Deadpool is a Marvel comic book character. He was created way back in 1991, making him a relatively new character. He is undoubtedly writer Rob Liefeld's finest creation. I do not like Liefeld. But I love Deadpool, as everyone should and everyone does.
But here's the thing about Deadpool. He's not Superman, or Batman, no matter how hard he tries to pretend he is.
How he became so well known is a mystery that this article intends to solve.
First, some background on the character.
Deadpool has no background. That's part of who his character is. The most that's known of him is that he was kicked out of the U.S. military, and then picked up by Weapon X, a Canadian program that performed experiments on mutants. Weapon X is a program that performs experiments on mutants, hoping to weaponise their abilities to create supersoldiers. They were responsible for giving Wolverine a skeleton made of the indestructible metal, Adamantium.
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Weapon X Buddies
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At the time of his being picked for the Weapon X program, Wade (Deadpool's real name; shoulda told you earlier) had cancer. They gave him a healing factor (from Wolverine) that could replace the cells that were being destroyed by the cancer, but the flipside was his cancer cells would regenerate too, permanently scarring him. In addition to that, his healing factor intensified his already present mental illnesses. These mental illnesses make him incapable of truly remembering his background, and villains love to use that to mess with his already messy head. Loki even claimed to be his father once.
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Star Wars did it better.
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Pretty messed up right? How, you may wonder, does everyone love Deadpool?
First, everyone didn't always love Deadpool. As I said, he's no Batman, and for a long time he only had a tiny fan following. He was an eclectic mix of humour and gritty adult storytelling. Not quite Wolverine, not quite Southpark, but a mixture of both that somehow works fantastically. His mental illness causes him to hear voices in his head, which writers potray by using differently coloured thought bubbles. This causes him to have arguments and discussions with himself, which when written right, are hilarious. Also, he somehow knows he's a comicbook, which lets him interact with the reader and call certain things that may happen in other comicbooks. For instance he kept hinting at Wolverine's death, before shutting up with an,"Oops, spoilers." His illness also makes him behave like a child. An ice cream loving Spider-Man fanboy.
So yeah. He's really funny.
But what's really captivating about Deadpool is how pitiable he is. He makes he darkest stories very light, but you always feel bad for him. It gives the stories soul that's absent from other comicbooks that may be as entertaining, or more intellectual. His comicbooks are by know means sappy, they're hilarious, but they never let you forget whom he really is. A mentally ill mercenary, who kills bad people for money because it's the only thing he really knows to do. Yes, he kills, but he won't kill a good person for any cost, for he is a child in a man's body living a man's life.
And the Internet loves that shit. All it took is for some screenshots of Deadpool comicbook pages to get onto 8gag or whatever shitty meme website people follow now.
But thanks to said shitty meme website, Deadpool is now in a movie! A movie that was shelved indefinitely after the terrible portrayal of the character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. But Ryan Reynolds is back as Deadpool in a seemingly much more faithful adaptation of the character. The movie is done filming, and we should get a trailer in a few months, so yay!
And just like that, Deadpool is famous. He's possibly the first comicbook character to get the kinda fame he has without any adaptations on other media (non speaking roles in animated shows and mostly non speaking roles in bad movies don't count). And he deserves it. Hopefully the rest of the world will see why when the movie comes out.
Movie, you had better be good.
Also, I know the website's name is 9gag. Please don't give me shit for that.
