Appeared for the first time in the Marvel comics in February 1991, Deadpool celebrates its 30 years in 2021. In three decades, the "mercenary big mouth", atypical anti-hero, has established himself as one of the characters of comics the most more popular, with its penchant for violence, its wacky character and its trash humor.
Happy birthday Deadpool!
30 years ago, in February 1991, readers of Marvel comics discovered a new hero created by screenwriter Fabian Nicieza and cartoonist Rob Liefeld.
A wacky anti-hero, kind one day and villainous the next, Deadpool is also a psychopath rarely seen before in the comics.
From the top of his 30 years, he is a little "young", compared to Batman, Superman and others, who have passed the 80 spring.
But in three decades, the talkative mercenary has become one of the most popular superheroes in comics and movies.
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Deadpool, psychopathic anti-hero
Deadpool is first Wade Wilson, a former CIA mercenary particularly gifted in executions.
One day, he learns that he has cancer and, to be cured, agrees to serve as a guinea pig for an army project: Weapon X, the same one that gave Wolverine his adamantium skeleton.
Except it doesn't go so well for Wade Wilson.
He acquires, of course, a self-healing power (the same as Wolverine's) which therefore makes his tumors disappear and allows him to regenerate any part of his body in a very short time.
But in the process, her skin is destroyed.
Eager to take revenge, Wade Wilson takes Deadpool's alias and dons a red and black bodycon jumpsuit with a full hood to hide his bruised body.
Its creators, Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld, endowed it with katanas for combat, a tribute to Thor and Captain America, while armed heroes were becoming increasingly rare.
Almost impossible to kill, Wilson successfully resumes his activity as a mercenary.
Become a mutant, he is approached by the X-Men but purposely stays away from Professor Xavier's gang.
And if, over the course of his adventures, he temporarily integrates different groups of superheroes, Deadpool acts mainly solo.
A violent hero with trash humor
Marginal hero, Wade Wilson is also completely mad, with a strong penchant for violence.
He doesn't hesitate to kill, sometimes in a very gory way if it amuses him, which regularly provokes the anger of his colleagues in lycra.
This does not prevent Deadpool from having a big heart and therefore generally working for good.
But it is above all his character that makes him so popular.
Nicknamed the "merc with a mouth", the "big-mouthed mercenary", he babbles non-stop to make jokes, insult people and even… address readers.
Indeed, Deadpool is aware of being a fictional character so he regularly breaks the fourth wall, a literary process that allows him to speak directly to readers of comics or to spectators at the cinema.
These asides are directly linked to his psychotic personality since, contrary to the rules in force, the other characters see him thus addressing people outside the story.
It is usually an occasion for him to joke with his characteristic humor: trash, vulgar and with a sharp sense of the formula.
You have to be a customer, Deadpool can also annoy or tire, but he is by far the funniest hero in the Marvel universe.
Deadpool, aka Wade Wilson, aka Ryan Reynolds
For who would like to find out, Deadpool is one of the most accessible heroes in terms of reading.
In 30 years, he had the right to eleven regular series, one of the most successful being that of Gerry Dugan, published between 2012 and 2015 and available at Panini Comics.
This is a reboot as part of the reboot of the Marvel Universe from scratch, so it makes a perfect introduction to the modern version of the character.
But in reality, the madness of Deadpool comes a lot in "one-shot", short stories collected in albums and which can be read separately, like
Flashback
, which sends the mercenary in a lot of different times.
Deadpool can also claim to have been well adapted to the cinema.
After a completely failed first appearance in
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
(2009), where he was represented without a costume and especially with his mouth sewn up - a heresy!
- Wade Wilson had two solo films (2016 and 2018).
Located on the sidelines of the
X-Men
saga
, they have the merit of being faithful to the spirit of the comics, so trash and bloody, but frankly funny thanks to Ryan Reynolds who cabotins wonderfully in the costume of Deadpool (and his is personally invested in production).
Forbidden to under 17s, the two films combined grossed $ 1.5 billion and made "merc with a mouth" one of the most popular superheroes around.