Deadpool

Deadpool first graced the pages of Marvel comics in February 2001 in The New Mutants #98. Deadpool creators Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza, were both reported to have been fans of the DC Comics series Teen Titans, which feature a villain named Deathstroke. When Liefeld showed Nicieza some early characterizations of what would eventually become Deadpool, Nicieza was quick to point out the similarities between DC's Deathstroke and Marvel's Deadpool. Both characters were essentially killers possessing degrees of super human agility, as well as sharing some similar physical characteristics.

Nicieza was responsible for giving Deadpool his real name, Wade Wilson, which is often seen as an in-joke playing upon Deathstroke's real name, Slade Wilson.

Deadpool's wise cracking personality was given to him to balance out the seriousness of Domino and Gideon, two other Marvel characters that also made their debuts in The New Mutants #98.

Deadpool's first appearance in The New Mutants #98 is a brief one. Deadpool is contracted to take out would-be world savior Cable. Deadpool quickly dispatches some of the New Mutants before getting the upper hand on Cable. Deadpool is then unceremoniously stabbed in the back, literally, by Cable's on-again/off-again flame, Domino.

Whilst the artwork is a little lack lustre and Deadpool's appearance is brief, CGC graded copies of The New Mutants #98 are rising in price and are worth picking up as an investment.

When he was young

Contrary to what some people may believe Deadpool is not actually a mutant, at least not in the X-Men sense. He is best described as an enhanced human mercenary who was given a healing factor by the Weapon X program.

Deadpool's real name is Wade Winston Wilson. Wilson was born to an army general father and terminally ill mother. Wilson's mother died when he was young from incurable lung cancer. Around this time Wilson's father turned to alcohol and began to abuse Wilson. The is said to have contributed to Wilson's teenage delinquency. When Wilson was in his late teens, his father was killed by one of Wade's drunken friends in a bar fight. Wade then dropped out of school and enrolled in the US Army Special Forces.

Around this time, during visits to Boston, Wilson developed a relationship with the then-runaway and future fellow mercenary Vanessa Carlyle (later known as Copycat), who was working as a prostitute. He then developed terminal cancer and rather reluctantly broke up with Vanessa, in order to spare her the burden of his illness.

Department K and Weapon X

Increasingly desperate for a cure Wilson volunteered for as a test subject for a branch of the Canadian government known as Department K, which was working with the Weapon X program, where his body and mind were altered on a genetic level. The genetic manipulation was initially supposed to grant him a superhuman regenerative healing factor (based on the DNA of former Weapon X experiment Wolverine), which was intended to stop the progression of his cancer and greatly enhance his physique. The genetic manipulation did not go entirely to plan with the cancer reacting unexpectedly to the genetic process, leaving Wilson horribly disfigured and mentally unstable.

Even so, Wilson was initially assigned to a field team alongside Garrison Kane, Sluggo, and Terraerton (later known as Slayback). Wilson soon learned that Terraerton was a murderous psychopath, which didn't sit well with Wade. After blowing up Terraerton with explosives, Wilson was 'discharged' from Weapon X and sent to a government run hospice known, where failed superhuman experiments were sent to live out the rest of their days. Unbeknown to the Canadian government, the hospice patients were being experimented on by Dr. Killebrew and his assistant, Ajax, in what was known as the Workshop.

Inmates of the Workshop played a game call "The Dead Pool" in which they'd bet on who would be the next to die as a result of Dr. Killebrew's cruel experiments. Wilson was one of Dr Killebrew's "favorites" and became the doctors special project. As a result Wilson became the leader of the Dead Pool with his odds of dying at one thousand-to-one odds.

During Dr Killebrew's experiments, Wilson began to see visions of Death, who took the form of a woman. Wilson fell in love with Death and Death returned the affection, delighted by the idea of romance with a living being. Wilson then made the decision the break the Dead Pool and attempted to get himself killed so that he could be with Death, however these attempts were always thwarted by Killebrew's assistant Ajax. With Wilson growing increasingly defiant in an effort to have himself killed, tensions rise between he and Ajax, ultimately ending in Killebrew ordering Wilson's death. It is the attempted execution of Wilson that finally activates his healing factor, much to his own annoyance and that of Death. When he regenerative powers kicked in his mind and body went into a state of flux, effectively cause him to 'snap'. With his new healing factor making it difficult for him to die, he was rejected by Death, and he escaped the Workshop, freeing many other of the experiments, taking on the name Deadpool and returning to mercenary work.

Following his first appearance in The New Mutants #98, Deadpool went on to feature in several other issues of New Mutants as well as X-Force. The Circle Chase was Deadpool's first four issue mini-series, and was written by Fabian Nicieza with art by Joe Madureira.

The Circle Chase picks up with mercenaries on the hunt for Deadpool in Sarajevo. One of Deadpool's former employers, Tolliver, is dead. His will and estate are up for grabs. What is included in his will? Only the greatest weapon in the world! Characters from Deadpool's past start crawling out of the wood work as Black Tom and Juggernaut, the Executive Elite (Commcast, Makeshift, Rive), Slayback and Garrison Kane all enter the fray.

This was the first solo Deadpool series I read, and whilst it was hard to pick up on what was going on with some of the characters, the story itself was easy enough to follow. The Circle Chase also reveals a few interesting tidbits about Deadpool's past, in particular the fact that both he and Garrison Kane were part of the Weapon X training program in 1986.