(I should probably first mention RIP Bea Arthur because… well, you know. It’s on-topic)

Wade Wilson. Deadpool. The Merc with a Mouth. The Deathstroke the Terminator knockoff. Cable’s reluctant sidekick. The would-be mutant. The febrile-minded man who has to deal with outrageous moral quandaries. The man who shot Liberty Valance. The… you get the point. These days are pretty lucrative for the yellow-bubbled anti-hero of Marvel. The character, who as of this writing has been around for 19 years, has gone through many twist and turns in his fictional existence. Enough that I can write up 70 of his best moments. Why 70? Because it’s a week-long series and ten per day is a round enough number on its own.

First appearing in New Mutants #98, created by the team of Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld, Deadpool would follow the cast as the series became X-Force. There, his character, though with attempts at humor, was mostly pretty bland. His appearances usually involved him talking about how great the mysterious Mr. Tolliver was paying him followed by Wade beating the crap out of his girlfriend Copycat. So yeah, not very fun.

Then he got his own miniseries. It wasn’t all that great, though the ending showed that he wasn’t a total piece of shit. Then he got another miniseries and it was better. Then he finally got his own on-going series, which had a great run by Joe Kelly. Once he left, it went for about two and a half years of different writers that made the whole thing seem like a big step down. Luckily, prior to being cancelled at #69, Deadpool’s final issues were a huge breath of fresh air and put some life back into the character… except for the fact that they killed him off.

But then his Japanese Ben Reilly self got an on-going series, which ruled until the original creative team was kicked off. Then it eventually turned lousy and got itself cancelled. Thankfully, Marvel brought the original team back for three issues to both explain the mystery of the main character’s identity and bring Deadpool back from the dead. Hurray!

From there, Deadpool shared a comic with his blood enemy Cable. In a series that played the two off of each other brilliantly, it went on for a respectable run. Unfortunately, Cable joined the X-Men at one point and the series, though still very readable, had jumped the shark. Even worse, Cable “died”, thus making it all about just Deadpool again and robbing the magic of what made the series fun. But hey, 50 issues isn’t bad.

After a memorable stint in Wolverine Origins, Deadpool has returned to form in yet another solo series. Plus a recent one-shot. And a new miniseries. And a role in Messiah War. And a spot in the animated movie Hulk vs. Wolverine. And a Thunderbolts crossover. And a SECOND on-going series coming up in a few months.

Oh, and Ryan Reynolds is playing Wade Wilson in a movie that’s coming out, but apparently has little to do with what made people like the character in the first place. Like Movie Deadpool’s lack of mouth for one.

Now, then. Let’s get this countdown underway.

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A bit of an update from my side of things. A few days ago, my computer up and died. Died as in going to a shutdown and restart screen upon turning on the computer. Hard drive had died of old age and you honestly couldn’t care about any of this.

The short of it is that for several days, I was without computer. This was infuriating for two reasons. One, I was unable to watch the full 2 and a half minute version of the Spongebob Got Back Burger King commercial. Two, I have been completely unable to get any writing done. Which means that the Deadpool countdown thingy will be delayed, though probably no longer than a day or so. That’s not too bad, right?

During my forced Amishness, I dove back into my collection of Essential Power Man and Iron Fist. Coming back to this here site, I found that hermanos posted several pages from it. Feh. If you want a REAL example of how great that comic was, look no further than this:

Haha, Iron Fist is such a dork.

Anyway, the Deadpool thing should hopefully be up sometime Saturday night/Sunday morning.

First off, thanks to all of you who have sent in your ideas and suggestions for my upcoming Top 50 (or maybe 70) Deadpool Moments series I’ll be doing in a few days. The response has been pretty overwhelming and I very much appreciate it.

Of course, the more the merrier. If there’s anyone out there meaning to send in some ideas, now would be the time. Just send me an email with your suggestions and maybe a sentence or paragraph about what’s so great about said scene.

Something where I can go, “superwadefan36 says ‘This is easily the best Deadpool moment because of the way he blah blah blah blah…'”

I’m also glad to see that nobody’s suggested anything from Palmiotti’s Cruel Summer arc, which cements my theory that it’s the worst three issues in Deadpool’s entire history. Waaay worse than the old X-Force stuff.

Previously in the Venom series, our anti-hero got in a dumb adventure with Wolverine that ended with Venom saving the life of a government guy by the name of Agent Daryll Smith. As you’re about to see, Smith would be a major part of Venom’s latter day good guy exploits.

There are only 11 months of his series left. The sad truth is, Venom has nothing to do as a character at this moment. He left San Francisco behind, his ex-wife has walked away from her supporting role and he doesn’t have any real long-standing villains to build up against. He’s just hanging out in New York City, dealing with whatever comes after him. Even the Hunger made a point of how monotonous it’s getting.

What Venom needs is direction.

On Trial (Venom #50-52) is again by Larry Hama, with Josh Hood doing art. It’s always interesting to see the change in the Marvel landscape through this series. If you look back, you see so much change in the previous four years. We saw Peter Parker’s fake parents, Scarlet Spider, Spider-Ben and now we’re back to a story with regular, old fashioned Spider-Man. Not only that, but we have several namedrops of the whole Heroes Reborn garbage.

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At this point in this series of Venom articles, I think it’s right to note that whether you like the comics, hate the comics, like the character or hate the character, you have to admit that the whole symbiote idea is, deep down, really original and full of potential. Really, look past the bad stories and you’ll see a comic book concept that has so many places it can go. It’s like Kryptonian DNA or Multiple Man’s powers. Years later they’re still coming up with new tricks for them all. The sky’s the limit.

Yet, their ideas for characters outside of Venom were never all that creative. Carnage, blood stuff aside is just “Venom but pure evil.” Scream is little more than “Venom as a woman with Medusa hair.” Where are the ninja symbiote hosts? Where are the quadruple amputee symbiote hosts with spider legs sticking out of their torsos? The Siamese twins? At least our topic today, Hybrid, had enough creativity in his concept to be slightly more than “Venom but a black guy.”

I don’t blame you for not knowing who Hybrid is. He’s only had a very limited amount of appearances. While he isn’t the most exciting Marvel character to fall into obscurity, there are some interesting things that set him apart from his symbiote brethren. For one, human host Scott Washington is actually an established character. That’s a bit of a rarity, isn’t it? Eddie Brock showed up after Spider-Man got rid of the costume. Cletus Kasady appeared specifically to set Carnage’s origin in motion. Donna Diego was a complete afterthought to the extent that they didn’t even give her or her symbiote self a name until way after the fact. Even Pat Mulligan, who I’ll get to way down the line, was introduced in the same arc that made him Toxin.

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Ultimatum #4 got delayed for a whole month (surprise) and my plans for doing another weekly set at the end of April have fallen apart. Instead, I got another idea and I need all your help.

With Deadpool making his movie debut, or whatever you would call it, on May 1st, I’m going to do a series on the Top 50 Deadpool Moments. I’m going to flip through his entire comic history and jog my memory.

What I need is suggestions. Don’t post them here in the comments. Email them to me. For those of you who actually like the character, what scenes in his 19 years of existence do it for you and why? An issue # is helpful, but I mainly want an explanation for why you enjoy the scene for the sake of quoting.

Funny stuff or serious stuff, whatever. It’s all good. Just try to think outside the box a bit. Yes, the “Shoryuken!” and “little yellow boxes” bits are classic, but try to think of something more on the obscure side. Like Bullseye showing up at Wade’s funeral or his final conversation with Cable or that time he heavily considered chopping his dick off because of his amped up healing factor making his replacement limbs stronger.

Also, expect a new We Care a Lot in a couple hours.

This is something stupid I came up with months back that some people still seem to get a kick out of, so I figured I’d share it here. A while back, somebody posted this cover image at the Something Awful forum of one of Arthur “ZOMBIES!” Suydam’s covers for Wolverine.

The image is old news, but it’s still fun to laugh at now and again. I mean, look at his face! That smile! His lack of teeth! The way he’s just so jazzed about stabbing that guy with his claws!

I figured out a way to enhance that cover. I want you to click the above image into a new tab or window so you get the full-sized version. Did that? Good.

Now I want you to press play on the following YouTube clip from Strange Wilderness and keep it on while staring at the above Wolverine image.

Congratulations! I just wasted your time!

I mean, there’s Incredible Hercules and Agents of Atlas and all, but I hold a place in my heart for this recap page for Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil #3.

Indeed.

It really is a fun miniseries and it’s kind of a bummer that it’s only four issues rather than six. Also fun? Marvel Assistant-Sized Spectacular #1. Not only do we get a story about D-Man as the Captain America of the Iraq War and Jason Aaron writing American Eagle, but a lengthy Mini-Marvels story starring Hawkeye. I love those.

We’re almost done with yet another week of this awful Morrison mind-scramble crap. God, what a hack. Between this and his Seven Soldiers run, I don’t even get why the man gets any work. Did you even read his New X-Men run a few years back? The guy who followed him was SOOOO much better.

But enough about that. Yesterday’s update saw some incomprehensible garbage involving Rubik’s Cubes and Metron as a tard. I don’t know, Final Crisis sucks. Let’s move forward!

As always, thanks to david “hermanos” brothers for helping me with this. He wanted me to remind you that a new Seaguy miniseries comes out today. Make sure to stay far away from that tripe. The last one was bad enough. Fucking Morrison.

We’re almost done with this week. Tomorrow, we get Darkseid at a rave and a guy with a bunch of bubble monitor things wrapped around his head. You can see a preview here.

What a weekend. Maybe a write-up later. Tired (and according to that image, dead) now. I did get a muffin kicked into my face. So there’s that.

Seriously, I can’t recommend going to a live CHIKARA show enough.