Deadpool: The Fallen Hero

A few years back, I had no idea who Deadpool was. I had heard the name bandied around the Marvel universe a couple of times and soon learned to associate the character with a costume that looked a bit like Spiderman, but not quite. Other than that, my Deadpool knowledge was very thin. He is definitely one of the cult heroes of the Marvel world.

Then X-Men Origins: Wolverine came out and it featured Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool. The fans went crazy and that was the first time I realised that Deadpool was a bit of a big deal. For the unknowing reader, the big difference between Deadpool and the other heroes is that he kept breaking the fourth wall. He was continuously leaving the action in the comics to address the reader for a bit. His power is also the fact that he is invincible. He is so strong it is kind of comical, but his character excels when it comes to humour. He is definitely the dark horse of the Marvel universe.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that the fans were also devastated when the movie ruined the character. He appears at the beginning and is instantly recognised as a cool character. Ryan Reynolds is the perfect guy for the role, easily capturing that quirky sense of fun that Deadpool embodies. Some could argue that the first five minutes of this film are brilliant. Deadpool doesn’t really feature anymore in the film. That isn’t a massive problem in itself, but I will come to that point later.

Please use this storyline, producers!

Deadpool reappears in the end of the film and that’s the point where the fans cried out in horror. The plot revolves around Striker (the villain from X2), experimenting on mutants and assassinating his old team (including Wolverine), to cover up his secret organisation. What the audience doesn’t know is that Deadpool, the one member of the team that is strangely absent from the plot, was the first to be captured, but as a hero that is unable to be killed, Striker kidnapped him and experimented on him, filling his body with every mutant power he could his hands on.

That uber-Deadpool is the creature that Wolverine and Sabretooth have to defeat in the end. A tortured mutant that has had its eyelids ripped out, mouth stitched closed and b… Let me stop you there. The important part is that Deadpool’s mouth was stitched closed, which as the fans argue, quite rightly too, kills the idea of Deadpool being ‘the merc with the mouth’. You cannot have Deadpool featured in your film, for the first time in any Marvel film for that matter, and take away the key characteristics of the hero. We are not watching Wolverine battle Deadpool, but some other mutant that has had Deadpool’s name thrust onto it. I am all for the reinvention of Marvel heroes and villains, but here, Deadpool is unrecognisable and that defeats the point of even having him in the movie.

Here’s what I would have done. I would have kept Deadpool in the beginning of the film. It is a pretty nice cameo for a hero to have. As the fans did admit, Ryan Reynolds aced the character in that little intro. The studios have green lit a Deadpool movie, with a script that Ryan Reynolds has announced he ‘loves’. It would have been nice to think that Marvel was clever enough to use this small cameo as a teaser for the Deadpool movie. “You liked that guy at the start of Wolverine? Well, here’s his own movie.”

He kind of looks like the groom the day after the stag do.

As for the ending, I would have scrapped Deadpool completely. The creature at the end of the movie was not Deadpool and just adopted his name. But that’s the thing: what if that bad guy wasn’t Deadpool? Think back to that fight: it was pretty awesome. The character was just a melody of powers: teleportation, super-speed and invulnerability. If it wasn’t slowly killing the image of Deadpool while it was onscreen, it would have been an awesome character to have.

I would have kept that monster, but not called it Deadpool. What if it wasn’t even a person, but a laboratory-generated being? Wouldn’t that be so much cooler? That fight then would have been enough to drag a weak script into good movie territory. And Deadpool would have been saved.

Well, it’s too late to do that, but maybe, when you next watch that movie, pretend that that thing isn’t Deadpool and it might become a little easier to enjoy…