#comic comentary

[fairymint-archive]

I FUCKIMG KNEW IT. GODDAMN SIMPS....

[li-izumi]

Deadpool (now) #40

So that was a rather unsatisfying issue of Deadpool.

I love the environmental message and I appreciate that it's a ballsy move for Marvel to take a pretty strong stance on fraking. But I wanted to read a Deadpool story in my Deadpool comic.

[li-izumi]

Cablepool is real, deal with it, part 2: Deadpool's Mask edition

Holy shit, can we talk about this picture please?

Okay, so we all know that Deadpool often feels very defensive about his looks, particularly in the early years of his comic, and he typically hides his looks with his mask.

Deadpool freaks out when his mask is removed:

And again:

So yeah, he has a history of freaking out when his mask is removed. He's gotten a bit more comfortable over the years, less prone to these major freak outs, but still, Deadpool doesn't like to have his mask off around people.

Even when he's on the phone, he raises or lowers the mask depending on who he's speaking with, despite the fact that they can't see him. He has the mask raised up when he talks with Blind Al, but lowers it for the general:

Despite lounging around comfortable in just boxers and shirt all day, he refuses to say anything on the phone when a client calls until he has his mask on:

In general, if he goes without his mask, he uses a holographic "image inducer" until that is broken, or other disguises like synthetic skin:

He does remove his mask around his house, if he's alone or with someone like Al who is blind, and he removes his mask around people he becomes intimate with (or had been intimate with), such as with Mercedes, the woman he believes to be his ex-wife:

Anna, a tattoo artist he became intimate with:

Though he knows the woman is actually his ex-lover Copycat, he is playing along that she is someone unknown to him, and thus he kept his mask on during their liaison:

When they are honestly together, he is comfortable without his mask around her.

He does also (eventually) remove his mask around close friends.

For example, Sandi.  At first, he keeps his mask on around her. When she had to help put his body together, when he recovered, he made sure to apologize that she had to see him without his mask: "Sorry you had to see me WITHOUT my image inducer, Sandi. I always tried to spare you that." He feels more comfortable around her later, willing to change while she's in the room:

Siryn also gets to see Deadpool without his mask:

Also, Weasel. after their first break up and rekindling of their friendship, Deadpool feels comfortable enough around him to video chat without his mask (or, in fact, much of any clothes):

Though that comfortableness waxes and wanes some. In a later video chat, he does keep his mask on even if he's half naked otherwise.

To be fair, he might be keeping his mask on more because his head had recently been flattened, since he's fine being around Weasel without his mask later when he's fully healed:

But this post is about Cablepool, so let's look a little more closely at how Deadpool feels about revealing his face to Cable more particularly.

The first few times these guys tangle, Deadpool is completely masked.

When they meet up again after a few years, Deadpool had escaped out of his house sans mask, having grabbed his empty box of beer to cover his head:

When that gets knocked off, he does his usual panic:

When they meet again during the One World Church and the Facade virus incident, Deadpool removed his mask briefly to reveal his face to Cable, showing why he was interested in the One World Church's plans to change the appearance of everyone around the world:

He quickly returns the mask.

He's maskless while the One World Church uses him for their experiments with the Facade virus, but Deadpool is too far out of it with the pain and exhaustion to really register that Cable is also there:

The next time Cable sees him, Deadpool has successfully been turned healthy and blue:

He's more comfortable sans mask and costume around Cable when he's cured. Notice the stark difference between his panic when the box of beer got knocked off his head in the earlier fight with Cable compared to how casual he is naked here:

But when the Facade virus is shut down and Deadpool's looks return to his normal, the mask returns:

Notice: when he was home alone, he was comfortable without his mask, in just his boxers and tshirt, but that changes when Cable enters the room. However, unlike his earlier fight, Deadpool doesn't panic, but he deliberately picks up his mask and puts it on in front of Cable. Cable has LOST the right to be around Deadpool without the mask.

The mask stays on for a while, with a few notable moments. When hired by the X-Men to stop Cable, Deadpool decides that he wants to wear an X-Men costume. A PARTICULAR X-men costume:

It's not that he feels particularly comfortable around the X-Men to show that much of his skin, but I think it's a combination of the fact that he's never been in the X mansion before and isn't likely to be able to be there again, so this is his one and only opportunity to mess around, he wants to act up so the X-Men will dismiss him as "crazy Deadpool" to hide the fact that he plans to backstab them and help Cable. And also, Deadpool is legit crazy and prone to doing whatever the fuck he wants if the mood strikes him.

Deadpool saves Cable's life a few times: first the teleport-lobotomy to remove Cable's powers when they are killing him, then working to restore Cable, then again when he goes through several dimensions to find him, shooting himself rather than Cable when he realizes he's been brainwashed to kill Cable...

And then we have Intercourse.

The next time the two of them are together, not a mission, is this sparing scene.

Deadpool now feels completely comfortable around Cable without his mask.  This level of comfort is reserved for people he is intimate with or otherwise close to.

Naysayers will argue that we see Deadpool comfortable without his mask around Weasel, arguably a completely platonic friendship, and therefore, the fact that Deadpool is comfortable without his mask around Cable now doesn't necessarily mean they are banging. This is true.

However, the Cablepool relationship is one that is expressed in the comics implicitly rather than explicitly, and therefore relies entirely upon close reading of the subtext.

What is is clear is that the nature of their relationship has changed from enemies to friends. They are close, be it intimately or just good friends.

On its own, just the fact that Deadpool becomes comfortable enough around Cable to forgo his mask does not mean they are intimate.

But this fact isn't on its own. There are lots of other clues through the series that indicates the two were intimate, of which I will analysis in the future third part of the Cablepool is Real, Deal with it manifesto.

[li-izumi]

Cablepool is real.

If anyone every tries to claim that Cablepool isn't real, that it's just fangirls taking things too far, this page proves that we're not making shite up.

This takes place after a story arc where Deadpool went really out of his way and put himself through considerable risk to save Cable (again) and Cable just burnt out his powers to heal Deadpool's damaged mind.

Cable tells his team that he and wade need "a little time to talk" just the two of them. And Deadpool brags about how he's taking Cable to a place perfectly named for "what [he] got in mind"

Which is "Intercourse" Pennsylvania.

Seriously, Fabian Nicieza couldn't make this subtext hit a reader over the head with obvious hammer any more than this without it being Daken frenching Bullseye level.

Deadpool and Cable were romantically involved.  They had sex. Cablepool is cannon.

Deal with it.

[li-izumi]

The Identity Disc Storyarc and Deadpool

I am disinclined to believe that Deadpool is being honest about his story about the ex-wife he's trying to track down.  I don't believe he's been married before and even if he had, I don't think he would track a ex from his pre-Weapon X days, nor do I believe he's been married since becoming Deadpool.

In Issue 29, Montgomery states:

When I worked for the Mithras Directive, I studied every single detail of your life from birth records to Weapon X files, and nowhere was there ever a mention of a Mercedes Wilson! You were never married!

It's possible the line "you were never married" is specifically referring to Mercedes Wilson but I read it a bit more broadly that Deadpool has never been married at all.

Granted, there are some huge contradictions and stupid plot tangles from the Classic run (Is Deadpool really Wade Wilson, or was that T-Ray and Deadpool just stole that identity? Ugh. Deadpool is Wade Wilson, he has always been Wade Wilson, that story was stupid.]

Deadpool might have been roped into that mission in exchange for information on where to find the woman in the picture, but it feels more likely to me that she's a mark rather than an ex.

And while this story doesn't have any particular timeline, it could be connected into the concurrently published Cable and Deadpool, and maybe this woman has information about the device that Deadpool is gathering.

It's not like he would need to be blackmailed into anything.  Just give him money and he'd do whatever.

Ugh.  It's not like I disliked this story.  It had some interesting twists.  But the justification for getting Deadpool into the story was stupid and doesn't fit for his character.

[li-izumi]

The Romances of Classic Deadpool

Copy-Cat/Vanessa: Deadpool and Vanessa have an on-and-off-again relationship. She was Deadpool's girlfriend before the Weapon X program, but he broke up with her when he discovered he had cancer, as seen in a flashback. They start the Classic era broken up, but both working for the same man, Mr. Tolliver. By the first Deadpool mini-series, Deadpool expresses that he is still interested in her, but Vanessa has moved on.

Later, Vanessa enters back into Deadpool's life when she spends months pretending to be another mutant villain while she lives with Deadpool as part of an elaborate revenge plot she was hired for. She winds up taking all of his money and leaving him again.

She rejoins Weapon X, goes crazy, and gets involved with Deadpool again by pretending to be five different women who all want to hook-up with Deadpool. He knows it's her the entire time, and eventually confronts her about her scheme. They get together again, only to end for the last time when Sabretooth murders her.

Siryn. One-sided on Deadpool's part. She seems interested in him when they first meet, but her interest disappears after she sees his face. She considers him a friend of sorts. Deadpool has her on a pedestal and depends on her to help him stay good and sane.

Death: Deadpool meets death in a flashback issue centered on his time at Weapon X, where he was experimented on, tortured, and made insane. Unfortunately, his thirst for revenge triggered his healing factor at the end, parting him from Death.

He has a few more meetings with Death, first when he was dealing with Francis, a tormentor from his Weapon X days, later when he killed after a battle with T-Ray he got to spend some time with Death. When Death was captured by Loki, Deadpool had to play along with Loki's schemes against his brother Thor for a while in order to rescue Death, despite discovering Death's fickleness when Death preferred Thor to Deadpool. Finally, T-Ray had been hired by Thanos to try to strip all personality from Deadpool in the hopes of making Deadpool uninteresting to Death, since they were both in love with Death.

Typhoid Mary Deadpool has no interest in Typhoid Mary until it seems like he’s helped her. That turns out not to be the case. And then she rapes him. He’s traumatized in the immediate aftermath, but decides to consider her somewhat a girlfriend. At the very least, he keeps a picture of her on his bedside next to the one of Siryn, and he considered going to her for help at one point when he was having trouble with the Loki curse. He ultimately didn’t, and she isn’t in the story much after the issue 14.

Anna A tattoo-artist mob-girlfriend who sets Deadpool up as part of her plans to get away. She winds up falling for him, but her disregard for taking innocents out leaves Deadpool uninterested. He might have killed her.

Mercedes WilsonA woman that Deadpool thought had been his wife before he was Deadpool, but really she was a woman he had liked and killed in some weird story that makes no sense and I tend to ignore this plot line because T-Ray is stupid.

Sazae I don’t count this one but for the sake of completion, I’m mentioning it here. According to a single issue side story, Deadpool almost married a Japanese woman named Sazae back in his mercenary days pre-Weapon X when he was living in Japan as a sumo wrestler.

And then we have:

Cable: Deadpool has two big fights with Cable, both times Cable is able to defeat Deadpool (with help from Copy-Cat-as-Domino and the real Domino). There isn’t anything particularly special about these two fights. That is, to Cable, Deadpool is just another bad guy who fights him, but really, there isn’t much that would mark Deadpool as anything particularly note-worthy for Cable.

But Deadpool does seem to take notice of Cable. Well, okay, the first time Cable did bind, gag, and mail him, fed-ex, back to his boss, and Cable is probably among the few who have defeated Deadpool at this time. One of Deadpool’s image inducer forms has a glowy left-eye like Cable’s. He’s aware of Cable’s love life--he knows when Domino and Cable aren’t together anymore.

Then we get the one significant fight between the two of them. Deadpool has just learned that the great destiny he has, the one where he gets to be a hero and save the world, actually involves killing something, and Cable, who also has a destiny to save the world, is now powerless and dying before he can actually accomplish his life’s goal. The two fight and bond over the idea of being the unthanked garbage-men of destiny.

Some things of note about this fight. First, Deadpool has paid attention to Cable and knows that something’s wrong--he pretty much immediately realizes that Cable doesn’t have his powers. Deadpool also says several possibly-queer statements to Cable throughout their fight. These could be read non-sexually, or non-serious. Deadpool makes note of Cable’s “Charlton Heston voice”. Then he says, “We haven’t started yet and you’re winded? I hope you’d have the common decency to tell me if you’re suffering severe chest pains…it’d be a total tease if you dropped dead before I got a chance to smack the Pepsi out of you!”

Cable decides that the “Fights over. I’m prioritizing and you’re not that important to me right now.” And Deadpool agrees that maybe “I guess suddenly I don’t feel like tearing you a new orifice either” and they part ways.

Other than possibly seeing each other during the Contest of Champions II, they don’t have any further interaction until Deadpool’s funeral. Which might have been a dream/hallucination on Deadpool’s part, but taking the story at face value, Cable goes to Deadpool’s funeral, and he doesn’t go with Siryn, but on his own. There is nothing in their three interactions that would suggest that Cable thought enough of Deadpool that he would care about, or heck even know about a funeral for Deadpool.

Which is all to say that I am convinced that Rallamajoop’s story is completely and utterly true.

[li-izumi]

Notable Cameos in Classic Deadpool

Wolverine Deadpool knows Wolverine from the beginning of the storyline, and knows that his healing factor was created based off Wolverine's abilities. Wolverine first meets Deadpool when Deadpool is targetting Kane and Copycat. At first, Deadpool defeats Wolverine, but when the three of them, Kane, Copycat, and Wolverine face off against him, Deadpool decides he's accomplished what he wanted and leaves.

They meet again later when Maverick ropes Wolverine into helping him rescue Deadpool who had been kidnapped by a group hoping to use his healing factor to cure an epidemic. Wolverine had no interest in helping a "stone cold killer" like Deadpool, but eventually agrees. While Deadpool sneaks away after being rescued from the facitilty, he does send some samples to Beast on the chance that his healing factor could help in finding a cure.

Next they meet when Deadpool is suffering from hallucinations and hopes that a knock-out fight will help him get through his craziness, and he picks Wolverine since they can go all-out and neither can really be hurt permanently. Unfortunately, he didn't ask Wolverine for help, and winds up interrupting his date with Kitty Pryde and messing up an honor fight for Wolverine.

[Wolverine]: Now we’re even. [he helps Deadpool up, and helps support him as they leave] [Wolverine]: And to prove there’s no hard feelings, I’ll letcha buy me a beer.

Sometime later, Deadpool is hired to take Wolverine down and bring him to the Watchtower, one of those evil scientist experiment places. Though they fight, Wolverine grudgingly concedes that Deadpool took the job to get a cure for Siryn, who had lost her powers and voice.

Despite the mostly rocky state of their relations, when the director of Weapon X had Deadpool killed and mailed his hand to Wolverine as a message of what the director could do, Wolverine gave Deadpool a funeral.

Task Master Deadpool humiliated him in front of his students, so Task Master would later hire CopyCat in a convoluted revenge plot that makes no sense. In any case, Deadpool winds up broke and homeless, so TaskMaster seems satisfied that things are even. They come to an almost friendship due to their mutual friendship with Sandi.

Bullseye They fought each other a few times--when Bullseye wanted Deadpool's job when he was briefly working for Kingpin and when T-Ray was setting up the whole weird revenge plot with Mercedes, but they've also worked together in an almost friends sort of way in Greece. They're friends as much as an be when they're mercenary killers.

Captain America Steve Rogers was the second choice for the Mithras to defeat Tiamat for the sake of the Messiah. LL&L's leader Dixon betrays Deadpool and lies to get Captain America signed up for the fight. Unfortunately, the Messiah is actually bad news, and will give peace but at the cost of free will. Deadpool is super glad to see Cap, since he's "a bone fide good guy" with "a clean moral barometer". Except that the Messiah possesses Captain America and Deadpool has to defeat the captain to ensure the world still has free will. Captain America has no memory of this fight.

And when Deadpool is headed off on a mission he is certain he won't survive and he makes phone calls to his friends, he also prank calls Captain America.

Spider-Man They have a few near-meets, most notably when Deadpool gets sent back in time and spends a day impersonating Peter Parker (and he's less than impressed with the nerdy Peter Parker), but the two never meet in Classic Deadpool. That being said, Deadpool does express a greater awareness of Spider-Man than any other hero, including Wolverine.

The first mention of Spider-Man, Deadpool is taunting Juggernaut that plenty of things stop him, including Spider-Man, twice! Deadpool has a t-shirt with a distinctive Spider-Man spider logo on it.

When Deadpool thinks about being a hero, he think of Spider-Man as his role model: "Leave you for the authorities with a note that quips: “Ajax just had his clock cleaned - your friendly neighborhood Deadpool”. Just like a GOOD GUY would."

While his costume is getting repaired, he briefly wears a strange Spider-Man shirt, and he lives in an old Doc Oc lair that is complete with a giant statue of Doc Oc triumphing over Spider-Man. Deadpool wants the statue removed, but the realtor refuses.

Deadpool continues with lots of little references to Spider-Man, references like referring to himself as the "friendly neighboorhood Deadpool" and "face it tiger, you hit the jackpot". And even that his costume is a Spider-Man rip-off when he had amnesia.

So for someone that he's never met, Deadpool has a very strong awareness for Spider-Man!

[li-izumi]

Deadpool Comic Commentary Classic Deadpool issues 46-48

Did Deadpool kill Anna?

Li's answer: No. He did not.

Reason: Deadpool has been trying not to kill anyone for most of this comic run, and even when he takes the contract to kill the six mobster, he actually doesn't out right kill any of them even though he very easily could. Instead, Deadpool sets them up so the are killed.

At the start of this story arc, Deadpool lets the bank robber die, but throwing the bank robber into his inter-dimensional sack which is filled with flesh eating creatures. Deadpool did throw the man into the sack knowing it would likely kill him, but only because the robber has those flesh eating monsters in the first place.

As for the mob bosses, Deadpool tosses the first one into the aquarium to be eaten by the sharks. He tricks two of them into fighting and killing each other. He sets up a trap in the basement complete with alligators. For Vinnie, he first knocked him out and then left him in the truck of a car set to be destroyed. The second attempt on Vinnie was tricking one of the mobsters to make an attempt on Vinnie. Everyone of those mobsters could have been taken care of much easier if Deadpool had shot them in the head. Deadpool didn't.

At the end of the arc, Deadpool asks Anna to pull Busta out of the wrecked car before it explodes, because Busta was still alive. Anna doesn't care about whether Busta lives or dies, but Deadpool deson't want Busta to die. Deadpool calls Anna out for her killing of Fred's wife and for Sandee.

So, here's how I see that it went down: Deadpool points the gun at Anna and tells her that she doesn't know him. He tells her that he doesn't kill, that he's trying to change.  They aren't the same.  Then Deadpool would lower the gun and tell her he isn't going to kill her. She'd try to say she knew he wouldn't and that they should go away together. Deadpool would hand her the money and tell her to get lose, never show her face to him again, or next time he will kill her. Deadpool walks away alone, Anna takes the money and leaves. The end.

Except Anna is still out there and still crazy and someday she could come back. Except not because it was a boring character and story arc that nobody remembers.