10 Things You Didn’t Know About Wolverine & Deadpool’s Relationship in the Comics

Deadpool and Wolverine are two of the most popular X-Men-related characters of all time, as evidenced by their hit movie which recently crossed $1 billion at the worldwide box office. But while the Merc With the Mouth and the Ol’ Canuckle Head have been lighting up the movie screens with their foul-mouthed banter, their relationship in the mainline Marvel Comics has evolved remarkably differently.

Across their publication history, Deadpool and Wolverine’s relationship has ebbed and flowed in many ways. Whether due to memory-erasing drugs, hidden alliances or a simple retcon, there are many facts about Deadpool and Wolverine’s unique relationship that have gotten lost in the great comic book shuffle and deserve discussion.

Long before they got their colorful names and costumes, Wade Wilson and the man known as Logan were both subjects of the Weapon X Program, a shady research project meant to create the next super soldier like their original success, Captain America. The program famously bonded Wolverine’s skeleton to the indestructible metal adamantium and gave Deadpool his trademark scar patterns, but what most casual fans would not know is that they were actually not in the program at the same time.

Due to Marvel’s sliding timescale, the exact year Wolverine escaped from the Weapon X facility in Canada is hard to pin down, but given that Wolverine was a long-established member of the X-Men by the time Deadpool made his first appearance, it’s clear the two missed each other by years. But Deadpool’s own healing factor was gifted to him thanks to the work the Weapon X Program had done on Wolverine previously, and the two have always shared a base connection. According to Deadpool co-creator Rob Liefeld, any connection between Deadpool and Wolverine was always intentional.

9 Wolverine & Deadpool’s Pasts Are Multiple Choice

Within the landscape of comic books, retroactive continuity changes are almost inevitable. For instance, there are several X-Men stories published in the ’70s and early ’80s that depict Wolverine as a former spy, clearly in possession of all of his memories. However, the 2003 series Origin introduced the idea that Wolverine has put up many memory blocks due to trauma and does not remember large chunks of his life, including his own birth name, James Howlett.

Similarly, Deadpool’s first-ever ongoing series written by Joe Kelly ends with the reveal that Deadpool had actually killed the real Wade Wilson and stolen his identity, a twist that has since been retconned out of continuity by every writer since, as well as the live-action movie cementing the idea that Wade Wilson is the Merc With a Mouth. In a lot of ways, due to all the memory-altering drugs given to them by Weapon X, as well as other writers simply having other ideas, almost everything about Deadpool and Wolverine’s lives before they made their debut is not very well known.

Counter to their crowd-pleasing inclusion in the second Deadpool movie, the team X-Force has typically had a much darker objective, existing to deal with the enemies of mutantkind in a much more aggressive way than the X-Men. When Cyclops’ secret X-Force team was revealed, he disbanded it out of shame, leading to Wolverine recruiting his own team of people who have done their own dark and despicable acts in the name of good.

This new X-Force consisted of Archangel, Psylocke and Fantomex, the mutant assassin and primarily focused on the exploits of Apocalypse and his horsemen. Although the team itself split up under less-than-ideal circumstances, this marked the first of many times Deadpool and Wolverine would be teammates.

7 Wolverine Hired Deadpool to Take Out Himself

Within Wolverine: Origins, written by Daniel Way, who would go on to write an ongoing Deadpool series, Logan finds himself the target of Wade Wilson, whose contract pushes him to engage the X-Man all across the city of San Fransisco, using increasingly comical methods of harming Wolverine. From a fake baby filled with explosives to a falling piano, nothing was too wacky to be used as a weapon by the Merc with a Mouth. As the fight drags on, it becomes much less comical and much more harrowing as Wolverine stops playing nicely, finally being taken down when his healing factor maxes out.

Eventually, it’s revealed that Wolverine is the one who hired Deadpool by using Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, as a proxy. Wolverine’s goal was to use his and Deadpool’s very public clash to draw out Daken, Wolverine’s own son, who blames him and the Winter Soldier both for the torturous curse of his existence. With their business concluded, Wolverine begins to leave with his son, but not before threatening Deadpool to keep his distance for some time, with their fight having gotten remarkably personal during its duration.

In the pages of Wolverine Annual 1999 by Marc Andreyko and Walter McDaniel, Wolverine and Deadpool, still in the earlier days of their relationship, were forced to fight a werewolf that found its way between Deadpool and his target at the time. Having only met each other in brief yet hostile circumstances, Deadpool and Wolverine were initially content to resume their blood feud before realizing that they had found themselves in the middle of a werewolf civil war, with the two forced to work together to stop the raging lycanthropes.

Once the conflict had passed, Deadpool offered Wolverine a truce, and the two went out for a beer together, where they began to build a bond over their experiences with the Weapon X Program. Their relationship would only grow and evolve from here, with the two men eventually realizing they are not so different from each other, with Deadpool using humor as a shield, whereas Logan would much rather build walls between him and others.

5 Wolverine & Deadpool Have Been Frenemies Since the Day They Met

The first-ever published meeting between the Merc with the Mouth and the Ol’ Canuckle Head took place in the pages of Wolverine #88, written by Larry Hama. Coming only three years after Deadpool’s debut in the pages of New Mutants, it most readily deals with the lore of his early days, namely that of the newest Weapon X and Deadpool’s ex-girlfriend, Vanessa Carlysle/Copycat, portrayed by Morena Baccarin in the films, albeit missing her blue skin and shapeshifting powers.

Seeing these two breakout X-Stars meet each other for the first time, the story essentially plays out as an extended fight sequence, with Deadpool, Wolverine, Weapon X and Copycat all getting in on the fun. Despite the relatively clean-cut nature of their relationship in the films, the true story between Wade and Vanessa is a lot more complicated, leading to her expressing true hatred toward the red-suited mercenary and letting the fight escalate. Finding himself outnumbered, Deadpool retreats by way of a grenade, leaving a bad taste in everybody’s mouth and sowing seeds of hate that won’t sprout until years later.

4 Therapy Helped Heal Wolverine & Deadpool’s Relationship

In an attempt to cure Deadpool of what he believes are hallucinations caused by the guilt of being a mercenary, obscure supervillain psychologist Doctor Bong recommends to the Merc With a Mouth that he fight a superhero to the death in order to break out of his psychosis. Acting on the good doctor’s advice, Deadpool sought out Wolverine in the hopes of working through his issues, although all he truly succeeded in doing was provoking Logan into a fight, destroying the nearby shopping center and endangering countless civilians.

Somewhat ironically, the fight did serve to help Deadpool work through his psychological issues, due in no small part to a fierce verbal dressing down from Wolverine, who calls out Deadpool’s hypocrisy over his wanton destruction. As Wade comes to understand the root of his disturbances, he’s stabbed by Wolverine, and Doctor Bong ends their session almost immediately. Returning home, Deadpool comes to express gratitude to Logan for the help he inadvertently provided Wade, adding yet another link in the strange chain that binds these two characters.

3 Wolverine & Deadpool Have Been Across the Multiverse and Back

Entirely independent of each other, both Deadpool and Wolverine have encountered multiple multiversal variants of themselves in Spider-Verse-like crossover events. The most obvious and famous of the two is the Deadpool Corps, a team of Mercs With Mouths from across the multiverse put together by old, trusty Deadpool but tragically killed during a war involving nearly every Deadpool from every reality. The team itself made its debut, albeit in remixed form, in the recently released Deadpool & Wolverine film, echoing the similarly themed Spider Society from the Sony-produced Spider-Verse films.

Much less talked about is the team-up between the various Wolverines of the multiverse within the pages of The Exiles, a book about a team of heroes recruited from across the multiverse to patch the holes in continuity. When this team, consisting of variants like Sabretooth, Spider-Man 2099 and Morph, is cut loose by their powerful and enigmatic masters, they find themselves replaced by a collection of Wolverines from across the multiverse and recognizable Marvel eras, especially chosen for their efficiency and brutality.

2 Wolverine & Deadpool Have Similar Moral Values but Definitely Not the Same

During their time on X-Force together, Deadpool and Wolverine famously found themselves on opposite sides of an issue regarding the conduct of their own team. Team member Fantomex, possessing an external nervous system and several physical enhancements, had just killed the villain Apocalypse in the form of a child, an action that did not sit right with Wade Wilson. Raising his concerns to the rest of the team, Deadpool comes to blows with Wolverine himself, who defends Fantomex, stating that killing Apocalypse was the right thing to do.

Maintaining his stance that the execution of children is too far, Deadpool is berated by Wolverine, condemning him for being a mercenary who trades horror for money. Despite agreeing with Logan that he has essentially sold his soul and any right to a moral objection, Deadpool still maintains that he has never crossed the line of harming children to achieve his goals, something Wolverine cannot claim himself. Though not discussed much in their history, this moment has hung over the traditionally more heroic Wolverine in ways not fully explored in the days since.

1 Wolverine & Deadpool Do Not Actually Interact All That Much

Despite the popularity enjoyed by both characters or the adaptations that have so frequently crossed paths, not just in the smash summer hit Deadpool & Wolverine but the much beloved animated feature Hulk vs Wolverine, the traditional comic book versions of the Merc With a Mouth and the Ol’ Canuckle Head do not spend a lot of time in each other’s company. With Wolverine debuting in late 1974 and Deadpool making himself known at the beginning of the 1990s, the cigar-chomping, claw-wielding X-Man was already a well-established character by the time the Big Chimichanga himself popped up on the scene.

As with most other popular comic book properties, the media adaptations usually eclipse the comic book source material in terms of what stays in the minds of the general audience. Strictly within the comic book realm, Deadpool and Wolverine typically stick to their own corners of the Marvel Universe unless other circumstances draw them together. Regardless of the totality of their most famous crossovers happening outside the printed page, there is always hope in the MCU synergy that would allow Deadpool and Wolverine to spend more time in each other’s company going forward.