Adaptation Displacement: Although Deadpool hasn't completely eclipsed the popularity of Deathstroke, the character whom Deadpool was originally a Captain Ersatz of, Deadpool is more famous and known among general audiences than Deathstroke.
Audience-Alienating Era: The mid-2000s up to the 2010s is when Deadpool was at his most divisive. On one hand, this was the period of time in which Deadpool went from a niche Ensemble Dark Horse to a mainstream sensation, but on the other hand; this era also alienated a lot of core comic fans. During this period, Deadpool's quirky, wacky traits were dialed up to eleven to cater to mainstream audiences who liked the funny, self-aware Deadpool; something that many older fans felt made the character one dimensional and overly reliant on funny gags and catchphrases instead of storytelling and character depth. This was also the era in which Deadpool started showing up in everything. Even many longtime fans became overwhelmed with the sheer amount of Deadpool content that was being pushed, with the character at one point having several concurrently running books and appearances in tons of other characters' books. The 2010s was also the era in which Deadpool merch exploded in popularity, with Deadpool shirts in particular being almost inescapable in places. Likewise, this was the point in time where pretty much every geek convention had a million Deadpool cosplayers running around at all times.
Badass Decay: Back in the 90s, Slayback and T-Ray were serious trouble for Deadpool. T-Ray rated as an Arch-Enemy, and Marvel sourcebooks tried to frame Slayback on the same level. Slayback mostly disappeared from the comics, and T-Ray went from nearly killing and causing a mental breakdown for Deadpool to barely holding his own in a fight. Under Daniel Way, they became closer to Butt Monkeys.
Bizarro Episode: "Wakandan Vacation", a Retraux comic posing as a 1968 story that remained unpublished until 2013. In it, Deadpool goes on a trippy and random adventure in the vein of cosmic/fantasy Silver Age comics. His search for four mysterious puzzle pieces takes him to such far-off places as the Savage Land and the Negative Zone, and pits him against several types of creatures. It ends with Odin taking Deadpool to Asgard, which he discovered runs on a cosmic baby's doody, then plopping him in the worst place he could think of — the Marvel Universe of the '90s. It's unclear how Deadpool got to the '70s, the setting for the first of these Retraux Deadpool comics, after that.
Fans disagree about whether Daniel Way's run was one of the definitive takes on Deadpool or derailed him in favor of becoming a Fountain of Memes. These viewpoints may or may not overlap with Flanderization.
Common Knowledge: Everyone "knows" Deadpool is a mutant because he's loosely part of the X-Men franchise. Despite recurring jokes about being a mutant and references to a "mutant" healing power, Wade never had the X-Gene; he was just a normal guy who went through a Super-Soldier program to become the badass he is today. His Healing Factor is derived from the mutant Wolverine, not part of his own genetic code. Part of this confusion stems from the movies making him a mutant for simplicity.
Creator Worship: Among Deadpool fans, Joe Kelly's first run, which was also the character's first ever full-fledged series is still considered some of the absolute best Deadpool material ever made.
Critical Dissonance: Daniel Way's run on Deadpool was disliked by most professional critics and derided as dreck aimed at the Lowest Common Denominator, but managed to sell very well and was one of the longest runs anyone has had on the character. Over time, however, some fans have started to agree more with critics and consider Way's run with Deadpool the absolute worst. They attribute its success to a counter-reaction on Deadpool's In Name Only adaptation in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Others feel that, while not bad, per se, and playing a major role in bringing Deadpool back into the mainstream, it has negatively impacted how many people perceive the character and some subsequent portrayals. Explanation To be specific, many people see Deadpool as a totally random schmuck running on Insane Troll Logic, rather than a well-rounded character.
Deadpool gets shipped with The Joker's ex-girlfriend, Harley Quinn, who shares a red-and-black color scheme, wacky sense of humor, and high level of violence.
Deadpool also gets shipped with Pinkie Pie, due to their similar personalities and fourth wall breaks. Them getting along in Death Battle helps with the shipping.
"Ninja Spider-Man", for the resemblance between the characters plus katanas.
"Poolverine", for Deadpool during his stint filling in for Wolverine in the book Wolverines.
"Memepool" is a derisive nickname given to more modern incarnations of Deadpool, specifically those that play up his wacky, random sense of humor while ignoring the deeper aspects of the character. Specifically, Deadpool as written by Daniel Way, as well as the Chimichanga-obsessed catchphrase machine that shows up on a lot of merch.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Due to their team-up comic, most fans ship Wade with Spider-Man over his many canon love interests. It doesn't hurt that Wade spends a good deal of said comic flirting with Pete and that they gradually become close friends.
Fountain of Memes: Deadpool is very quotable online, with examples like CHIMICHANGAS!, taunt button!, and house blowing up builds character. He's very quotable and bombastic.
Growing the Beard: Deadpool was just a Deathstroke rip-off with a cool costume and a sense of humor until Joe Kelly's run on Deadpool's first ongoing series got him far away from Rob Liefeld. He gained complexity in motivations and emotions, including struggling with his own selfishness and experiencing genuine trauma.
Harsher in Hindsight: Late in the Duggan/Posehn run, Deadpool decides to show kindness to Omega Red because they're both lab experiments who have had their minds messed with so many times they don't know which of their memories are real anymore, he even talked his wife out of killing him when she had him in her mercy. Omega Red went on to kill Genesis and the worst thing is Deadpool dosen't even him at the time due to the mind wipe.
In issue #2 of Cable & Deadpool, "Hey, if you looked like Ryan Reynolds crossed with a shar-pei, you'd understand!" Avi Arad had said even before pre-production of X-Men Origins: Wolverine that if Deadpool was ever portrayed onscreen, he wanted Ryan to get the role. Ryan Reynolds said this panel was in the first Deadpool-related comic he ever read. That line alone convinced him that he was born to play the part, and he campaigned hard for the better part of ten years. They re-did the joke in Deadpool by saying that he looked like "got bitten by a radioactive shar-pei."
To provoke Wolverine into fighting him, Deadpool attacked Kitty Pryde with a Shoryuken straight out of Street Fighter. In UDON's Street Fighter comic, Ryu (of the original Shoryuken) references the scene. In the video game Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Deadpool gets to use it.
In issue #2 of the first Deadpool ongoing series, Deadpool hung out in a tree watching the lovely Siryn sleep and mused that while doing so might oncehave been considered romantic, nowadays we call it stalking and find it creepy. Eight years later, Edward Cullen infamously did the same thing to Bella Swan and the series portrayed it as romantic.
Deadpool's Marvel NOW! series introduced two SHIELD agents as new supporting characters, including one named and modeled after Scott Adsit. The real Adsit would go on to voice another Marvel-owned character, Baymax, in Disney's Big Hero 6 movie and show. Another voice from that film, Fred's T.J. Miller, played the role of Weasel in two Deadpool Films.
Bullseye hero-worships Deadpool to the point where it starts smelling rather Ho Yay-ish in Dark Reign, going so far as to reimagine his childhood with Deadpool as something of his savior from the teachers and kids he hated. He cried when they said goodbye. Back in Joe Kelly's run, he mentioned he liked Deadpool for making him laugh. Deadpool is probably the nearest thing Bullseye has to a friend... when they aren't trying to kill each other, but what's a little attempted murder between them?
Captain Americablushes when he has to sit on Deadpool's lap in a packed car so Black Widow will be spared.
When Deadpool puts a bullet through Wolverine's head in Wolverine: Origins as Wolverine stabs Deadpool, they collapse against each other with arms around the other, crotch-to-crotch.
Hollywood Homely: Depending on the Artist, Deadpool is sometimes grotesquely hideous, even corpse-like, but sometimes just looks like a normal dude with bad acne.
Inferred Holocaust: Although Deadpool saved a bus full of preschoolers he put in Hulk's way during "Operation Annihilation," Hulk still destroyed the entire town in his pursuit of Deadpool. This is not brought up by Deadpool or anybody else. Oops.
Memetic Troll: Deadpool is unquestionably a Troll in-universe, and his fondness for Breaking the Fourth Wall helped take this reputation to Memetic Mutation level. Any fictional character you can come up with, there's probably fan-art out there of Deadpool being a dick to them while winking at the audience.
Joe Kelly, writer of Deadpool's first ongoing series, breathed life and depth into what was originally a one-dimensional rip-off character, introduced Deadpool's fourth wall breaks, mixed humor with drama, and created the Ensemble Dark Horse Blind Al.
Gerry Duggan, writer of Deadpool's third ongoing series following Daniel Way's run on the second, brought back seriousness to Deadpool (from time to time) rather than just being the silly joke man.
Deadpool's suit resembling that of Spider-Man was very much intentional. Rob Liefeld really wanted to draw Spidey, but the position was already filled and Liefeld was still fairly new at Marvel. His solution? Design a character that looked extremely similar to Webhead, tweak the patterns and color scheme, then add a copious amount of weapons, belts and pouches.
Only the Creator Does It Right: Fabian Nicieza is Deadpool's co-creator, writing his first appearances and mini-series. When he returned to the character for the well-loved Cable & Deadpool, his long-time fans cheered at getting their favorite take back and the run became many readers' introduction to the character.
Seasonal Rot: After 2013, Deadpool hit a high point in his life when he married Shiklah, the succubus Queen of Monsters, after Dracula hired him to retrieve her casket. In 2017, Marvel destroyed the Deadpool/Shiklah marriage with Shiklah choosing Dracula instead. Deadpool lost his in-universe goodwill in the Secret Empire event; the reality-warped Nazi Captain America tricked him into killing the SHIELD agent Phil Coulson, and Deadpool went along with the world conquest attempt on a phony team of Avengers loyal to HYDRA until the real Captain America returned. Deadpool fans were pissed that Deadpool's years-long journey to become a hero was rendered pretty much null-and-void. Then Marvel went further by having Deadpool's memories of everything post-1990s completely erased, pretty much reverting him back to an Anti-Hero.
Ugly Cute: Tying into Hollywood Homely, Deadpool can be pretty attractive sometimes, even if he's covered in tumor-induced scars. Some fans think he's straight-up cute as long as he's wearing the suit.
