The Deadpool Movie: A Guide to the Characters

The project-that-may-never-be known as the Deadpool movie has been getting some renewed interest lately. Or, really, it's been getting more interest than ever thanks to the leaked proof-of-concept footage based on a scene from the screenplay. Written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Zombieland) four years ago, the screenplay got leaked onto the internet a while back and has since become a promising look at what could have been.

Now that the Deadpoolfootage has gone viral, Fox may possibly reconsider giving the Merc With a Mouth his own movie, despite the hard-R tone of that clip. Judging by the reaction of the internet, perhaps it's a look at the kind of success this movie could have.

The CGI animation of Deadpool killing his targets from inside a car gives a great idea of the tone of the would-be movie, but what about everything else? Who are the characters? What's the story? Which take on the character, if any, is the true influence?

With the script being written in 2010, it came out during the relatively early days of Daniel Way's run on the character, which also happened to be when Deadpool was getting a million different comics with his name on them. Despite that, the screenplay has incredibly little to do with anything Way has written with one exception.

There's a moment in Deadpool v.2 #10 (with art by Paco Medina) where Deadpool pulls off a hit job via ordering a pizza. It's one of the best moments Way has written and does a fantastic job painting the picture of what kind of man Deadpool is. Unorthodox, irreverent, violent, unpredictable, greedy, yet more selfless than he likes to put on.

The weird thing is that in the comic, the pizza man's name is Gavin. In the screenplay, the homeowner's name is Gavin. As a Gavin, this confuses and frightens me.

Hey, can I start an online campaign to get me the role of whichever Gavin if the movie ever gets made? Any takers? Anyone...?

Fine.

The movie is more based on the Joe Kelly run from the late '90s, which took place in Deadpool #1 to #33. Kelly really laid down the foundation for the character and any Deadpool writer worth their salt has been building on his run or outright trying to copy it. Joe Kelly's Deadpoolhas three main stories in it. One is about a group trying to persuade Deadpool that he's capable of being more than just a hired killer and can potentially save the world. Another is his rivalry with the mysterious and hateful T-Ray, who appears to have some kind of connection to Wade Wilson.

The screenplay is loosely based on the other story, where a man known as Ajax is going around killing old Weapon X experiments with intent on getting his revenge on Deadpool, which plays into Deadpool's own struggle to grab onto his budding morality.

Here are our non-Wade participants in the story.

VANESSA CARLYSLE

Vanessa is Deadpool's first major love interest and even made her debut in the same issue as Deadpool, New Mutants #98. Sort of. See, Vanessa is also the shapeshifting mutant Copycat and when Domino makes her supposed first appearance in that issue, it's really Vanessa in disguise.

Vanessa was Wade's girlfriend back in his clear-faced days and while he spent his time being paid to kill people, she got her income through walking the streets as a prostitute. While she wasn't using her mutant powers in her line of work outside of making herself look like a normal human being, she did have a bit of a mantra about changing who you are in order to please your client.

In a perfect world, the two of them would have left their respective lives to live happily ever after, but Wade contracted cancer and chose to leave her rather than have her watch him wither away. Vanessa later joined the criminal game as Copycat and became at odds with Deadpool. While her near-death experience gave us the first instance of Deadpool showing he's capable of a selfless act, the two antagonized each other for several years, usually while switching sides on who is the good one and who is the villain. They got back together eventually and had an on-again/off-again relationship until Sabretooth killed Vanessa. She died in Deadpool's arms, professing her love for him.

In the screenplay, she has no powers.

BLIND AL

Blind Al is a character introduced in the beginning of Kelly's Deadpoolrun as a roommate/prisoner in Deadpool's house, forced to live there and be his Aunt May figure. Their relationship at first came off as a goofball thing where they would constantly perform pranks on each other while acting like an old married couple. It was later revealed that the "prisoner" aspect of their relationship is a lot darker than on the surface and Deadpool has flat-out tortured her at times.

Wade had become overwhelmingly guilty over his treatment of her and granted her freedom. Blind Al was able to give him some motherly advice in his darkest hour, but eventually took advantage of that freedom and found her own way. Since then, she's shown up sporadically in various Deadpool comics for one reason or another.

Coincidentally, she also had a fling with Captain America back during World War II.

WEASEL

Jack Hammer went to school with Peter Parker and the rest of his gang and was primed for success as a tech genius, but a time-traveling Deadpool (long story) got him hooked on drinking and that ruined his future. Weasel made his debut in Deadpool: The Circle Chase #1, part of a miniseries by Fabian Nicieza and Joe Madureira, which was the first time Deadpool was given his own solo adventure. Weasel was included as a sidekick of sorts, keeping tabs on his missions and taking care of the weapons. Mainly, he was there to give Deadpool someone to play off of.

Weasel is Deadpool's go-to buddy (or was until Bob from Hydra was introduced), though they've had a very rocky relationship over the years. They've had no less than three falling outs by three different writers due to either Deadpool doing horrible things to his buddy or Deadpool taking a heroic turn and bringing Weasel to justice for taking part in some illegal hacking.

PATCH AND THE HELL HOUSE

In the old days, Patch was essentially Deadpool's broker. He ran a hideout called the Hell House in what used to be a catholic school called Sister Margaret's. It was there that Deadpool would hang out with fellow mercenaries, most of which looked up to him as the apex of what a merc could be. This gave Deadpool a place to talk shop, get exposition on missions, and allowed him an environment to have passive-aggressive showdowns with his arch-nemesis T-Ray.

Once Kelly finished up on the book, the Hell House had been all-but forgotten about, referenced only in the screenplay and in Deadpool #61, where several of the regulars showed up at Wade's funeral.

AJAX

Deadpool doesn't have a very thick rogues gallery, but he's never had a better personal villain than Ajax. When the cancer-ridden Wade handed himself off to Department H/Weapon X in Canada, they deemed him unworthy of being a superhero and instead used him to be experimented on. A super-powered orderly named the Attending was another experiment deemed ill-fitting as a hero. He had the physical gifts, but was unfortunately a mad sadist. Instead, he was given the position of keeping all the Weapon X experiments at bay, which he did by bullying them at every opportunity.

Wade wanted to die and felt no fear from the Attending. Upon finding out his real name is Francis, Wade began harping on his name more and more, getting under the Attending's skin. Wade seemingly killed the Attending during his escape, but the orderly was rebuilt as a nigh-unstoppable cyborg named Ajax. He searched for the other escaped experiments and murdered them. He tracked down Deadpool and killed him, only for Death herself to appear and give Wade a second chance to make things right. Deadpool ultimately defeated the psycho and reluctantly snapped his neck, sadly realizing that killing his enemies is all he'd ever be good for.

COLOSSUS

Do I really need to explain this guy? It's Colossus. He's from the X-Men. He was in some of the movies. He does that thing in the Konami arcade game where he's all, "RAAAaaaAAAaaaAAAaaaRRGH!" and everything around him blows up.

His inclusion in the screenplay is head-scratching. He's there to be treated as a superhero. Not a militant mutant outlaw or anything, but an honest-to-God superhero. Like if Spider-Man or Superman were to show up to apprehend the bad guys. Which isn't really what Colossus is. He's a superhero, sure, but not in that way. Not to mention, Colossus has virtually nothing to do with Deadpool in the comics. They've never had a team-up or a fight or anything. I guess recently their future selves were involved in that confusing time-travel story Battle of the Atom, but that came out way after the fact for this screenplay.

Furthermore, the screenplay makes it very apparent that this movie doesn't take place in the X-Men cinematic universe. So...what's Colossus even doing there?

And no, he doesn't yell "RAAAaaaAAAaaaAAAaaaRRGH!" and blow up everything around him at any point. A shame.

GARRISON KANE

In the screenplay, Kane is one of three henchmen working for Ajax alongside Sluggo and Wyre. In the comics, Kane was a regular ally of Cable and was turned into a cyborg by Weapon X. He joined Six Pack for a while and became romantically involved with Copycat after she left Deadpool. He played the part of hero for a while, calling himself Weapon X, but he fell into obscurity once the '90s started winding down.

In a story written by Frank Tieri, Deadpool was brought back into Weapon X, forced to team up with Sabretooth and Kane. Kane was shown to be more sadistic than normal and even coldly murdered a child in front of Deadpool. Deadpool blew him up shortly after, but Kane survived. He eventually came to his senses thanks to help from Cable's telepathy and ended up sacrificing himself heroically immediately after.

SLUGGO

Sluggo is a fellow Weapon X experiment and known associate of Deadpool from back in the old days. He appeared for only a couple issues of X-Force, where he and Deadpool went after Copycat. Sluggo also gave him the news about their benefactor Mr. Tolliver being dead. Sluggo proceeded to do a whole lot of nothing and was among one of the most generic designs of the 1990s (big, muscular dude with a big gun).

Sluggo appeared later on in Daniel Way's run, alongside some other characters who hated Wade one reason or another and wanted him dead. Deadpool himself was kind of shocked to see him there, barely remembering that he even existed. Not that he existed for long, considering Deadpool took him out with an explosive headshot.

WYRE

Wyre's inclusion here is even more confusing than Colossus because Wyre has nothing to do with anything. He has never crossed paths with Deadpool in any form and the most I can figure is he fought with Kane one time. Otherwise, he's just a mutant who fought for the Secret Empire (which isn't Weapon X, but they're just as bad), then turned on them and tried to become a good guy. He mainly fought against and with Alpha Flight.

So...yeah. Your guess is as good as mine. I guess Reese and Wernick just thought his "wires coming out of his flesh" powers would look cool on screen.

WORM

Worm is the man known for giving us Wade's nickname. Another Weapon X experiment/prisoner, Worm was forced to have a cybernetic implant over his eye that measured probabilities. He'd use that to measure the odds of which unfortunate experiment was going to die next. Because Wade was considered too important to discard and his man-made healing factor made him so hard to kill, Worm deemed him "King of the Dead Pool."

When he saw Wade stand up to the Attending and make fun of his name, he saw potential in there. Other prisoners were losing respect for Attending and were laughing behind his back. Worm believed that Wade could inspire others and be almost like a hero, but Wade berated him for thinking that and told him that he didn't care about anyone else. Later, Attending decided to gain Wade's obedience by threatening to lobotomize Worm. Worm knew he was done for no matter what Wade did, so he begged him not to give in. Wade threw insults at his captor until the Attending made good on his promise. As his brains were scrambled, Worm loudly shouted to Wade that this wasn't his fault and that he could make a difference.

Wade put Worm out of his misery and swore on his soul that he'd one day kill the Attending for this. Worm's ghost made sure he collected on that.

It's a mostly solid roster of characters with a couple odd inclusions. At least Evil Deadpool isn't in it. The quicker Marvel writers forget about that guy, the better.

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