Deadpool
| Wade Wilson Deadpool | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | The New Mutants #98 (February 1991) |
| Created by | Rob Liefeld Fabian Nicieza |
| In-story information | |
| Full name | Wade Winston Wilson |
| Species | Human mutate[a] |
| Team affiliations | X-Men Avengers Astonishing Avengers Deadpool Corps Frightful Four Great Lakes Initiative Heroes for Hire Mercs for Money[1] Secret Defenders Six Pack Thunderbolts Weapon X X-Force |
| Partnerships | Cable Domino Bob, Agent of Hydra Wolverine Spider-Man[2] |
| Notable aliases | Merc with a Mouth |
| Abilities |
|
Deadpool is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Co-created by artist Rob Liefeld and writer Fabian Nicieza, the character first appeared as a supervillain in The New Mutants #98 (cover dated February 1991) before recurring throughout X-Force and receiving his first miniseries, The Circle Chase, in 1993. Deadpool received his first ongoing solo title in 1997 and has since starred in numerous series, including Cable & Deadpool (2004–2008), in which he is frequently paired with his former enemy Cable.
Deadpool is the persona of Wade Wilson, a disfigured Canadian mercenary who underwent an experimental procedure that grafted an artificial healing factor onto his cancer-ridden cells, granting him superhuman regenerative abilities at the cost of severe physical scarring and chronic mental instability. Originally conceived as a parody of the DC Comics villain Deathstroke, Deadpool was further shaped by Liefeld's admiration for Spider-Man and Wolverine, characters he sought to evoke with his own creations. In addition to his healing factor, Deadpool is a master assassin, an expert swordsman and marksman, and is fluent in multiple languages.
The character's popularity has seen him featured in numerous other media outlets. In the 2004 series Cable & Deadpool, he refers to his own scarred appearance as "Ryan Renolds [sic] crossed with a Shar Pei".[3][4] Reynolds developed an interest in portraying the character after reading the comic,[5] which was ultimately realized in the X-Men film series, including X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), Deadpool (2016), and its sequels Deadpool 2 (2018) and the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Deadpool & Wolverine (2024).[6][7][8][9]
Publication history
Creation
Deadpool was created by artist Rob Liefeld and writer Fabian Nicieza, making his first appearance in The New Mutants #98, published December 11, 1990 with a cover date of February 1991.[10] Liefeld had joined The New Mutants in 1989, tasked with reviving a title that had fallen to approximately 100,000 monthly copies at a time when the core X-Men books were selling in the 500,000 range. Within months of his arrival, sales began climbing by roughly 50,000 copies per month, nearing the sales of the flagship X-Men series. In response, Marvel gave Liefeld with full creative control over plots and new characters, beginning with The New Mutants #98.[11]
The character's name was derived from the dead pool, an expression Liefeld heard from his parents that involves guessing when a celebrity will die.[12] Liefeld was drawn to the sound of the combined term. Deadpool's red and black costume design and personality were inspired by Spider-Man. Liefeld described the Spider-Man design as easy to draw and instantly recognizable.[12][11] He stated that Deadpool would be "Spider-Man, except with guns and swords—a jackass". The character was further integrated into existing Marvel mythology through his connection to Weapon X, the government program which gave Wolverine his powers. Liefeld conceived of Deadpool as an earlier, flawed product of the same program.[12]
Nicieza was hired to script the series from Liefeld's layouts and plot notes and was given wide latitude in shaping the character's dialogue. He recalled in a 2018 interview that Liefeld described the new character broadly as "Spider-Man meets Punisher" and left the specifics of the voice to Nicieza's discretion. Wanting a change of register after scripting several heavily serious characters, Nicieza made Deadpool an "annoying loudmouth". He initially differentiated the character's speech with hollow-bordered word balloons to signal something unusual about the voice; as lettering technology advanced these became yellow-filled caption boxes rendered in the rough-edged font Spookytooth. The vocal quality Nicieza had in mind was that of comedian Denis Leary.[10]
The character's civilian name, Wade Wilson, originated as an inside joke stemming from Nicieza's comparisons of Deadpool to DC Comics character Deathstroke (Slade Wilson), a fellow masked mercenary.[12] Nicieza has contested characterizations of Deadpool as a parody or copy of Deathstroke, arguing that the name was solely an affectionate nod, and that the two characters differ substantially in personality, backstory, and design.[10]
Early appearances and miniseries (1991–1996)
The New Mutants #98 sold approximately 650,000 copies, and reader response was substantially above the norm for the title: Nicieza recalled that the issue received roughly three to four hundred letters compared to the title's usual fifty, with approximately 75% requesting the character's return.[11][13] Marvel acted on this quickly: Deadpool was selected as one of five characters to receive a trading card inserted into X-Force #1 (August 1991), the rebranded successor to The New Mutants with largely the same cast and creative team.[13] Liefeld noted that with five million copies of X-Force #1 sold, each containing one of five different cards, approximately one million copies of the Deadpool card made it into readers' hands. Deadpool's profile was further elevated in X-Force #2, where he featured on the cover and occupied the first twelve pages of the issue. Liefeld attributed this prominent placement directly to fan demand following New Mutants #98. X-Force #1 and #2 were the best-selling comics in the United States in June and July 1991, respectively. Within months of Deadpool's creation, the toy company Toy Biz fast-tracked the character for his own action figure.[11] The character began guest-starring in other Marvel titles. His first appearance outside the X-Men line was in Nomad #4 (August 1992), also written by Nicieza. The first Deadpool story not written by Nicieza appeared in The Avengers #366 (December 1993), scripted by Marvel staff editor and freelance writer Glenn Herdling.[13]
In 1993, Deadpool received his first solo series, the four-issue miniseries Deadpool: The Circle Chase, written by Nicieza and pencilled by Joe Madureira. The series was the first sustained opportunity to develop the character's backstory: Wade Wilson was established as an ordinary mercenary who, on receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis, enrolled in the Weapon X program, which granted him a powerful healing factor but left him disfigured and mentally unstable.[12] Nicieza has cited his mother-in-law's battle with cancer as a personal influence on this aspect of the character, describing the hook as a blend of Bugs Bunny and Frankenstein: the thing that saved Wade's life also made him a pariah. A second miniseries, Deadpool: Sins of the Past (1994), was written by Mark Waid and pencilled by Ian Churchill after editorial rejected Nicieza's proposed follow-up, in which Wade's cancer recurred and he pursued the scientists responsible for his condition, on the grounds that it was too grim. Nicieza later described this rejection as one of the greatest frustrations of a thirty-year career.[13] Waid approached the character primarily as a comedy vehicle, describing his mental model as Bugs Bunny.[12]
Following the second miniseries, commercial interest in Deadpool declined sharply. Marvel Comics simultaneously experienced severe financial difficulties, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the mid-1990s, which disrupted editorial leadership across the company. Deadpool made approximately a dozen appearances across all Marvel titles in the following three years.[12]
First ongoing series (1997–2002)
In 1997, Marvel editor Matt Idelson, a fan of the character who secured approval to give it a renewed opportunity, commissioned an ongoing Deadpool series from writer Joe Kelly, who had no prior experience on a monthly title. Wizard Magazine noted that Kelly's appointment prompted internal skepticism, with colleagues questioning how the series could launch with an unestablished writer.[14] Kelly recalled that editorial expected the series might last only six issues. Rather than following the action-centered direction of earlier development pitches, Kelly made comedy and character depth the defining quality of his run. His central conception was of a character who "would like to do the right thing but is constitutionally incapable of pulling that off"; someone for whom doing good was a perpetual aspiration and a perpetual failure, with the universe reliably undermining any success. This interpretation proved influential and has remained a consistent element of the character across subsequent creative teams. Kelly's run also introduced several supporting figures that would recur through later decades of the character's publication history, including Blind Al, an elderly woman who lives with Wade Wilson, and Ajax, the antagonist responsible for Wade's disfigurement at Weapon X.[12] The series' regular artist for much of the run was Ed McGuinness, who had begun his career at Marvel with the Wolverine '96 Annual before joining Deadpool. McGuinness departed the title due to difficulties meeting deadlines.[15]
Earlier portrayals had established Deadpool as a darkly humorous combatant in the mode of a wisecracking action hero. Kelly developed the character into something more unhinged: manic, free-associative, and given to extended comedic monologues that drew on contemporary pop culture and showed no regard for narrative propriety. A frequently cited example of the run is Deadpool #11, in which Kelly and artist Pete Woods reworked a 1967 issue of The Amazing Spider-Man by replacing its original protagonists with Deadpool and Blind Al panel by panel, using the juxtaposition to comment satirically on the conventions of superhero storytelling.[12] The run also introduced a contested-identity subplot in which the supervillain T-Ray claimed to be the real Wade Wilson, asserting that Deadpool was an impostor who had stolen his identity, which complicated the character's backstory and was periodically revisited by later writers.[16] Kelly pitched a storyline tying the series into the "Heroes Return" event, in which Deadpool would have retrieved heroes trapped inside a dimensional construct and temporarily carried them under his arm, but the concept was rejected by editorial as too ambitious for a new series written by an unestablished author.[14]
Despite the creative energy Kelly brought to the title, sales were sluggish throughout his tenure. Wizard reported in late 1998 that the series had been "under the cancellation gun" until a coordinated marketing initiative, branded "Deadpool Month", reversed its trajectory.[17][18] Staged in October 1998 to coincide with the series' second-year milestone, Deadpool Month included a double-sized anniversary issue (Deadpool #23), a three-issue storyline building to a double-sized Deadpool #25, a promotional Deadpool #0 distributed through Wizard magazine, an Encyclopedia Deadpoolica reference publication, and a one-shot tie-in.[19] The success of the Daredevil/Deadpool Annual '97, a team-up issue that Marvel described as a benchmark, prompted the publisher to plan similar annual crossovers in subsequent years.[20]
Writer Christopher Priest succeeded Kelly in 1999. From his opening issue, Priest extended the metafictional dimension of the character, which Kelly had introduced more obliquely, with Deadpool being aware that he is a fictional character. Priest departed the series in 2000. By mid-2001, monthly sales had fallen to approximately 24,000 copies, against roughly 100,000 for the top-selling X-Men title of the same period.[12]
Writer Gail Simone was brought on in 2002. Her opening issue generated strong positive attention, but Marvel cancelled the series before her run could develop, replacing it with Agent X, also written by Simone. Agent X followed a similarly scarred and sardonic mercenary who was not Wade Wilson. The change coincided with a publisher-wide reorganisation of X-Men-related titles and an unspecified dispute involving one of Deadpool's co-creators, though the specifics were not publicly disclosed at the time. Simone departed Agent X after its seventh issue following creative disagreements with the incoming editor; the series was cancelled after fifteen issues, with Wade Wilson making a brief reappearance in its final installments.[12]
Cable & Deadpool and commercial stagnation (2004–2008)
In 2004, Nicieza returned to the character with Cable & Deadpool, a series that paired Deadpool with his former adversary Cable, across fifty issues. Nicieza recalled approaching the assignment by deliberately avoiding prior Deadpool material for approximately a decade, wanting to arrive at his own interpretation of the character before drawing on other writers' contributions. Though the series provided substantial material for both characters, it consistently ranked near the lower end of the top 100 monthly comics by sales. It was cancelled with its fiftieth issue in 2008, replaced by a new Cable solo series. Nicieza incorporated significant fourth-wall material into the run, including monthly recap pages written in Deadpool's voice.[21] By the time of its cancellation, the character's commercial standing appeared substantially diminished, and the prospects for further solo publication were uncertain.[12]
Resurgence (2008–2012)
With Cable & Deadpool concluded, Marvel editor Axel Alonso and writer Daniel Way, who had discussed the character's underperformance independently, collaborated on a new ongoing Deadpool series launched in September 2008. The new series was positioned as a tie-in to the publisher-wide "Secret Invasion" crossover event, with its opening arc depicting Deadpool infiltrating a Skrull facility at the behest of Nick Fury to retrieve intelligence on the Skrull queen Veranke.[22] Alonso's stated mandate was to foreground the "sophomoric, anarchic humor" he regarded as central to the character. Way's stated version of the brief was more succinct: the character had "flatlined," and the task was simply to generate reader interest.[12]
The series proved a significant commercial surprise. Its debut issue placed seventeenth on the monthly sales charts and sold out; several subsequent issues also required additional printings. Average monthly sales during the series' first year reached approximately 55,000 copies, which was substantially higher than the character had achieved in years. Those involved, including Way, acknowledged that the reasons for the turnaround were not fully understood at the time. One factor proposed by industry observers was the character's particular compatibility with emerging internet and social media culture: his referential, rapidly shifting comedic sensibility was seen as well-suited to the attention economy of online fandom.[12] Series artist Paco Medina worked alongside Way on the title, with Carlo Barberi filling in on individual arcs.[22]
Among Way's contributions to the character was a pair of internal voices represented by differently formatted caption boxes. Rather than the conventional angel-and-devil formulation, both voices were written as morally compromised, functioning to dramatise the character's mental instability and triangulate his moral perspective. Way described the guiding internal phrase for his approach as "Madness is his method."[12] This device was later incorporated into the character's official continuity in Deadpool vol. 3 Annual #1 (2014), where one of the voices was retroactively identified as belonging to the villain Madcap. Way also foregrounded Deadpool's cancer as thematic material, arguing that it was integral to the character's identity: the coexistence of a superhuman healing factor and an active cancer produced what Way called "a walking dead man ... perpetually living and dying."[22]
Marvel responded to the character's renewed commercial performance with an unprecedented multiplication of Deadpool-branded titles. Between 2009 and 2012, eleven distinct ongoing or limited series starring the character ran concurrently or in rapid succession, a volume unmatched in the publisher's history for a single character. These included Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth (2009), written by Victor Gischler; Deadpool Team-Up (2009), written by Fred Van Lente; and Deadpool Corps (2010), again by Gischler, which centred on alternate-universe iterations of Deadpool. Two titles were published under adult-targeted imprints: Deadpool: Wade Wilson's War, written by Duane Swierczynski, and Deadpool MAX, written by David Lapham. The limited series Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe sold strongly and expanded the character's readership beyond regular Marvel continuity. Industry analysts cited Deadpool as having become one of the publisher's most commercially significant properties. The character's popularity also translated into substantial merchandising revenue and a prominent presence at comics conventions, where Deadpool cosplay became among the most frequently observed.[12]
Marvel Now! (2012-2015)
As part of Marvel's 2012 "Marvel NOW!" line-wide initiative, Deadpool was relaunched under writers Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn. The assignment originated when Alonso emailed both writers directly, asking them to connect with editor Jordan D. White to pitch for a new ongoing. The series had previously been discussed as a possible miniseries, but the timing had never aligned. Duggan and Posehn prepared multiple story pitches; their opening arc, "Dead Presidents", in which Deadpool is recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. to re-kill the supernaturally reanimated corpses of every former United States president, was the last pitch they submitted and the one they least expected Marvel to accept.[23]
The first three issues of the relaunched series went to multiple printings. At convention appearances shortly after launch, Duggan noted that a significant proportion of readers described the new series as either their first Deadpool comic or their first in a long while, suggesting the relaunch had attracted readers beyond the character's existing base. The opening arc was drawn by Tony Moore; Mike Hawthorne joined the series as artist from issue #8 onwards.[23]
One of the more notable structural decisions Duggan and Posehn made at launch was to depart from the caption-box approach Way had used throughout his run. Posehn acknowledged in a pre-launch interview that Deadpool "doesn't talk to himself anymore", a change that prompted early complaints from readers who missed the thought balloons.[24] Rather than restoring the device mechanically, the writers developed an organic narrative replacement: in the second arc, the consciousness of S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Emily Preston becomes lodged in Deadpool's mind following her death in the field, providing the internal counterpoint previously served by the caption voices. Duggan described the writers' tonal target with Ghostbusters as a reference point: comedy that did not preclude emotional stakes or character depth.[23]
Major storylines across the run included "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," in which Deadpool's backstory was substantially expanded and his friendship with Steve Rogers was established; the digital-first miniseries Deadpool: The Gauntlet (2014), written by Duggan and Posehn with art by Reilly Brown, which introduced Shiklah, Queen of the Undead, and culminated in her marriage to Wade; and a tie-in to the "Original Sin" event, which disclosed that Deadpool had been unknowingly manipulated into killing his own parents. The run's final issue was numbered #250 (a renumbering from issue #45) to leapfrog Detective Comics before that series could reach its own milestone legitimately, itself treated in coverage of the time as a characteristically Deadpool-esque provocation.[23]
All-New, All-Different Marvel and Despicable Deadpool (2015–2018)
Following the conclusion of the previous volume in the "Secret Wars" crossover event, Duggan launched a new Deadpool series in October 2015 as part of Marvel's "All-New, All-Different" initiative. Despite the solo writing credit, Duggan confirmed that Posehn remained a creative collaborator on the title, with Posehn's increasing commitments elsewhere accounting for the change in billing. Series artist Mike Hawthorne and inker Terry Pallot continued from the prior volume, with Scott Koblish providing special issues, now reimagined as flash-forwards rather than the period-pastiche flashbacks he had produced previously.[25]
The series opened with an eight-month time jump into the characters' future. Deadpool was now one of the Marvel Universe's most publicly visible and commercially successful heroes, and, more surprisingly, an Avenger. This elevated status came with costs. Deadpool was now more publicly accountable and more financially entwined with the Avengers than ever before, and the series used that exposure to put pressure on him in ways earlier volumes had not. Steve Rogers served as a significant supporting character. Their friendship, which Duggan had seeded in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and developed in a Death of Wolverine one-shot, was here placed at the center of Wade's professional life: Rogers's Avengers Unity Squad was partly financed by the revenue Deadpool generated through merchandising and licensing deals.[25]
In early 2017, the crossover "Till Death Do Us...", written by Duggan with artist Salva Espin, ran across Deadpool #28–29 and continued through tie-in issues of Spider-Man/Deadpool and Deadpool & the Mercs for Money. The arc brought Shiklah and Wade's marriage to its breaking point, driven by a border conflict between Monster Metropolis and the surface world. From May 2017, Deadpool was drawn into the "Secret Empire" event, in which a Hydra sleeper agent had supplanted Steve Rogers. Deadpool's loyalty to the corrupted Rogers, and the deaths and betrayals that resulted, were the subject of the arc immediately following the crossover.[26] The volume concluded with Despicable Deadpool (#287–300), a branding introduced after "Secret Empire" to reflect Wade's severely diminished standing in the Marvel Universe and his attempts to operate in its aftermath.
Skottie Young and Kelly Thompson (2018–2021)
In March 2018, Marvel announced a new Deadpool series as part of its "Fresh Start" publishing initiative, written by Skottie Young and drawn by Nic Klein, with Deadpool 2 (2018) releasing in cinemas weeks before the series' June 6, 2018 launch. Young disclosed that he had first attempted to secure the Deadpool assignment in 2013, before the Posehn-Duggan run had concluded, but had been told the character was already committed to another creative team. He subsequently channelled elements of that interest into his Rocket Raccoon run.[27]
Series editor Jake Thomas framed the new volume as a deliberate reset after years of Deadpool functioning as a high-profile Avenger: "Deadpool's gone through A LOT these past few years, and while he's accomplished a lot, the merc with the mouth may have taken his eye off his mercenary business for a bit too long."[28] The series returned Wade to private mercenary work, with Young employing shorter story arcs and a faster narrative pace. Klein, primarily known as a painted-cover artist prior to the series, described his approach as focusing on comedic visual timing; experimenting with camera angles and panel pacing to land jokes as well as the script's action.[27] The series ran for fifteen issues.
A new Deadpool volume launched in November 2019, written by Kelly Thompson and drawn by Chris Bachalo. Thompson had previously written Deadpool in ensemble titles and noted the specific challenge this presented: the character's tendency to dominate any scene made him difficult to deploy as a supporting player, and she described writing a solo title as "a relief" by comparison.[29]
The series' central conceit had Deadpool become the king of Marvel's monsters, who had relocated from their traditional offshore habitats to Staten Island. Thompson described the premise as using literal monsters to give physical form to the metaphorical: "Wade has worn so many different roles over the years and I think he's a character that really looks inward at himself…even if he pretends he doesn't. So being a King of Monsters brings up a lot of questions that you maybe don't want to examine for yourself…but probably should." Kraven the Hunter, newly redesigned, served as the antagonist of the opening arc, drawn to Staten Island by the prospect of hunting monsters. The monster-based framework also prompted Thompson to incorporate Elsa Bloodstone, whom she described as having not been part of the initial plan but as an obvious fit once the story's shape was clear, developing into a romantic storyline between the two characters.[29] Jeff the Land Shark, a character Thompson had introduced in her West Coast Avengers run, also featured prominently in the series. Thompson described Deadpool as "one of the most lonely characters in the entire Marvel Universe" and oriented the run's emotional core around that quality.[30] The series concluded after ten issues in January 2021.
Alyssa Wong (2022–2023)
A new Deadpool ongoing series launched on November 2, 2022, written by Alyssa Wong and drawn by Martín Cóccolo, with colors by Neeraj Menon. Wong described the assignment as originating in a conversation with editor Jordan White about which X-books she would be interested in writing: discussing what excited her about the character, she found herself articulating the premise for the series before recognizing that the opportunity was already hers.[31]
Wong identified body horror and shoujo romance as the conceptual core of her run. The horror dimension drew on Deadpool's healing factor as a vehicle for suffering rather than protection; the premise being, as Wong put it, that there are "plenty of interesting things you can put someone through without killing them," and that exploiting the character's unkillability until it became "awful and terrifying" was productive creative territory. She cited the Japanese horror manga of Junji Ito, particularly Tomie, as a key influence.[32] The romantic dimension centered on a new character, Valentine Vuong, introduced as both Deadpool's point of contact with the series' central organization and as a love interest, with Wong framing the emotional stakes as Deadpool's difficulty accepting being genuinely liked by someone.[32][33]
The central antagonistic organization of the series was the Atelier, a secretive, high-end assassins' collective with strict membership criteria and a pronounced sense of personal style, which Wong described as what would result if a group of elite killers decided to dress like the Hellfire Gala every day. The opening arc's assigned target was Doctor Octopus. The series also reintroduced Harrower, a villain co-created by Steve Orlando and Carmen Carnero, whose abilities in biological fusion Wong identified as particularly suited to a body-horror narrative.[33] Cóccolo was praised by Wong in multiple interviews for his range across tenderness and extreme physical action, and for his comedic visual timing. Wong approached the run as a clean slate accessible to new readers while retaining continuity with prior character developments, including Princess, a symbiote introduced by the preceding creative team, and the aftermath of Deadpool's dissolved marriage to Shiklah.[34]
Cody Ziglar and Benjamin Percy (2024-present)
A further Deadpool ongoing series launched in 2024, written by Cody Ziglar and drawn by Rogê Antônio, with colors by Guru-eFX. The series was positioned in part to capitalize on the theatrical release of Deadpool & Wolverine. Ziglar has attributed his securing of the assignment to a short story he contributed to the Seven Slaughters miniseries, which generated sufficient confidence at Marvel for the ongoing to be offered. He cited Wong's preceding run as a direct influence on his own pitch, particularly the introduction of Valentine Vuong and Princess.[35]
Ziglar's approach centered on Deadpool as a struggling small businessman rather than as a high-profile hero or Avenger; the premise being what happens to a character of Deadpool's reputation and skillset when the main business he has to manage is keeping solvent. A significant supporting role was given to Deadpool's daughter Ellie, now a teenager who actively resists her father's attempts to keep her at a safe distance, insisting on a real relationship with him. The run's central antagonist was Death Grip, a new villain who had built a cult around the concept of death; a villain whose entire worldview centered on death, a natural antagonist for a protagonist who cannot die.[35] Guest appearances were planned across the run, including Spider-Gwen, the Hulk, and Wolverine. Concurrent with Ziglar's ongoing, Deadpool's co-creator Rob Liefeld produced Deadpool Team-Up (2024), a limited series pairing Deadpool with obscure and legacy Marvel characters, including Crystar and Dragon Lord, as well as Wolverine, Spider-Gwen, and Liefeld creations Major X and Lady Anime. Liefeld described the project in retrospective terms as his likely final Deadpool work, framing it as analogous to the 1970s Marvel Team-Up format in which popular characters were used to spotlight lesser-known corners of the Marvel roster.[36]
Writer Benjamin Percy, who had previously written Deadpool in supporting roles across his X-Force run, was commissioned to write a ten-issue limited series, Deadpool/Wolverine, drawn by Josh Cassara, with Mark Basso as editor. Percy described the assignment as a natural extension of a long creative partnership with Cassara, who had collaborated with him on X-Force and