Deadpool and Domino: Mercs for Money
It’s hard not to know who Deadpool is these days. Despite not being a family-friendly creation, Deadpool can be found in several comics a month released by the big M, and was included in many animated works that kept his character mostly intact.
Oh, and he also had a smash blockbuster hit in 2016 as well, setting sales records for a rated R superhero film, becoming the most successful R rated movie, and the most successful X-men film.
Let’s be honest: with that resume, a sequel was inevitable. But where did Deadpool start in comics? To find out, we wind the clock back to February 1991, when comics were beginning to get grim, gritty, and absurdly over the top without a hint of irony. Ladies and gentlemen, New Mutants #98.
Once again, our cover is penciled by the infamous Rob Liefeld, and he also does the interior art… as well as the plot. By this time, Rob had (unintentionally or not) forced Louise Simonson off the book, leaving himself as the driving force in a textbook example of this era of Marvel favoring artists over writers. Fabian Nicieza gives these characters dialogue, while S. Buccellato provides the colors.
Also, you might notice on the cover, this is also Domino’s first issue. We’re getting a two-for-one today!
Our tale, “The Beginning of the End,” begins with our third introduced new character on the cover, Gideon. He is in some sort of robot-filled training room, practicing and honing his hand-to-hand combat skills. Which, if the art is to be believed, involves hopping around the room like a demented ballerina on his tippy-toes.
Rob Liefeld’s art is still excellent when it comes to conveying motion and action. His design choices and body language, though, are real suspect. I especially enjoy the horror that is Gideon’s costume: gold metal armbands, pink business vest with no shirt, green gardener gloves, and brown spandex. Oh, and we can’t forget the male pattern baldness compensation of an incredibly long pale green ponytail with long green hair flowing off wherever he still has hair.
And he’s a businessman.
Yeah.
We join the title characters, the New Mutants, engaging in training of their own, led by Cable himself. Cable has recently joined the New Mutants as their leader, training the team for “the wars to come.” And we also have team drama, but Rob Liefeld’s art style is beginning to come unglued here:
Poor guy. At the very least, Fabian Nicieza does a great job of ensuring that the characters still sound like themselves, even when they don’t look it.
Meanwhile, in the library of the New Mutants secret compound, Cable is browsing for books… when he is hit in the face by a sudden explosion! His would-be assassin confronts him… it’s Deadpool!
Just don’t open the can of worms of who Tolliver is, I beg of you.
And so, Deadpool and Cable face off while posing awkwardly and Deadpool points a menacing blaster that is ill proportioned at him. After an ambush from the lad Cannonball goes badly, Deadpool and Cable begin punching one another out. You also might notice that Deadpool is a lot less snarky here. And calmer. And more serious. He’s basically, at this point, an admitted knock on DC’s Deathstroke the Terminator: Slade Wilson. Yep.
Knockoff or not, Wade Wilson the Deadpool throws a knife into Cable’s thigh, and takes out several New Mutants in quick succession. Luckily…
Domino has shown up! Sleek, cool, one big black spot over her eye, the design of Domino has not really changed much over the years. While she has also been developed as a character, her core personality also remains much the same.
There is also the minor problem that this was later retconned to not be Domino, but instead a shapeshifter named Copycat, (You may know her as Vanessa from the films) who fools even Domino’s oldest friends, like Cable. It’s complicated and for another story.
Once Deadpool is all tied up, Cable and ‘Domino’ taunt Wade over his failures:
It’s kinda cute, in a Rob Liefeld sorta way.
Like many things that Rob Liefeld wrote and drew in the 1990s, Deadpool would become insanely popular. He received several miniseries and guest-appearances in New Mutants’ successor series, X-Force. It wasn’t until 1997 when Wade got his start in his own ongoing series, but his popularity from there soared into the stratosphere.
Domino, when she showed up for ‘real,’ took the route of the less famous as support crew for several different X-teams, but currently has her own ongoing series. It’s actually very enjoyable and features a few of the other lesser known characters in Marvel’s history of mercenaries.
