Comic books, similar to TV shows of old, get a lot of flak for their production cycle that never ends. If a character has a new book every month, in perpetuity, how can there be a defined beginning, middle and end to their story? How can they grow and change if the book just needs to keep going? And if there is a change that sticks, the audience knows it will only be a matter of time before the status quo is restored. That doesn’t mean the stories where the norm is upended can’t be interesting, but it’s still a little deflating to know it probably won’t be explored to its full potential. That’s why I’ve always drifted towards books with shorter, more defined runs.
The one exception I’ll always make is for Deadpool. Unfortunately, Wade Wilson is a character that’s very easy to get wrong. He’s a comedy character who breaks the fourth wall, making him easy to slot in to team books or shallow minis as an annoying wiseass, who relies on acknowledging that he’s a comic character for humour rather than actual jokes. This version of the character became especially pervasive after Daniel Way popularized the lolrandom style of humour in his 2008-2012 run. In the hands of his best writers, however, he’s more of a sad clown archetype, and a damn good one at that.
Wade is a textbook case of Major Depressive Disorder. Like most depressives, he’s extremely self-loathing, and developed his sense of humour as a way of forming shallow relationships without letting anybody really get to know him. While most of his current guilt stems from his work as an assassin, it’s not hard to imagine that this has been a lifelong struggle for him. Depression, and the internal conviction that you’re a worthless piece of shit, is all-encompassing, and it makes it really tempting to do awful things. Maybe it stems from a coldness towards people derived from the emotional numbness of depression, or a desire to make others feel as awful as you do. Maybe it’s freeing to stop fighting and be the piece of shit you know you are, or your self-loathing has become so routine and comforting that you need to do terrible things to make it easier to perpetuate. Regardless, it isn’t hard to imagine Wade giving in to his worst instincts and becoming a hired killer, despite knowing it’s wrong.
This, naturally, leads to him becoming ostracized from the community, which is what he really wants. It’s impossible to get close to other people when you’re consumed with your own self-loathing. You question the sincerity or value of anyone who accepts you. You feel like a liar for accepting compliments or displaying confidence. You feel manipulative for presenting yourself in a way that gets others to like you. And any close relationship involves a degree of vulnerability, and it’s hard to open yourself up to the possibility of rejection when there’s a little voice in the back of your head rejecting you every second of every day.
Paradoxically, you can’t not yearn for human connection either. With no ability to find self-worth from within, it needs to come from other people. As already mentioned, his humour allows him to keep people around to kill time with and to keep him out of his own head, but also prevents them from getting close enough to understand his turmoil. (Being part of a cutthroat, criminal underworld is also great for this.) These shallow relationships are no substitute for real friendships, but they abate some of the loneliness without risking the possibility of rejection. But this doesn’t mean he doesn’t still long for more.
Early on in his first solo series, Wade fell in love with Siryn, one of the female X-Men. A chance encounter and some basic human decency from her impacted him greatly, and he became obsessed with her. Not believing himself to be worthy of her love, not wanting to inflict himself on her and not ready to open up to the possibility of rejection, Wade’s love manifested as stalking (a fact he acknowledges is creepy, wrong and not romantic). He knows his love is one-sided, he knows she was just being a good person, but, never having been shown that kind of pure acceptance before, he can’t help but stare at her through her window and fantasize about a world where someone—anyone—loves him. That knowledge that his love for her really has nothing to do with her as a person and only has to do with him latching on to the briefest bit of acceptance he’s ever been shown, also plays on his mind as he hates himself for only being able to love for selfish reasons. But ultimately, he can’t approach her because the fantasy is so valuable at that point that he can’t risk losing it for the off-chance of it actually coming true. But, like anything else, the comfort of that fantasy will fade and he’ll want the real thing, and if he pursues it and gets rejected, he’ll only hate himself all the more for being stupid and greedy enough to think he could deserve or attain love.
Another factor in his reticence to approach Siryn is his appearance. It’s a long story, but Wade’s skin is incredibly scarred and disfigured, giving him a convenient excuse to not try and reach out to people. He can tell himself that it’s okay to be lonely and creepy and sad because, even if he worked hard to fix all that, nobody could ever accept him due to his physicality. While most people don’t have the extreme disfigurement he does, it’s an effective metaphor for how depression can turn your cruelest lens inwards and convince you that you may as well look horrifically disfigured. Depression can affect your perception of reality, as your mind knows things to be true but your heart can’t accept them. Wade has been accepted by people despite his appearance, yet still clings to his mask to hide himself away. His depression won’t let him accept that he doesn’t need it, that he has reason to believe that someone can love him without the mask. Because losing that excuse puts him one step closer to having to face his depression and put himself closer to facing rejection.
So what does this have to do with the format of a monthly ongoing book? Wade is smart enough to know these things about himself, and he wants to be better. He does eventually decide to put himself out there and approach Siryn, and it actually works out for a little while. He’s formed a few long-lasting friendships in the wider Marvel Universe, usually after extraordinary circumstances force people to be around him for a long time. But managing depression is a lifelong job, and backslides are inevitable.
Only being able to derive self-worth from outside sources leaves Wade needy and easy to manipulate. For example, one of those long-lasting friendships Wade formed was with Captain America in the excellent The Good, the Bad and the Ugly arc. He gained some legitimacy, felt good, even became an Avenger. Then, during a recent storyline where—long story—Captain America turned out to be a Nazi, Wade felt compelled to stand by him. Sure, people had misgivings about what Captain America was doing, but he had stood by Wade when nobody else would, believed in him and supported him when he couldn’t support himself. To turn on him now would be to sever one of his few connections. To deny himself a source of love and value. What choice did he have? When Captain America’s nefarious Nazi plans were revealed, Wade inevitably got some splashback and became reviled in the community again, leading to his book being re-titled The Despicable Deadpool, as he fell back into his comfort zone of amoral killing and wallowed in self-loathing.
Wade Wilson’s story is a story of self-improvement and, more importantly, trying to figure out how to improve yourself. Self-improvement is a story that should never end, and it’s often a two steps forward, one step back process, up until it’s two steps forward, five steps back. Wade is damaged and missing some essential part of himself that others have, and his search for meaning and purpose and acceptance without that leaves him in a self-destructive cycle, but his intelligence and earnestness stops him from ever giving in to his darker side completely. The sad truth is that if he was a real person, free from the editorial need for status quo to be maintained, he’d likely be stuck in this same cycle of peaks and valleys, stability and instability, like the rest of us are.
The one exception I’ll always make is for Deadpool. Unfortunately, Wade Wilson is a character that’s very easy to get wrong. He’s a comedy character who breaks the fourth wall, making him easy to slot in to team books or shallow minis as an annoying wiseass, who relies on acknowledging that he’s a comic character for humour rather than actual jokes. This version of the character became especially pervasive after Daniel Way popularized the lolrandom style of humour in his 2008-2012 run. In the hands of his best writers, however, he’s more of a sad clown archetype, and a damn good one at that.
Wade is a textbook case of Major Depressive Disorder. Like most depressives, he’s extremely self-loathing, and developed his sense of humour as a way of forming shallow relationships without letting anybody really get to know him. While most of his current guilt stems from his work as an assassin, it’s not hard to imagine that this has been a lifelong struggle for him. Depression, and the internal conviction that you’re a worthless piece of shit, is all-encompassing, and it makes it really tempting to do awful things. Maybe it stems from a coldness towards people derived from the emotional numbness of depression, or a desire to make others feel as awful as you do. Maybe it’s freeing to stop fighting and be the piece of shit you know you are, or your self-loathing has become so routine and comforting that you need to do terrible things to make it easier to perpetuate. Regardless, it isn’t hard to imagine Wade giving in to his worst instincts and becoming a hired killer, despite knowing it’s wrong.
This, naturally, leads to him becoming ostracized from the community, which is what he really wants. It’s impossible to get close to other people when you’re consumed with your own self-loathing. You question the sincerity or value of anyone who accepts you. You feel like a liar for accepting compliments or displaying confidence. You feel manipulative for presenting yourself in a way that gets others to like you. And any close relationship involves a degree of vulnerability, and it’s hard to open yourself up to the possibility of rejection when there’s a little voice in the back of your head rejecting you every second of every day.
Paradoxically, you can’t not yearn for human connection either. With no ability to find self-worth from within, it needs to come from other people. As already mentioned, his humour allows him to keep people around to kill time with and to keep him out of his own head, but also prevents them from getting close enough to understand his turmoil. (Being part of a cutthroat, criminal underworld is also great for this.) These shallow relationships are no substitute for real friendships, but they abate some of the loneliness without risking the possibility of rejection. But this doesn’t mean he doesn’t still long for more.
Early on in his first solo series, Wade fell in love with Siryn, one of the female X-Men. A chance encounter and some basic human decency from her impacted him greatly, and he became obsessed with her. Not believing himself to be worthy of her love, not wanting to inflict himself on her and not ready to open up to the possibility of rejection, Wade’s love manifested as stalking (a fact he acknowledges is creepy, wrong and not romantic). He knows his love is one-sided, he knows she was just being a good person, but, never having been shown that kind of pure acceptance before, he can’t help but stare at her through her window and fantasize about a world where someone—anyone—loves him. That knowledge that his love for her really has nothing to do with her as a person and only has to do with him latching on to the briefest bit of acceptance he’s ever been shown, also plays on his mind as he hates himself for only being able to love for selfish reasons. But ultimately, he can’t approach her because the fantasy is so valuable at that point that he can’t risk losing it for the off-chance of it actually coming true. But, like anything else, the comfort of that fantasy will fade and he’ll want the real thing, and if he pursues it and gets rejected, he’ll only hate himself all the more for being stupid and greedy enough to think he could deserve or attain love.
Another factor in his reticence to approach Siryn is his appearance. It’s a long story, but Wade’s skin is incredibly scarred and disfigured, giving him a convenient excuse to not try and reach out to people. He can tell himself that it’s okay to be lonely and creepy and sad because, even if he worked hard to fix all that, nobody could ever accept him due to his physicality. While most people don’t have the extreme disfigurement he does, it’s an effective metaphor for how depression can turn your cruelest lens inwards and convince you that you may as well look horrifically disfigured. Depression can affect your perception of reality, as your mind knows things to be true but your heart can’t accept them. Wade has been accepted by people despite his appearance, yet still clings to his mask to hide himself away. His depression won’t let him accept that he doesn’t need it, that he has reason to believe that someone can love him without the mask. Because losing that excuse puts him one step closer to having to face his depression and put himself closer to facing rejection.
So what does this have to do with the format of a monthly ongoing book? Wade is smart enough to know these things about himself, and he wants to be better. He does eventually decide to put himself out there and approach Siryn, and it actually works out for a little while. He’s formed a few long-lasting friendships in the wider Marvel Universe, usually after extraordinary circumstances force people to be around him for a long time. But managing depression is a lifelong job, and backslides are inevitable.
Only being able to derive self-worth from outside sources leaves Wade needy and easy to manipulate. For example, one of those long-lasting friendships Wade formed was with Captain America in the excellent The Good, the Bad and the Ugly arc. He gained some legitimacy, felt good, even became an Avenger. Then, during a recent storyline where—long story—Captain America turned out to be a Nazi, Wade felt compelled to stand by him. Sure, people had misgivings about what Captain America was doing, but he had stood by Wade when nobody else would, believed in him and supported him when he couldn’t support himself. To turn on him now would be to sever one of his few connections. To deny himself a source of love and value. What choice did he have? When Captain America’s nefarious Nazi plans were revealed, Wade inevitably got some splashback and became reviled in the community again, leading to his book being re-titled The Despicable Deadpool, as he fell back into his comfort zone of amoral killing and wallowed in self-loathing.
Wade Wilson’s story is a story of self-improvement and, more importantly, trying to figure out how to improve yourself. Self-improvement is a story that should never end, and it’s often a two steps forward, one step back process, up until it’s two steps forward, five steps back. Wade is damaged and missing some essential part of himself that others have, and his search for meaning and purpose and acceptance without that leaves him in a self-destructive cycle, but his intelligence and earnestness stops him from ever giving in to his darker side completely. The sad truth is that if he was a real person, free from the editorial need for status quo to be maintained, he’d likely be stuck in this same cycle of peaks and valleys, stability and instability, like the rest of us are.
