Deadpool is a 2022 comic book series from Marvel Comics, a solo series starring the titular Deadpool. It's written by Alyssa Wong, with art by Martin Coccolo and color art by Neeraj Menon.
Set in the shared Marvel Universe, it follows the Merc' with a Mouth's misadventures as he tries to boost his career by joining a league of elite assassins and mercenaries. He's got guns, he's got a costume. He's got a Healing Factor and a Healthy Disregard for the Fourth Wall. What else does ol' Deadpool need?
Oh, and he's also acquired an instant crush on one of those elite assassins. But that won't be a problem at all, will it?
Deadpool himself is also a member of X-Force, and this series is considered to be part of the wider X-Men line, one of several new books launched for Destiny of X, the third phase of the X-Men's long-running Krakoan Age saga.
The first issue was published November 2, 2022. The series ended with issue #10, published August 23, 2023.
Deadpool (2022) contains the following tropes:
- Admiring the Abomination: Doctor Octopus seems fascinated, not horrified, when the symbiote starts to tear itself free of Deadpool's chest.
- Alliterative Name: Deadpool's new Love Interest, Valentine Vuong.
- All There in the Manual: Alyssa Wong and Geoff Shaw's Deadpool story from the New Mutants 40th anniversary special serves as a prelude to the run. It sets up Deadpool's invitation to 'audition' for the Atelier (as well as why he accepts the invitation: He's just been evicted from Krakoa by Magik for endangering her students at beach day).
- Bait-and-Switch: The fourth issue ends with Cletus Kasady being resurrected via cloning and reclaiming the Carnage symbiote from Deadpool, making it look like he'll be a major antagonist and furthering their rivalry... only for the Cletus clone to be unceremoniously eaten by Renesmee, who emerges from Deadpool in the form of a giant symbiote hyena.
- Body Horror: The symbiote that is gestating within Deadpool causes arms to burst out of his sides, and later his mouth, something which visibly disgusts and horrifies Doctor Octopus.
- The Bus Came Back: Harrower, last seen in Steve Orlando's The Curse of the Man-Thing mini-series from 2021, makes her return.
- Call-Back: A flashback shows that the Harrower obtained her sample symbiote in the chaos at the end of the Absolute Carnage event.
- Chest Burster: The symbiote implanted into Deadpool in the first issue starts by manifesting a fanged head that looks a lot like the original chest burster, then ends the issue by bloodily thrusting an arm out of Deadpool's chest. The fourth issue ends with a clone of Cletus Kasady bursting from Deadpool's chest.
- *Click* Hello: In the final issue, Lord Deathstrike disrupts his sister's attempt to rescue Princess by sneaking up behind her and putting a gun to her head, announcing his presence by cocking it. It doesn't stop her beating him up.
- Distracted by the Sexy: The Atelier partnered Deadpool with Lady Deathstrike, who was present during the mission briefing about assassinating Doctor Octopus, but Wade was too enamored with Valentine Vuong to notice her. It's not until the second issue's Once More, with Clarity replay of the scene that Deathstrike's presence is revealed.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Harrower takes a long moment to appreciate Cletus Kasady's toned physique and even flirts with him... right before he's eaten alive.
- Elective Mute: Lord Deathstrike is positively chatty when talking to his sister, noting that he refuses to speak in front of others because he'll only talk to people worth his time. When they're at the same table but other Atelier members are in the room, he texts her rather than speaking.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Drop is disgusted when it looks like Deadpool might be cheating on Valentine with Lady Deathstrike, calling Wade a "two-timing scumbag."
- Failure Gambit: After discovering that he's become a potential target for the Atelier, Doctor Octopus secretly takes out a contract on himself, working with Valentine to ensure that the killers they send - Deadpool and Lady Deathstrike - have no hope of succeeding. Once they fail, the Atelier won't bother him again.
- Femme Fatalons: In addition to Lady Deathstroke's adamantium claws, Valentine Vuong has long syringes for fingernails that accentuate their nature as a master assassin specializing in chemical concoctions. And despite having needles for fingernails, they're not Cumbersome Claws: Valentine is still able to pick up and hold things, and even fire a pistol without problems.
- Gemstone Assault: Mirror can fire crystal projectiles from their armor. Some of them are also Trick Bullets that explode after a short time delay.
- Gem Tissue: Valentine mentions that the needles on their fingers are their actual nails, and their arms are later revealed to be made of a crystal or glass-like substance when one of them is shattered and broken off by Doc Ock.
- Given Name Reveal: Lord Deathstrike's first name, Kazuo, is finally revealed in conversation with his sister.
- Gravity Master: Drops is initially shown fighting with a Laser Blade, but then he reveals that he actually specializes in controlling gravity, using his powers to sink Deadpool to the bottom of a twelve story building while fighting him, Lady Deathstrike, and Princess.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Harrower's offshoot of the Carnage symbiote starts out as a ravenous killing machine, but then Deadpool is able to domesticate it with a serum that was provided by Valentine. When separated from the serum, the symbiote returns to Harrower, but after Harrower uses it to grow a clone of Cletus Kasady, the symbiote apparently decides that it likes Deadpool more, so it kills the Cletus copy and then sides with Deadpool against Harrower and Doc Ock.
- Humanoid Abomination: Ms. Gingko is an ancient entity from another dimension. She normally manifests in the form of an Asian woman wearing a traditional Korean hanbok. Data pages and dialogue suggest she's an eldritch horror that's not remotely human.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Deadpool's first encounter with the Harrower begins when one of her plant tentacles unexpectedly stabs him In the Back, making a mess of his chest when it pushes through.
- Love at First Sight: Deadpool falls for Valentine the moment he sees them. It's not yet clear if the feeling's reciprocated.
- Magitek: The Harrower confirms that she uses this approach to create her monsters.Harrower: Spellification. A little biofusion, a little biofission, a little magic. Why limit yourself to just one?
- Mistaken for Cheating: While spying on Deadpool, Drop sees Lady Deathstrike approach him while he's holding a bouquet of flowers and comes to the conclusion that he's cheating on Valentine. In reality, he's asking Lady Deathstrike for help with his and Valentine's upcoming date night.
- Modified Clone: Harrower obtains a sample of the Carnage symbiote that she modifies using her bioengineering powers in an attempt to gestate a clone loyal to her, implanting it into Deadpool so that it can take advantage of his healing factor to feed on his innards.
- Mugging the Monster: When Doctor Octopus discusses plans with The Harrower in a busy restaurant, he's mistaken for a Doc Ock cosplayer by some guys who angrily complain about his tentacles taking up too much space. It goes predictably badly for them when the supervillains retaliate.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: After a short time, the symbiote extends two arms from around Wade's kidneys and they dual wield his katana according to his will. They come in real handy against Doctor Octopus, who usually exemplifies the trope.
- Murder, Inc.: The Atelier are a league of elite assassins and mercenaries. Deadpool would quite like to join, as would Lady Deathstrike.
- Oh, Crap!: In the fourth issue, Valentine Vuong resurrects Lady Deathstrike and then casually blackmails her into helping them rescue Deadpool. At which point Lady Deathstroke realizes, to her horror, that Valentine was only pretending to be a handler and is much higher up in the Atelier food chain.
- Only a Flesh Wound: Doc Ock lets out a yelp of pain, but is otherwise completely fine after being shot in both shoulders (with blood spurts visible and everything) by Valentine.
- Playing with Syringes:
- Harrower has been experimenting with the sample of symbiote biomatter she acquired during Carnage's latest romp and is trying to engineer something to extinguish humanity from it. To this end she's kidnapped Wade as his healing factor is the only thing that could keep her latest creation alive until it fully develops.
- Valentine is a (nominally, relative to Wade's dilemma) benevolent example; having syringes on their fingertips that are later said to be their nails. Their power is to synthesize any chemical they want to inject, which has obvious applications to their line of work, but they use them to help Wade manage the symbiote gestating within him with tranquilizers.
- Once More, with Clarity: The second issue revisits Deadpool's initial briefing with the Atelier, revealing that the first issue's version was filtered through Deadpool's Distracted by the Sexy. Lady Deathstrike was also there, and was assigned as his partner... but wasn't shown or mentioned because Deadpool was so focused on Valentine.
- Race Against the Clock: For his audition to join them, the Atelier give Deadpool forty-eight hours to assassinate Doctor Octopus.
- Resurrect the Villain: After Harrower leaves Deadpool and the Carnage symbiote clone to gestate inside of a giant flower for a while, the symbiote produces a fully-developed duplicate of Cletus Kasady.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Doctor Octopus decides that things are too weird for him after he sees a giant symbiote dog fighting a giant plant dog and tries to leave Deadpool and Harrower to fight it out between themselves."God, this is getting weird. Forget revenge. I'm just going to... go, while the going is good."
- Shipper on Deck: The symbiote gestating in Deadpool wants him to hook up with Valentine possibly more than the merc himself does. When they're about to kiss it gives out a drawn out yes that becomes a scream of frustration when Harrower kills the mood.
- Shout-Out:
- Deadpool nicknames the Carnage symbiote clone inside him Renesmee, after Bella's dhampir child from The Twilight Saga — which was eating her from the inside out like the symbiote is doing to Wade.
- This exchange from issue 3:Valentine: ...don't forget that your backpack is full of drugs.
Passing kid: DRUGS?!
Deadpool: And none for you, Gretchen Wieners! - In the fourth issue, the Carnage symbiote references the "Sorry, mommy?" meme when killing Lady Deathstrike.
- The Spook: The only information that Sage was able to find about Valentine was all contradictory, which unnerves her, with the end of her report on Valentine stating, "The gates to Krakoa are open to all mutants, but I have a bad feeling about this one."
- String Theory: In the first issue, Deadpool has a wall plastered with linked photos and notes, plans for his assassination of Doctor Octopus. Although it's also acquired some scribbled hearts and photos of Valentine, who seems to be distracting him.
- Textplosion: As with other Krakoan Age comics, there are some 'data pages' that are mostly, or entirely, plain text. This being Deadpool, he's also annotated some of them with red scribbled notes.
- You Kill It, You Bought It: The reason why it looks like the Horned Emperor has led the Atelier for centuries is because whoever kills the Horned Emperor becomes the new Horned Emperor.
- Your Costume Needs Work: When Doctor Octopus and Harrower discuss their plans in a restaurant, he's mistaken for a bad cosplayer and the guys in the next seats angrily complain about being jostled by his tentacles. This ends badly for them.
