Finally! Marvel Is Revisiting a Key Part of Deadpool It Tossed Aside Years Ago

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Warning: Spoilers for Weapon X-Men (2025) #1 ahead!Deadpool has been one of Marvel’s shining stars for so long that it’s easy to forget that he hasn’t always been the wisecracking, fourth-wall-breaking, lovable meme machine he is today. However, it is clear that Marvel hasn’t forgotten about the character’s darker origins, as the launch of 2025’s Weapon X-Men series takes Deadpool straight back to his roots, in a shocking twist.

Weapon X-Men #1 – written by Joe Casey, with art by ChrisCross – begins when an encounter between Deadpool and Wolverine after a botched assassination attempt leads the pair to join up with other famous heavy-hitters, including Cable and Chamber. Yet when Deadpool is left alone with Wolverine in the field, the Merc With a Mouth brutally turns against Logan.

Dropping his jokey persona, Deadpool coldly shoots and incapacitates Wolverine in a scene that bears far more resemblance to his ruthless original incarnation than the slapstick figure with which more contemporary audiences may be familiar.

Dropping The Comedy Act, Deadpool Returns To His Deadly Roots In A Shocking Turn

Weapon X-Men #1 – Written By Joe Casey; Art By ChrisCross; Ink By Mark Morales; Color By Yen Nitro; Lettering By Clayton Cowles ​​

Weapon X-Men #1 stands out because it manages to deliver on both versions of Deadpool. When the book opens, Deadpool wastes no time snarking about how he’s being marketed with Wolverine or throwing shade on his previous writers, but he’s all business again when the time comes for violence, and he doesn’t hold back. His takedown of Wolverine hearkens back to Liefeld-era levels of efficiency and forethought, and there’s nothing comical about it. Weapon X-Men #1 shows that there’s room in Marvel for Deadpool to be both the snarky renegade and the deadly assassin without compromising on either vision for the character.

Liefeld’s departure left it ambiguous if there would ever be room for a more serious incarnation of Deadpool again, but now Marvel has made it clear that Deadpool’s action-hero past isn’t forgotten. Weapon X-Men #1 is proof that there’s ample room for the character to be a frighteningly competent assassin while still cracking wise and playing the buffoon when it suits him, and after having played the punchline for so long, this is a reminder that he’s not someone to take lightly. Deadpool’s key elements are finally back together again, and the Merc with a Mouth finally feels complete once more.

“Weapon X-Men” Is A Reminder That Deadpool Hasn’t Always Been Marvel’s Resident Comic Relief

The Importance Of Balancing Levity & Gravity

Deadpool has become so ubiquitous among Marvel’s properties that it’s easy to overlook the character’s roots. When Deadpool first debuted in Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza’s New Mutants (1983) #98, the character was much more the stereotypical ninja or assassin, using his prodigious skills to keep Cable and the entire team of New Mutants on their toes. If anything, the character who would become Liefeld’s most famous creation stood out at the time for having a relatively understated design in comparison to the rest of Liefeld’s creations, who tended to be decked out with oversized guns, chrome, and gratuitous pouches.

Deadpool’s defining snark and his trait of breaking the fourth wall also didn’t come from Liefeld. The 1997 run of Deadpool not only established Deadpool’s more comedic bent, but it also holds the first time the character is seen breaking the fourth wall: in Deadpool #28 by Joe Kelly and Pete Woods, Deadpool dryly remarks that he hasn’t seen the assassin Bullseye since “Issue sixteen.” The bombastic humor of this series promptly took off, elevating Deadpool from the rest of Marvel’s current fare and becoming the character’s hallmark trait as future stories expanded his snark and meta-commentary tendencies even further.

Modern Deadpool Is An Unkillable Prankster – His Appeal Has Become Greater Than Just A One-Note Killer

More Dramatic Range For The Merc With A Mouth

Contemporary Deadpool stories often feel like particularly gory episodes of Tom & Jerry ​​​​​​in their slapstick, cartoonish nature. As of Cody Ziglar and Roge Antonio’s Deadpool (2024), Deadpool has two daughters (one of whom is a Symbiote) and a failing business with Taskmaster; Deadpool’s kill count is largely attributed to his healing superpower making him nigh immortal, with the ludicrous breadth of his injuries contributing to the humor. Additionally, the success of the Deadpool film franchise has inextricably linked contemporary audiences’ expectations of the character with his comedic portrayal by Ryan Reynolds, further cementing Deadpool’s place as a comical anti-hero.

But there’s another version of Deadpool waiting in the wings. Although Rob Liefeld is no longer writing on Deadpool, there’s a marked difference in the stories Deadpool’s creator tells about the character: in Liefeld titles like Deadpool: Badder Blood (2023) and Deadpool: Team-Up (2024), Deadpool is much more in line with his original incarnation as a guns-blazing assassin and is nowhere close to the buffoonish mercenary most audiences know. This version of Deadpool is less commonly seen but still shows up from time to time in ultra-violent books like Cullen Bunn and Dalibor Talajic’s Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe ​​​​​​series.

Weapon X-Men #1 is available now from Marvel Comics.

“}]] OG Deadpool is back with a vengeance.  Read More