43 – DEADPOOL
4 May
Subject: Deadpool
Real Name: Unrevealed
Height: 6′ Weight: 185 lbs.
First Appearance: New Mutants #98, February 1991
Power Ratings:
- Energy Projection: 1/7
- Mental Powers: 1/7
- Strength: 3/7
- Fighting Ability: 7/7
- Intelligence: 4/7
When he appeared, he was Spider-Man with guns, Rob Liefeld style, ridiculed as one of the worst symptoms of 90′s comic book shallow excess. And yet now, 20 years after inception, Deadpool has no less than 5 ongoing monthly comic series, the star of one of the year’s most anticipated video games, and got a terrible translation to the big screen portrayed by Green Lantern (and yet his movie is highly anticipated if the unproduced script makes it to the finish line).
Deadpool is also one of the most famous X-characters incorrectly commonly identified as a mutant, when, in fact, his healing factor was given to him by the Weapon X program, versus Wolverine, Sabretooth, and Maverick, all of whose healing factors were a primary reason for their being selected into the program to begin with. Since I’m only vaguely familiar with Deadpool’s story after the early 90′s, I’m not sure what about him other than chronic sociopathy made him an ideal candidate for Weapon X.
AAANYWAY, Jim Lee’s Deadpool makes him look plenty badass, but in the wrong way: specifically, he looks too dignified. Deadpool should be bouncing all over the place, triple wielding guns and swords, and giving the audience the finger. The card gives his unique meta-personality few outlets; but then again, by this point Deadpool wasn’t yet such an in-joke, so I guess I can’t be too hard.
His Power Ratings are appropriate only as far as you don’t compare it to fellow Weapon-X-er Wolverine: Deadpool has one extra point in strength, and twice as many points in Intelligence, both of which sounds insulting.
tags:
Hmmm…did you mean to say “and got a terrible translation to the big screen by the same actor that would later portray Green Lantern”? The sentence was a bit cut off.
Anyway, yeah, Deadpool was not that fun at this point, and came from the bland, sword-n-guns-n-shoulderpad hero mill that the Weapon X program trotted out around this time.
PS: Are you going to do a similar web series on any other Marvel or X-Men themed cards?
I look forward to these updates, and was wondering if you would tackle the ’94 series, painted Fleer Ultra X-Men card series.
Fleer Ultra X-Men were totally my favorite!
I wasn’t as familiar with those but I just looked at some again on google, and I’d say the art holds up even worse than the 92 X-Mens. The painted style either dulled the edge of the 90′s aesthetic, or at least makes the terrible anatomy look even worse when translated to more of a 3d art style.
Sadly the extent of my collecting (if you can call it that; original trading cards were an expensive commodity in the Philippines where I grew up, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I had no more than 100 original versions of all the Marvel card series-es put together) only went as far as the series 2 Marvel series (the first appearance of the Power Ratings) and the X-Men cards. I have some experience with the series 1′s (I found the art to be pretty nondynamic and the lack of ratings boring), series 3′s (I was developing fatigue by this point), and the painted ones (including the Joe Jusko series), but it would probably be even more disingenuous to continue reviewing cards that I have even less familiarity with
Deadpool is awesome. He was chosen by Weapon X because of the cancer that was killing him, and actually wasn’t a sociopath until Weapon X gave him his healing factor, which constantly makes his brain heal itself so he doesn’t die from brain cancer, thereby making him less than sane.
Yeah but why was he special among people with cancer?