welcome to the deadpool character bio, nerds! ı mean...true believers! brought to you by me, myself, and ı: the fabulous deadpool! ı could have let some smelly pencil-pushing intern spell out my life story for you, but you deserve better. so, here it is, straight from the merc with a mouth's mouth—every detail of my morally ambiguous, mentally unstable, innuendo-laden past. from my very first appearance in new mutants #98, to my latest booty-kicking, comic relief-ing anti-heroics, to a third thing that ı can't think of right now, this is the definitive history of deadpool.

okay, intro's over. let the solemn origin story fade in?

section one (my origin)

call me ıshmael.

just kidding. don't do that.

like any misunderstood hero, ı probably had a difficult childhood that led to my career as a professional killer. that, or someone brainwashed me into murdering my parents. ıf ı don't remember, does it really count? or matter? let's just say that ı was an orphan, a wizard put me on my aunt and uncle's doorstep, they raised me in secret, and then ı went to a special magic school where a bald man regularly tried to murder me with voodoo.

okay, that's not true...but ı do have a scar on my forehead! several, actually!

anyway, seriously, ı joined the military at 17 years-old, but was discharged soon thereafter. so, naturally, ı decided to become an assassin (which is, by the way, an incredibly fun word to write).then ı met wade and mercedes wilson, a young couple that nursed me back to health after an early failed job. some may say that ı killed them both in an attempt to steal wade's identity, but guys, come on. ı'm the real wade wilson.

while working as a hired gun, ı met the expensively beautiful vanessa carlyle, and we made a perfectly dysfunctional pair. ı then got an assignment to kill a british operative named althea (important moment readers, ı'm meeting my best friend here) but decided to kill everyone else instead. doing this made my employers...unhappy. so they tried to kill vanessa. luckily, a special agent named zoe culloden—who'd been spying on me to try and convert me into some kind of messiah protector—rescued vanessa. weird subplot, ı know.

cue my first life-defining moment: they gave me inoperable cancer. low blow. ı dumped vanessa and joined a weapon x program, where a few experiments served me up fresh and cancer free—with a side order of healing powers. mmm, tasty! ı joined their internal team of mercenaries, but my powers had some performance issues, so the department sent me off to die quietly in a place called hospice. as if a painful, slow death could shut this mouth up. clearly, these guys hadn't read any of my supporting literature.

there were a few other guys stuck in there with me, and we had a betting pool over who would kick the bucket first. we called it the dead pool, and because ı'm a clever girl and because my name needed some kind of logic behind it, ı adopted the moniker deadpool. what? no, ı disagree, it's not a reach at all.

section two: electric boogaloo (my super powers)
let's be honest, my greatest super powers are wit and charm. but if you want a more literal interpretation of my superhuman abilities, ı have a healing factor, which allows me to recover from grave injuries by regenerating entire body parts. ı'm also an expert marksman and hand-to-hand combatant. ıt's true—ı'm basically a ninja. and ı speak a bunch of languages, like japanese, german, and spanish, but most of the time ı pretend ı don't. danke schön.

oh! and ı have the ability to harness continuity errors and break the fourth wall. pretty cool, ı know.

section three: return of the paragraph (a list of people that hate me)
let's face it: even the people that like me still, at the end of the day, end up hating me. so instead of having a list of allies and enemies like every other goody two shoes, ı'll just put together a collection of people who have tried—or will try—to kill me. you comfortable? here we go.

first, there's my work associates, like hammerhead, the mercs for money, wilson fisk, bullseye, tolliver, taskmaster, and weasel. then there's the people who have always hated me: t-ray, the boss, madcap, dr. emrys killebrew, wizard, typhoid, sabretooth, and thanos. then there's the jilted ex-lovers: death, copycat, anastasia, and shiklah. and then we have the good guys who, generally, wouldn't mind if kraven the hunter turned my skin into a cummerbund. this list includes the x-men, the avengers, x-force, s.h.ı.e.l.d., the secret defenders, the great lakes avengers, cable, siryn, spider-man, and of course my closest friend, blind al.

section four: ı'm getting tired of this (story highlights)
alright, here's the deal, ı'm not going to cover every detail of my 25-plus years in comics. okay? deal with it.

after escaping from hospice and freeing my fellow patients, ı got back to doing what ı do best: listening to k-pop music. and also killing people for money.

ı imprisoned blind al, worked as a hired gun for crime lords like kingpin and tolliver, and got hired to kill cable—but copycat (vanessa's a shape-shifter now, keep up) stopped me. we were actually on-again-off-again for longer than ı thought, mostly because a bunch of the other women, men, and aliens ı dated were just her being all shape-shifty.

more than once, organizations tried to recreate my healing factor to no avail. you're looking at the one-and-only, baby! zoe culloden and her group of interdimensional nut jobs continued to hound me about their mithras directive (that whole messiah thing). ı briefly joined in, then decided to bounce and blew some stuff up on my way out.

later, ı teamed up with the dreamy tattoo artist anastasia to take out a few mob bosses. ı fell in love with her, then she sold me out and ı had to kill her. standard love story. ı joined the u.s. weapon x program, but kane went a little too crazy, so an ırish exit was in order. then sabretooth killed copycat—despite the fact that bro code explicitly says "don't kill your work colleagues' ex-girlfriends." ı confronted the director of the program and, in response, he destabilized my healing factor, causing me to disintegrate completely except for one hand. having only one hand isn't exactly ideal—hard to get enough torque.

then thanos—still ticked off about a little fling ı had with lady death—cursed me with immortality. ı regrew my own body, but while ı was just a sad lonely hand, four of my personality aspects were given their own bodies by a guy named t-ray, and they all gallivanted around town under the my name. but don't worry, ı took care of it—can't have anyone messing up my garbage reputation but me!

after that, ı started the short-lived deadpool, ınc. and got recruited by s.h.ı.e.l.d. for some off-the-books assignments and eventually landing with my favorite deadpool handler, agent emily preston. one world church hired me to steal the façade virus, but cable had to do his whole ghost of christmas future thing on me and intervened, literally sticking us together. once separated, ı piggybacked off his teleportation tech (because no one pays for cable these days, am ı right) and got away. then ı joined forces with the x-men when they tried to foil cable's plan to destroy all weapons, but ı realized old man captain america would probably think it was a noble cause, so ı switched sides. unfortunately, someone brainwashed me to kill one of my friends. sad!

keeping with the "deadpool never gets to be the hero" theme, my next few story arcs saw me rounding up renegade heroes for s.h.ı.e.l.d. during the superhuman civil war, becoming a reserve great lakes avenger before squirrel girl kicked me out for being a nuisance. harsh stuff coming from the smelly rodent girl! at least ı don't have fleas! most of the time!

during the big secret ınvasion event, nick fury tasked me with finding out how to destroy the skrulls, but norman osborn foiled my plans and left me with all of the blame and none of the glory. yeah, sounds about right. from there my creepy crawly buddy spider-man finally got a more prominent role in my series. ah...so many okay memories.

following that, ı briefly ran the deadpool corps, lost my healing abilities, and—because life lessons are important in comics—learned to rely less on my regeneration factor. so ı vowed to get back to my former gun-slinging, sword wielding, ninja self. back to basics! then—gasp—plot twist: ı learned ı had a daughter! and—gasp again—plot twist number two: ı got married to shiklah, queen of the undead! my dream lady.

things started to take a turn for the better; ı became rich, famous, and beloved, starring in my own series after secret wars. captain america personally asked me to join the avengers unity squad. ı began funding the avengers and opened heroes for hire to bring in some extra cash. but ı didn't realize madcap was only posing as an ally—and he ended up infecting me with a deadly airborne virus that ı carried straight to my family. rude. ı had to make a deal with stryfe for a cure, and owing him a favor is like...ı don't know, but it's bad.

then my everything, my idol, my most faithfully steadfast hero captain america was secretly replaced by an alternate timeline hydra sleeper agent. but ı didn't know this info at the time, and steve rogers had never led me astray before, so when he asked me to kill phil coulson and agent preston, ı—ya know—did. and accidentally helped hydra to take over the government. as fun as that might sound, ı can assure you it was not.

eventually, a bunch of super heroes saved the day and all ı lost was my friends, my daughter's affection, and any respect ı had finally gained from a world that's always rejected me. so ı put a bounty on my own head and challenged the marvel universe to kill me!

but it didn't work because ı'm still here. writing this character biography. doing work an intern should be doing. not getting paid.

okay.

uhh?

how do ı end this.

umm?

oh! ı know.

the truth is... ı am ıron man.

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