IX
WHEN YOU KNOW YOU’RE JUST A COMIC BOOK CHARACTER: DEADPOOL
Joseph J. Darowski
You are reading an essay in a book. I was, at one point, writing the words on this page, but that was a long time ago and probably in a place far away. Now the words are just ink on a page, and I have nothing to do with them. Please do not get confused. I know that right now I’m speaking as though I was a voice in your head, in the present, but really I’m likely napping. Or playing video games. Or I could be working hard on another scholarly article (I need to say something like that in case this article is read when I’m going for tenure . . . which could be at this very moment if you are a member of a certain committee). The important thing that you need to know is that when I wrote and revised and revised this article, I was writing in a way that would make Deadpool proud: I was a consummate postmodern. Of course, Deadpool is a fictional character and therefore can’t be proud, but you already know that. Or do you?
Deadpool is not one of the most iconic comic book characters ever created, so perhaps you’ve never heard of him. Comic book superheroes have existed for decades, and although literally thousands of characters have been created, publishers still seek to introduce new, unique characters. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman introduced the superheroic archetypes in the 1930s and 1940s, and more than seventy years after Superman first appeared on the cover of Action Comics #1, superheroes continue to evolve. As creators seek to find ways to make their characters stand out from the spandexed crowd, superhero character traits stray further from the archetype embodied by the archetypes of the genre. Deadpool has a quirk different from Superman’s kryptonite, Batman’s lack of powers, or Wonder Woman’s Amazon origins: Deadpool knows he is a character in a comic book. Under the hands of skillful comic book creators, this postmodern character trait has been used not only for humor, but to explore and raise philosophical questions.
Definitions of Postmodernism and Ontology, and a Brief History of Deadpool
Let’s go ahead and acknowledge that on some level, the term postmodern seems oxymoronic. Many students sitting in college classrooms, perhaps even you, have paused to ask, “Post-modern? How can anything be happening after the current moment?” The “modernism” in postmodernism, however, does not refer to the present time but to a movement that immediately proceeded postmodernism. Postmodernism, then, is a movement that reacted to modernism. As Edward Quinn (1920-1997) explained,
Where modernist literature was characterized by its commitment to the value of a unified, coherent work of art employing symbol and myth, exhibiting alienation from ordinary life, postmodernism celebrates incoherence, discontinuity, parody, popular culture, and the principle of metafiction.
1Postmodernism can be found in any art form, from architecture to painting, from film to comic books. Quinn further noted that postmodernism often has a “playful element” that is used to explore deeper issues. This playful element is on full display in the Deadpool comic books, as Deadpool’s awareness that he is a comic book character is generally used to deliver the punch line of a gag.
Ontology has a decidedly longer history than postmodernism. Ontology is a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of being. A basic definition is provided in The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy:
Ontology deals with the essential characteristics of being itself (of Aristotle’s being qua being), and asks questions such as “What is or what exists?” “What kind of thing exists primarily?” and “How are different kinds of being related to one another?”
2The word
ontology is “derived from the Greek word for being, but a seventeenth-century coinage for the branch of metaphysics that concerns itself with what exists.”
3 Many philosophers before the seventeenth century considered ontological issues. In Western philosophy, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is a famous experiment in ontology. Plato imagines prisoners who have never seen anything but shadows play across a cave wall. These shadows are the prisoners’ “reality,” because they experience nothing else. If these prisoners were freed to become enlightened to the true reality, full of colors and depth, would they accept this new reality or believe only the world of shadows? Plato implies in this allegory that there are levels of existence to be explored, and as people learn more, they can leave behind their old existence to explore a new understanding of the world around them.
Postmodernism and ontology are related in many ways. Postmodern texts make the reader aware of the factors involved in bringing the text and the narrative into existence, while ontology considers the nature of existence. Narratives inherently create a universe, often inviting the reader or the viewer to become immersed in the fictional world. As a narrative medium, comic books require the reader to actively participate in the creation of a narrative, to aid in bringing the story into existence. In the adventures of Deadpool, the writers and the artists use the comic book medium in a postmodern manner to explore ontological questions.
Deadpool was created by writer Fabian Nicieza and artist Rob Liefeld for Marvel Comics in 1991. His first appearance was in the New Mutants, a comic book featuring a junior team of X-Men characters, and the character has been closely associated with the X-Men franchise of the Marvel Comics universe ever since. Deadpool was initially a villainous mercenary who would perform any job if the money was right. Through the events of two miniseries, however, Deadpool: The Circle Chase (1993) and Deadpool: Sins of the Past (1994), as well as two monthly comic book series, Deadpool (1997-2002) and Cable & Deadpool (2004-2008), Deadpool has become a somewhat more noble character. At times, Deadpool has even gone on quests to become a respected hero, although he still lacks the clear moral and ethical motivations of most superheroes.
Initially, Deadpool did not demonstrate what has become one of his defining characteristics: the knowledge that he is a character in a comic book. When Deadpool was introduced in 1991, the most distinguishing aspect of the character was his wise cracking pop culture-referencing attitude. Yet as any comic book fan knows, gun-toting characters with strange muscular proportions who are unafraid to joke around while killing people were prevalent in comics at the time. Thus, there was not much to distinguish Deadpool, the so-called Merc-with-a-mouth, from these other early-1990s creations.
As Deadpool began to headline his own comic books, depth and layers were added to the character. When Joe Kelley began writing Deadpool, incidents of the metafiction started to occur. Most particularly, Deadpool began to reference the fact that he was a comic book character, with allusions to writers, panels, word balloons, and an audience. Later writers, such as Christopher Priest, Gail Simone, and Fabian Nicieza (Deadpool’s co-creator, who returned to the character and wrote the entire Cable & Deadpool series), emphasized Deadpool’s knowledge that he was a comic book character, and the Merc-with-a-mouth became the Merc-with-a-meta-awareness.
Metafiction draws attention to its own fictionality. This can be done when a character breaks the fourth wall in the theater, addresses the audience in a television show, or references writers and artists in a comic book. Imagine that Wolverine, in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, turns to the camera and advises that the young boy in the third row cover his eyes, because this fight scene is going to be inappropriately violent for a child of his unseasoned years—this is postmodernism at its peak.
Tactics like this can force the audience to consider the text more deeply than if they are focused on the narrative. Furthermore, this postmodern technique can highlight elements of a medium that are normally processed unconsciously and can thus bring to light intricate interactions that are often overlooked. Metafiction also raises ontological issues. Acknowledging the falseness of the narrative’s reality encourages readers to ponder existence. Deadpool will insist to readers that nothing they read is really occurring, because it is all in a writer’s imagination. This causes readers to step back from the false world they have been reading about in the comic book and acknowledge the reality that a writer did imagine everything that is on the page. Metafiction, when used successfully, can raise the same issues concerning levels of existence that Plato explored in his Allegory of the Cave. When the writers of the Deadpool comic books engage in postmodern exercises, readers are invited to step back and consider their understanding of comic books and the manner in which they combine texts and images into a cohesive narrative. Readers then become aware of their collaborative work in creating a comic-book universe inhabited by fictional characters.
Reading between Panels
As a series of still images juxtaposed to create a sense of story, comic books require the participation of the audience in order for a story to be understood. A viewer watching a film can largely be passive, perhaps drawing conclusions about location and the passage of time following scene changes but otherwise simply watching the action unfold. A comic book reader, however, must participate in the creation of the story by inserting action in the transition between panels. The space between comic book panels is called the gutter. When readers look at two panels and decide what action occurs in between them, the process is called closure. Scott McCloud, a noted comic book theorist, argued that comic books are “a medium of communication and expression which uses closure like no other. A medium where the audience is a willing and conscious collaborator and closure is the agent of change, time and motion.”
4 Without the reader collaborating in the process of forming a narrative, the comic book would be a series of individual drawings that might look beautiful but would fail to signify anything, much less tell a complex story. A picture of Wolverine standing still placed next to a picture of Wolverine in the same pose with claws now appearing out of his fists does not signify any action occurring unless readers imagine the claws sliding out in the gutter between the panels.
Though McCloud calls the readers “conscious collaborator [s]” in the process of closure, in truth the process should become unconscious in a well-constructed comic book. Ideally, readers are unaware that they are participating in the narrative, because the art and the dialogue operate so seamlessly that the readers’ act of closure is completely natural. If the comic book in question is deliberately postmodern, however, it may draw attention to this natural process.
One simple example of a writer recognizing the readers’ completion of the action between panels occurs in
Deadpool #2. In one panel, Deadpool is sitting at a kitchen table in a bathrobe and is about to take a bite of cereal, not knowing that he has been tricked by his blind roommate into pouring a large amount of salt onto his breakfast instead of sugar. The next panel shows Deadpool, now in costume, entering his friend Weasel’s room, and it contains a text box in which Deadpool provides first-person narration, stating, “Five tooth brushings and a scene change later . . .”
5 A more standard caption may read, “In Weasel’s room . . .” and allow the reader to surmise that time has passed, based on Deadpool’s wardrobe change.
When Joe Kelley, the writer of the issue, included the line “a scene change later,” he drew attention to the reader’s traditional role of providing closure between the panels by having a character who should have been unaware of a scene change recognize the occurrence. In classic narrative form, the characters go on with their lives as normal in the periods the reader does not see. Deadpool would have gone to brush his teeth and put on his costume and walked to Weasel’s room without ever being aware that a scene change occurred, and the reader would have imagined those actions taking place in the gutter between the panels. But in a postmodern comic book, which resists the traditional narrative style and instead emphasizes the fiction of the story and the conventions of the medium, the character references the scene change, rather than stepping into it. Deadpool recognizes his presence in a narrative that is being presented to an audience. Readers, in turn, recognize the story as being prepared for their consumption and should analyze the story not only for its narrative, but also as a product being produced for their benefit. Furthermore, readers are made conscious of the fact that they have unconsciously been completing the narrative action between the panels.
When First-Person Narrative Text Boxes Go Wrong
McCloud, in explaining the role of the reader in comic books, stated, “Every act committed to paper by the comics (plural?) artist is aided and abetted by a silent accomplice. An equal partner in crime, known as the reader.”
6 The reader’s role in understanding a comic book goes far beyond completing the action between the panels. Readers are also expected to understand the conventions of the comic book medium. Failure to understand the vocabulary of comic books will result in an incomprehensible narrative, and the writers of Deadpool again use postmodern techniques to emphasize this complex interaction between reader and text. Explaining the vocabulary of comic books in textual form seems a bit counterproductive, so let’s see what other options we can explore.
Now that we all understand some comic book conventions, we can appreciate how the writers of Deadpool frequently toy with them. The first issue of
Deadpool, written by Joe Kelley, begins with text boxes containing expository dialogue that a reader acquainted with comic book conventions would assume to be Deadpool’s thoughts. The text boxes read, “The Bolivian jungle. Steamy rank. More humid than a church pew on Sunday. And quiet . . . so deathly quiet.” At this point a soldier, using a word balloon, states, “Sir? I think I hear him. I—I think he’s talking—?” The next text box reads, “Duh. It’s called narration, you ignorant simp.”
7 The gag here is dependent on the reader reading the text boxes as internal narration by Deadpool and then discovering that he has been speaking aloud. The text boxes are simply words on the page. There is no reason text boxes should be read as a silent internal monologue, but that is how they are traditionally portrayed. By manipulating the conventions that comic books have developed, Kelley stresses the conventions’ very existence.
Fabian Nicieza also manipulated the common role of text boxes in Cable & Deadpool. Cable & Deadpool #30 begins with Deadpool fighting the intentionally lame superhero team the Great Lakes Avengers. Deadpool provides exposition through text boxes; however, the Great Lakes Avengers continually respond to Deadpool’s narration. This leads to the following exchange between Deadpool and Big Bertha, with Deadpool’s dialogue presented in text boxes and Big Bertha’s in traditional word balloons:
Deadpool: What’s going on here?
Big Bertha: You’re saying everything out loud!
Deadpool: I am?
Big Bertha: Yes!
Deadpool:
Oh. Weird. Coulda sworn I was in first person narrative form.
8Later in the same issue, Deadpool is thinking through his problems in text boxes. In the final text box Deadpool congratulates himself, stating that “First person captions are working again.” Then a woman walks by and says, “Y’talkin’ t’you’self, dude.”
These examples all prevent the reader from becoming immersed in the story. Not only that, they force awareness of the reader’s role in creating this narrative world. The reader aids in the creation of Deadpool’s world, and if the reader initially reads the text boxes as “audible” narration, the joke is lost. Referring back to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Deadpool knows he is in a world of shadows and that his text boxes are one aspect of this reality, but with these postmodern touches readers discovers their involvement in creating that shadow reality.
Writers, Artists, and Editors, Oh My!
The creation of comic books is collaborative on many levels. Writers, artists, editors, inkers, and colorists are all involved in producing the comic book. Furthermore, you, the reader, are required to collaborate with the finished product in order to create a story. Postmodern texts resist the impulse for works to stand on their own. You should be made aware that the work has been produced for consumption, and in the case of comic books, many people have had a role in that production.
When Christopher Priest began to write
Deadpool, he took a self-deprecating approach to informing readers of the change in writer for the title. The first issue of Priest’s run on the title, which immediately followed Joe Kelley’s run, begins with a sequence in which Deadpool is welcomed to a trailer park. He is carrying a bag with him, which in various panels is labeled “Every good idea Kelley ever had” and “Everything that made this book work,” that Deadpool then throws into a river. Deadpool then meets the inhabitants of the trailer park, who are all characters that Priest previously wrote comic books for, but the comic books were canceled while Priest was writing them. Deadpool realizes that all those characters’ comic books have been canceled and tries to leave, yelling, “I will not end up like those losers! That will never happen to me!” But he is told, “It’s already happened to you. Why do you think they brought
him in? Name me one healthy project he’s ever been assigned to. The man has one purpose in life, and now he’s been assigned to you.”
9 This revelation causes Deadpool to jump into the river to seek the bag containing Kelley’s good ideas. When Priest’s run as writer comes to an end,
Deadpool has not been canceled but is instead being passed on to another writer. Priest’s final issue features Deadpool triumphantly returning to the trailer park, but this time carrying a bag with a body in it. He reveals to the characters living there that the body is of Christopher Priest, and that by killing the writer he managed to have his series continue.
Another way in which Priest reminded readers of the writer’s presence and simultaneously employs ontological philosophy is with Deadpool’s frequent references to the fact that “There is a man . . . sitting at a typewriter . . . this is all his imagination.” Although other characters in the comic book believe Deadpool’s assertions to be insane ramblings, the reader knows Deadpool is correct. In fact, these statements by Deadpool can be compared to the ancient ontological thought experiment devised by Plato. Deadpool has left the world of shadows that the other characters still exist in and has seen the true reality—he is only a fictional character. Deadpool spouts so much nonsense, however, that the truth of his statements is dismissed by the other characters. These moments when Deadpool correctly identifies his reality emphasize to you, the reader, that you and the writer exist in the true reality, and you both collaboratively construct a false reality for Deadpool.
Fabian Nicieza also made fun of himself as the writer of Cable & Deadpool. In issue 8 of that series, Deadpool is giving an interview to a reporter, when the following exchange occurs:
Irene Merryweather: And who is paying you to stop Cable?
Deadpool: That would be telling. I am putting together pieces of a puzzle—missing parts of some future tech device that once was on Cable’s ship.
Apparently, that’ll prove to be the plot device that stops him when his powers become too much to make work in the context of a monthly comic.
Merryweather: Excuse me?
Deadpool: Never mind. Fabian doesn’t want me breaking the fourth wall in this book.
Merryweather: Who is Fabian?
Deadpool: He’s the hack who co-created me. Personally, I like Kelley and Simone better, but I think they’re both exclusive at DC now.
Merryweather: What?
Deadpool: I better shut up now or else I’ll end up in a dress or something.
10Joe Kelley and Gail Simone were both writers who had previously worked on titles featuring Deadpool, and at the time this issue was published, both writers had contracts to work exclusively at DC Comics, Marvel Comics’ chief rival. In the following issue, Deadpool did appear in a dress.
The collaborative nature of comic books suggests that a postmodern comic book should allude to more than simply the writer. In creating the comic-book world, the artist works closely with the writer to produce the story. Ontologically, recognizing the collaborators who create the narrative emphasizes the multiple voices that are required to create a narrative reality. The most blatant example of artist referencing comes in
Deadpool #36. Deadpool is not in his costume for most of this issue, but when the reader turns to page 25, Deadpool is shown in full costume in a full-page image. The word balloon reads, “Oh hi, kids—Deadpool here. Hate to interrupt the story like this, but our fine artist had the overwhelming urge to draw me in this pin-up shot even though it’s nowhere in the script.”
11 The fact that this dialogue appears raises the question of whether this page was included in the initial script. Was the dialogue a reaction to a disobedient artist, or was it a planned joke that was included in the original script? These are precisely the types of questions that postmodern texts hope to raise.
Nicieza also brought the role of editors to the forefront in
Cable & Deadpool #36. The first page of
Cable & Deadpool was often a recap page, meant to remind readers of previous events. As such, the page was not part of the continuity of the story, and Deadpool’s recap page almost always explicitly broke the fourth wall. In this recap page, Deadpool appears at Marvel’s publishing offices while looking for a particular character, Taskmaster. Marvel was in the midst of a massive crossover involving most of its characters. Deadpool therefore went and threatened Marvel editors, who keep track of which writers are using specific characters, at gunpoint to discover the whereabouts of Taskmaster.
12 Though this page does not fit into the continuity of the issue, it still makes the reader aware of the editors’ involvement in the book. It also raises the issues of large crossovers, narrative cohesiveness in the Marvel universe, and large-scale continuity, which all affect the creation of a Marvel comic book.
This Is the Last Section Heading You Will Have to Read
Postmodernism seeks to distance readers from the text and invites them to consider the process inherent to the production of the narrative. Deadpool is one example of a postmodern comic book that forces the reader to become aware of the his or her role in interpreting the story, the conventions of the comic book medium, and the role of multiple creators and editors in producing a single issue. Although there have been other postmodern comic books, such as Grant Morrison’s Animal Man or John Byrne’s She-Hulk, those titles are more often associated with the creator than with the character. When other writers pen the adventures of Animal Man, the postmodern elements are abandoned. Deadpool is unique in that the postmodern elements have become part of his personality and are now adopted by all writers who take on the character. When producing the adventures of a postmodern comic book character such as Deadpool, comic book creators can inspire readers to think about the medium that a story is delivered in as much as the story itself.
Yet the invitation to think more deeply does not stop with the medium Deadpool’s adventures. Ontological questions are raised, as Deadpool is more enlightened about his true nature than are the characters he interacts with. In the Marvel universe, Deadpool is considered insane because he knows the truth about his fictional “reality.” Complex issues can be considered by the reader, as layers of reality are dissected. The creators, the product, and the reader collaborate to forge a reality that we all know to be fiction. Deadpool, working in a medium often dismissed as juvenile, raises the same ontological issue that Plato raised in his Allegory of the Cave.
Are you ready for this essay to end? I sure am.
NOTES
1 Edward Quinn,
A Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms (New York: Checkmark, 2000), p. 255.
4 Scott McCloud,
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 65.
5 Joe Kelley, writer, and Ed McGuinness, illustrator,
Deadpool #2 (1997), p. 7.
6 McCloud,
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, p. 68.
7 Joe Kelley, writer, and Ed McGuinness, illustrator, “Hey, It’s Deadpool!” in
Deadpool Classic, edited by Mark D. Beazley (New York: Marvel Comics, 2008).
8 Fabian Nicieza, writer, and Staz Johnson, illustrator, “The Hero Hunter: A Marvel Civil War Tie-In,” in
Cable & Deadpool: Paved with Good Intentions, edited by Jennifer Grunwald (New York: Marvel Comics, 2007).
9 Christopher Priest, writer, and Paco Diaz, illustrator, “Sending in the Clowns,”
Deadpool #34 (1999), p. 6.
10 Fabian Nicieza, writer, and Patrick Zircher, illustrator, “The Burnt Offering Part Two: Lepers at the Table” in
Cable & Deadpool Vol. 1 #8 (2004), p. 1.
11 Christopher Priest, writer, and Paco Diaz, illustrator,
Deadpool #36 (2000), p. 25.
12 Fabian Nicieza, writer, and Reilly Brown, illustrator, “Unfinished Business: Part One,” in
Cable & Deadpool Vol. 7: Separation Anxiety, edited by Jennifer Grunwald (2007).