I Finally Reveal: Who REALLY Created Deadpool
All Photos Copyright By Gerry Duggan, Even The One I Stole
The headline was my first foray into clickbait, but with that — let the summer of ‘Pool begin. Much has been written/said/yelled about the creation of Deadpool. I don’t want to go into the making of New Mutants # 98: I wasn’t there.
Rob showed up with the damn character drawn, he had the name, and he and Fabian proceeded to cook comic book history.
The End.
Or, rather…
…The Beginning.
Wade Wilson could’ve been one of the many one-off appearances in 1990’s Marvel Comics. A sea of new characters were introduced that decade but few caught fire due to a lack of oxygen. But…Rob & Fabian had made something special and he passed into special hands.
Because there’s so much chatter about who did what and when and how and why at the beginning of this character’s story, what happened after the big-pouched-bang tends to get short shrift. I thought I would give you my two cents on the matter.
I don’t think you’d be reading this if Joe Kelly & Ed McGuinness didn’t carry Wade around like a wounded war buddy. The duo treated Deadpool well, and gave him many gifts and curses, which, of course, were also gifts.
This is hard to admit, but Frank Tieri…deserves credit, too. He was there when Wade needed him. The folks that were collaborating on Deadpool during the late nineties were never quite sure when the end of their run would arrive. Sales would spike and then dip and everyone was driving this character like a fully insured rental. Some of the talent in the kitchen at that time included Christoper Priest…
…Jimmy Palmiotti, and Gail Simone. Hey, whatever happened to her?
They may not have had the wheel as long as they wanted or deserved, but they were cutting a path that future Deadpool creators would follow.
Dan Way, Paco Medina were the centerpieces of a long run that seemed destined to hold the belt for longevity. Honestly, they probably would still hold that record, but somebody leaked the Deadpool test footage at the end of Comic Con 2014.
Prior to 2012 Brian Posehn and I had been knocking on the door of Marvel for a few years. Axel Alonso was looking for a place to try us out and Rick Remender was one of the folks loudly vouching for us with the bullpen crowd — he also deserves a nice rub down from Deadpool. He and Jerome Opeña are another pair of voices that gave the character some of his most iconic moments in X-FORCE. In their hands Wade was both deadly serious and gave you whiplash with a laugh on the turn of the page. Something we aspired to in our run.
We didn’t expect to have our jobs for very long. Back in January of 2012, we submitted pitches for an “ongoing” Deadpool series to try and follow Dan Way.
It was an election year and we thought people would be sick of politics HAAAAAH — and folks might laugh at Deadpool killing zombie presidents because none of the other heroes wanted to be seen doing it. Well, that was the idea we planted to make them laugh and then they’d laugh and say “What else have you got?” — which by the way is my best advice - have something else to discuss always, but anyway — our editor Jordan D. White picked the wrong fucking story!
Or…so we thought. Zombie presidents would be our opener. It became a great lesson in trusting your editors. We knew we’d be funny, but we really wanted to break hearts. We would get to do that, too. And then right around the time we were getting ready to drop what I thought was going to be our finale in The Good, The Bad & The Ugly — the rocket booster hit.
The test footage leak ensured whoever was on Deadpool was going to go. It made Deadpool a household name, and there wasn't even a movie to watch. If you watched the test footage and wanted more Deadpool — the only place to get that fix was your local comic shop.
Fun trivia about our first arc: I was so sure we’d be fired quickly that I made sure that Dr. Strange was in our second script. He was always one of my favorites, and Tony would’ve had draw Dr. Strange before we could be thrown out, and not only did he draw him, but he drew him so well that Steve Ditko himself approved. We were pen pals for a time.
Of course, our good fortune extended beyond the “leak” of the footage, especially in regards to the casting of Mike Hawthorne, Scott Koblish and Matteo Lolli. The three of them would continue to have authorship over all the funny, and horrible things we helped bring into Deadpool’s world. We aimed to make you laugh and break your heart, and it was our artists that did the deed.
It was on their backs and the folks that preceded that I got to Deadpool issue 300. We had the help of many assistant editors and the pitches on our story from the editorial retreats — it was an embarrassment of riches. We had a lot of talent and consistency, like Joe Sabino who lettered every issue we printed. Later Acker & Blacker, Skottie Young, Kelly Thompson, Alisa Wong, continued the tradition and somehow throughout it all, Cullen Bunn’s collaborations shone bright and likely outsold us all. Many combined? No easy feat. Deadpool Kills is immortal. At present, Cody Ziglar and my old pal Rogê Antônio have the keys to the pouchmobile (Somebody take that — I can’t voucher for it).
Which brings us to today. There’s not a more successful Deadpool writer than Ryan. He wanted this all to work so badly he paid for his cowriters to be on set for the first film out of his own pocket.
Next week Ryan, Rhett, Paul, and now Shawn and Zeb are going to set a new gold standard. I had a funny conversation with a guy who wanted no credit for Deadpool — Mr. Stan “The Man” Lee. The first time I met him as a pro I had a single issue of Marvel Comics under my belt: Marvel NOW Deadpool # 1.
I was writing on a live TV show, and he was visiting to promote a comic about a stripper with super powers. I would later write a comic about a kaiju with a dick, so we got on famously.
When I was introduced to Stan as a the “new Deadpool co-writer” he perked up and said “he’s not one of mine!” and I said “we’d never blame you for Deadpool!” and we laughed, and laughed and laughed until he asked me to leave his dressing room. Which I did promptly.
Both Rob and Fabian have been very supportive and kind over the years, and I hope they enjoy this moment. There’s a fun camaraderie of folks that have “touched the pouches”.
I just wanted to take a moment to thank many of the folks that don’t get a moment in the spotlight. Sometimes an idea comes from a freelancer or someone in the bullpen that can change orbits. So many folks have pushed this big pouch up the hill.
Folks in senior leadership at Marvel from Dan Buckley on down have long been willing to take chances with the character, and the results speak for themselves. I’m grateful for everybody that was willing to roll the dice on something crazy, like Sana Anamat on Hawkeye VS Deadpool.
None of us created Deadpool, but all of us have created something about him that stuck. The Deadpool t-shirt I see the most at conventions was cooked from a bullpen artist from early in Marvel NOW.
I can’t tell you the number of times that an idea was proposed by another writer or an artist that became something that not just made us look good, but something that became additive to the story. Canon is what sticks. A lot has stuck.
We’ve been so lucky, and I hope we’ve been as good to Deadpool as he’s been to us. He’s opened a lot of doors for me. It was such a fun privilege to get to have fun with this character.
Now it’s Marvel Studio’s turn and we all hope you enjoy the shit out of the film. If you’ve not done a deep dive on the character, there are many great Deadpool comics from Rob & Fabian on down.
Cheers,
Gerry
PS — If you liked some of these photos — I have a few remaining hardcovers I printed extra in case of loss/damage from my Kickstarter of Timing/Luck.
These books will never be reprinted in this format. As a special thank you to my readers, I’m bundling a year’s Substack subscription along with a the signed/limited hardcover edition of Timing/Luck in the cloth bound slipcase, and if that isn’t enough — some of the comps I’m signing will be the rare, SOLD-OUT, not to be reprinted incentive variants to FALLING IN LOVE ON THE PATH TO HELL # 1.
This is kind of the Duggan Blind Box, I suppose?
Loaded with the guaranteed treats of a year’s subscription, the limited hardcover and a roll of the dice of which signed comics you’ll receive, I can just promise you will get some of my personal comps from my Marvel, Image and DC work. But I’ll start with the Falling In Love comps, since they’re currently atop the stack.
After subscribing for a year, direct message me on Substack your mailing address and then I, and the Lady Luck of comps will do the rest.
It’s a great deal, as any one of the three items I’m bundling is worth the single price of admission. If you’re outside the US, please direct message me on Substack to arrange a second payment for international shipping - which is likely to be $60-80, unfortunately. All you have to do is click subscribe at the yearly option:
You’re getting over a hundred bucks of physical goods along with the yearly subscription here. Pretty, pretty, pretty good.
That's a good shot of Posehn.
It's a testament to your photography that the Vanity Fair photo fits in so seamlessly with the others.