Deadpool is a Different Kind of Comic Hero, for Many Reasons

I have recently become a big fan of Deadpool. I got my first Deadpool comic book for Christmas this past year, and loved the movie that came out back in February. He is easily now in my top three Marvel hero favorites, along with Iron Man and Spider-Man, of course.

For those of you that don't know Deadpool, he is technically an anti-hero. He is a mercenary, often called "The Merc With the Mouth". He talks a lot, and works for money. He is also insane, but has his moments of clarity. He often switches sides, helps other heroes to do more good than bad. His most notable team-ups are withe The X-Men, Thor, Spider-Man, and Cable. Deadpool also frequently breaks the fourth wall. He knows he is in a comic book in the Marvel universe.

Deadpool's origin story is actually rather tragic. His childhood changes depending on what comic you read, but no version is a good one. As a young man, he is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He leaves the love of his life. Vanessa, and becomes an experiment with Weapon X, the same people that made Wolverine, in hopes of getting a cure to his cancer. He goes through terrible torture that leaves him permanently scarred all over his body. After he is almost killed, his healing factor kicks in that makes him pretty much immortal, unable to be killed easily. There is of course more to the story. If you are interested google him, or read a comic, because they are pretty great.

Deadpool is fascinating for many reasons. He represents a lot of marginalized groups. What do I mean when I say marginalized groups? According to encylopedia.com, these are groups that are often pushed to the outside of society, and kept there.

Firstly he is disabled, both mentally and physically. Deadpool has tried to kill himself many times in the comics, yet his healing factor always brings him back. He has severe PTSD, depression, and often talks to voices in his head in the comics, eluding to the fact that he is Schizophrenic. These voices often appear as Yellow or White boxes in the comics.



Physically, he is scarred and deformed, and even faces discrimination and bullying at times, something that many disabled people face.

 He also is the victim of rape at the hands of Typhoid Mary in his earlier comics. It is rather uncommon when light is shown on male victims or rape in general, even less so at the hands of a women. The fact that Marvel tackles tough issues such as sexual violence is important, because this shows that even heroes face the same problems many people do. For triggering purposes, I will not put up the comic strip that deal with Deadpool facing his assault. It's rather heartbreaking.

However, seeing that this is a blog about gender and sexuality, I'm going to talk about just that: Deadpool's sexuality. Deadpool has been confirmed Pansexual. What is pansexuality? It's the sexual, emotional, or romantic love towards those of any sex or gender identity, according to stophomophobia.com On top of the marginalized groups that he can relate to before, this is another one.

Deadpool has never had any romantic relationships with anyone other than the opposite gender, but he often shows attraction towards other male heroes and pretty much anyone he finds attractive. Here is a couple comic strips detailing what I am talking about.

 

This is a real variant comic cover, by the way. 

There is a lot more where this came from. I guess what makes Deadpool's sexuality interesting is that he is in a typically hetero normative universe. Hetero normative societies promote heterosexuality over other forms of sexual orientations. Let's face it, straight relationships and damsels in distress often make up the core of other heroes' stories. Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy anyone?

We have not seen a queer Marvel character come to the big screen until Deadpool. However, those that have only seen the movie may have not noticed his sexuality, and the movie has gotten a lot of negative flack for that. People obviously enjoy Marvel movies, but don't read comics. I would suggest that in the next Deadpool movie we see some evidence of Deadpool's sexuality in order to bring attention to this part of Deadpool that makes him different. Ryan Reynolds, mastermind behind the Deadpool movie, even said that he would like Deadpool to have a boyfriend in the second movie!

There are not a lot of queer characters in the Marvel universe, and the fact that he can appeal to so many different kinds of people is what makes him different. I think Marvel knows that it needs to do to appeal to more people, and this is a great way to do just that.

Long story short, Deadpool is the best.