Deadpool, after only two issues, has already become one of Marvel's best and most relevant books.  With ties to Secret Invasion that nobody would have guessed going into a series following the Merc With a Mouth, Daniel Way's take on the vigilante has quickly taken him from joke-spewing also-ran to joke-spewing hero of the company's biggest crossover.  It is with this in mind that we begin “Reflecting 'Pool,” a series of monthly examinations of Deadpool.  Every month on the week of the book's release, we'll talk to series writer Daniel Way (and, with a little luck, occasionally get some thoughts from the artist or editor or someone like that when the real madness sets in).  Without further ado...! 

 

ComicRelated: Did the idea to tie into Secret Invasion come from the creators, or was it an idea that came from Marvel Editorial? 

 

Daniel Way: A little bit of both, I guess.  There was no pressure from Marvel to have it tie in.  We actually kind of lobbied to tie it into Secret Invasion because we wanted every chance we could get to get this book in front of as many readers as possible.  People had forgotten about Deadpool.  He'd become such a niche character, we wanted to throw him right back into the middle of the Marvel Universe.  It made the most sense to have him involved in this invasion that involves the whole Marvel Universe.  With all that taken into account, it seemed like a natural fit. 

 

CR: How important was it to you to keep some of the comedic element of the book?  It wasn't always there, but it's how a lot of readers identify with Deadpool as a character and Deadpool as a book. 

 

DW: He started out right in X-Force, which back then was one of the big X-books.  It wasn't X-Men, but it was the X-universe for sure.  Really quickly he was a hit character and he started popping up all over the place.  Then he just became a niche—more like a cult character, you know?  He became an either you-hate-him or you-love-him kind of character and as the comics audience in general got smaller, his audience got doubly smaller because it was half of what was left, with nothing there to really revive him.  All the other Deadpool books were based on what had come before, and it was the law of diminishing returns—it just wasn't big enough.  To take the long way around, I think that the character started to become a parody and was written as such. 

 

CR: Is it hard to carry over a character like Deadpool in between the X-universe and the rest of the Marvel Universe, given how insular the X-books are? 

 

DW: With what Bendis is doing with New Avengers, he's got Wolverine in there and he's got Spider-Man.  The lines have blurred a little bit and we're getting a little more cohesive.  We talked about this a lot at the X-Men creative summit, but House of M was an Avengers event that only affected the X-Books [laughs].  The offices are getting better about letting characters drift back and forth between books. 

 

CR: And with Deadpool working with Nick Fury, he's a good bridge between the universes right now. 

 

DW: That's the trick with Deadpool.  From the creative standpoint in order for Deadpool to be there, it has to be a situation where only he could be there.  A lot of these stories are written in such a way that you can plug in any number of heroic or villainous characters.  That's a question you should always ask yourself as a creator, is what makes this a such and such story, and with Deadpool it's paramount.  These plans of his—they only work because he's a part of them.  No one else could make it work. 

 

CR: I loved the panel where Deadpool was making fun of Rob Liefeld's pouch fetish...but obviously you guys can't have too bad a relationship with him—he's doing covers!  How well do you know the character's creator? 

 

DW: I've met him once, it was at the New York Comic Con, and I'd walked over to the Marvel booth to meet with my editor—Axel Alonso—and Rob had kind of cornered him and when I walked up, Axel introduced us. Rob immediately said, “It's great that you came because you know I have to do some covers.”  The guy was like this manic ball of energy—I guess a lot of people get jaded very quickly, but not him.  Say what you will about the man, but everything he's ever done has come from a place of passion, and that's rare. 

 

CR: Did you sit down in a room with anyone and say, “There has to be crossovers” or “there has to be comic relief” or anything? 

 

DW: No, that's just not the way things go as far as I can tell—it's not the Marvel way of doing things.  We don't have 66 meetings about the tone of a book or anything.  Really, we get together on the phone or sometimes in person and we just kind of hammer out the very essence of the book and then they just let a creator create—that's what you're supposed to do.  And also, me personally, I'm not a huge (even though I've kind of become the keeper of Wolverine's continuity)--continuity guy.  Like I didn't read all of the Deadpool books back in the day, I wasn't a huge fan.  You just want to look a the character and say, what has worked historically or what works now, because you want the character to be reflective of what's happening now, not then.  Quickly get a read on it and then follow that—go with your gut instinct, and that's really what came out the other end.  We wanted this hyper-violent, funny book.  We wanted to show his capability as a mercenary—he's really fucking good, but he's also really fucking nuts and as the action intensifies so does the mania.  When he's sitting around, he's not nuts, but when things get nuts, he's the go-to guy. 

 

CR: What makes writing Deadpool different from writing something like Lobo, where the character is also immortal and also a bit mad? 

 

DW: A lot of people think that Deadpool needs a straight man to make the comedy work, but as far as I'm concerned, the MU reality is the straight man.  He's in deadly situations, that's the straight part and he plays it in a very comedic way.  It seems like he doesn't know what he's doing, but it's a bit of facade.  There's some real mania there, but he uses it as a bit of a shield.  What he wants you to do, ideally, is to try and figure out the logic of what he's doing.  He wants you to be sitting there scratching your head, and that's when he pops up behind you.  

 

CR: That sounds a lot like why Alan Moore and Grant Morrison have always said Joker works as a great Batman villain—it's impossible for the great analytical mind to actually analyze him. 

 

DW: A lot of it's illusory, and I'm talking about Deadpool here, but it's not that he has some incredibly ultrasensory perspective on things, he just looks at it from a very different angle and he's just seeing things that a lot of other people wouldn't see.  It's a very different approach. 

 

DW: Something that he does in the Deadpool book will show up in Secret Invasion and because of that, characters and elements of Secret Invasion will become part of the Deadpool book.  You'll know when you see it—next month when issue 3 comes out, you'll find out what it is he did and what happens as a result of that and then you'll kind of see the ultimate payoff of that in Secret Invasion. 

 

CR: Are you guys going to participate in the Dark Reign crossover that Marvel is doing after Secret Invasion is over? 

 

DW: What Bendis is doing, these miniseries, the impact is kind of far-reaching.  You almost have to willfully ignore it to not cross over with it.  We know that Deadpool at the end of the second issue has been in communication with Nick Fury.  He has a lot of irons in the fire right now.  He's been in hiding and he's got his Secret Warriors.  So he is connected.  So yes, Deadpool will incorporate elements of Dark Reign but it's not necessarily a crossover so much as it is a synergistic relationship.  But there are certain character who are going to be involved in Dark Reign who are very involved in Deadpool.

 

CR: Do you have to be careful about exactly what you say about Dark Reign, since it builds off the end of a story that's not finished yet? 

 

DW: As far as I'm concerned, I'm not sure why fans even read Previews or comb through the stuff that's online.  I'm the kind of person who doesn't want to know anything—but I'm like that with films, too, I don't try to find out everything I can before I see the movie.  I don't get surprised very often but I like to let it happen if it's going to.  It's tough from my end because when you write solicitations and stuff, you need to give the retailers the information they need so that they can make informed decisions...so that they can think like a capitalist and be successful, but everything you tell the retailers you're telling it to the readers, too. 

 

CR: How important will it be for people to read Secret Invasion before reading Deadpool, or vice versa? 

 

DW: You'll notice that the first two issues don't have the Secret Invasion slug on the cover. We didn't want people to feel forced to buy it but I was out there saying as loudly and as clearly as possible that this does factor into Secret Invasion.  Obviously they were listening, the book fucking sold out and it looks like orders for #2 are actually higher than the first issue.  I can definitely see from a retailers' point of view that you don't want to have all your money tied up in merchandise sitting on the shelf, but if they don't have enough, then that's just money they're not going to have on that Wednesday.  I talk to a lot of retailers and the ones that really get it, that I have the highest opinion of, when they e-mail me with advice or criticisms or whatever, I listen.  If I can't give them a book that they can sell, no one's ever going to read it.  The fan's not going to read it if it's not there, doesn't matter how much you like the character.