a Scorpion having his birthday somewhere in between 23rd October and 21st November. He has social media accounts on Snapchat, Twitter and even Instagram. And, oh in case, we forgot to mention this earlier, he simply loathes the band, Creed and doesn’t fancy anime either.
Next, we have facts that are both wild and weird at the same time. Apparently, Deadpool had an evil twin, one that was made out of his severed limbs. Nope, we are not even kidding the slightest bit here. There’s another fact, that states that Deadpool actually once made a baby with Spider-Man – we are talking about their disturbed daughter, Itsy Bitsy.
Last but not the least, his impressive regeneration abilities make him capable of surviving even without a head. The character has had his head decapitated on various occasions but that hasn’t stopped him even once from not being a chatterbox. In most cases, the severed head only needs to be reattached to his body and voila, he is back with a bang!
What Makes Him So Powerful?
The experimentation trials at the Weapon X program gave Deadpool superhuman healing abilities making him capable of regenerating any destroyed tissue at an exceptional rate. This includes him being beheaded and still moving his body normally. Then there’s him being highly resistant to poison and other drugs; basically, he is immune to all kinds of diseases, infections as well as elemental extremes.
He also boasts an endless lifespan, telepathic immunity, possession resistance along with superhuman strength, speed, stamina, agility, reflexes and durability. If one has to put stress on his abilities, he happens to be an extraordinary martial artist, highly proficient in hand-to-hand combat and a master in multiple unarmed combat techniques which include Savate. We all know he is a master assassin and happens to be in possession of various teleportation devices along with his deadly katanas. But what really makes him deadly is the fact that he is unpredictable; no one really knows his next move!
Where Else Has He Appeared?
Movies
Voiced by Nolan North, Deadpool has appeared in the animated flick, Hulk Vs Wolverine as a member of the Weapon X program’s Team X. In terms of live-action X-Men film series, he has appeared in X-Men Origins: Wolverine as well as X-Men: Days of Future Past. There’s also this superhero short film titled Deadpool: No Good Deed where his character has appeared followed by Deadpool 2.
Television
There’s been a brief cameo of Deadpool in the Marvel Anime: X-Men episode titled Destiny. Voiced by Will Friedle, he has appeared in the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series in the episode titled Ultimate Deadpool. Voiced by Takehito Koyasu in Japanese and Jason Spisak in English, Deadpool has appeared in the Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers anime series in episodes titled, The Forbidden Hero Appears? and Chris and the Moment of Truth!.
Deadpool has also appeared in the Marvel Future Avengers anime series in episodes Here Comes Deadpool! and It’s Deadpool, Again. Then there’s also the American adult animated stop motion sketch comedy tv series, Robot Chicken where his character voiced by Mikey Day has made appearances in episodes Ginger Hill in: Bursting Pipes and Endgame.
Video Games
Voiced by John Kassir, Deadpool has made an appearance in X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2. Voiced by Nolan North, the Ultimate Marvel version of Deadpool has made an appearance as a boss in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, as a playable character in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, Lego Marvel Super Heroes, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order and as an NPC in Marvel Future Revolution.
Next voiced by Tom Kenny, he has appeared as a playable character in Marvel Super Hero Squad Online. In Marvel: Avengers Alliance, he has appeared as an unlockable character. Then there are Marvel: Future Fight, Marvel Contest of Champions and Marvel Strike Force where he has made appearances as playable characters.
Upcoming Deadpool 3 Movie
Of course, there’s a Deadpool 3 on the way with Ryan Reynolds officially onboard and continuing his role. The project has Reynolds making his MCU debut as the Merc with a Mouth marking his fourth appearance as the Marvel superhero. With the movie being set in the MCU, it goes without saying that there is conclusively a whole new universe of Marvel characters for him to have his share of interactions with.
The movie will categorically be R-rated for obvious reasons and Shawn Levy is confirmed to be the director of the upcoming movie. In case you did not know, Levy is also the one to have directed the fourth episode of Stranger Things Season 4, titled Dear Billy, which leaves us fans beyond excited.
Deadpool 3 also has Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick returning as the screenwriters. Speaking of the cast, Leslie Uggams as the beloved Blind Al is confirmed to be onboard and the rest still happens to be a mystery. As for the storyline and the villain, everyone has been tight lipped about it. With the production to begin in 2023 as confirmed by Levy, it is safe to say that Deadpool 3 will not be hitting the theaters before 2024.