Story Title: “It’s D-D-Deadpool Folks!”
Published: December 1994
Writer: Larry Hama
Artists: Adam Kubert and Fabio Laguna
The Background:
In 1974, Roy Thomas charged writer Len Wein to create the first Canadian superhero; a short, feisty character named “Wolverine”. After the legendary John Romita Sr sketched the original design for Wolverine and came up his now-iconic retractable claws, artist Herb Trimbe finalised the character’s design for his debut in the pages of The Incredible Hulk. Of course, nowadays, James Howlett (better known as “Logan”) is one of Marvel’s most well-known characters thanks to his association with the X-Men, but he’s not the only popular fast-healing Canadian Mutant anti-hero in Marvel Comics. In 1991, Fabian Niciezaand Rob Liefeld debuted Wade W. Wilson/Deadpool in the pages of The New Mutants. Heavily inspired by Wolverine, Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Slade Wilson/Deathstroke the Terminator, the self-styled “Merc With a Mouth” was initially introduced in an antagonistic role but eventually proved popular enough to graduate to his ongoing solo title. In time, Wolverine and Deadpool’s pasts would be intertwined to give them a shared history with the infamous Weapon X project and the two would cross paths as both rivals and team mates as members of the black ops X-Men team X-Force. Although both characters achieved greater mainstream success with their live-action movies, a proper big screen team up between the two seemed impossible after Hugh Jackman retired from the Wolverine role in 2017. However, in 2022, Ryan Reynolds shocked everyone by revealing that Jackman would return as Wolverine for Deadpool and Wolverine (Levy, 2024) and what better way to mark this momentous occasion than be revisiting the first-ever meeting of these two immensely popular characters?
The Review:
Our story opens with Wolverine back in the Great White North; he’s tracking down Garrison Kane/Weapon X as a favour to James Hudson/Guardian and (despite his heightened senses) is surprised to find the wacky mercenary Deadpool in Kane’s pimped out apartment. The hyperactive Deadpool immediately opens fire on Wolverine and promises to “put [him] out of [his] interminable suffering” if Logan can tell him where Kane took his “ex-squeeze”, Vanessa Carlysle/Copycat. Naturally, Wolverine refuses to rat out the two and fights back, slashing at Deadpool’s arm and trading insults as they clash. During their brutal combat, Deadpool boasts of his own healing factor, which gives him the edge over Wolverine since this story takes place during a time when Logan’s healing powers were on the fritz and he no longer had his Adamantium skeleton or claws thanks to Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto ripping it from his bones. While Wolverine still has the skills and ferocity to go toe-to-toe with Deadpool, his feral rage and curiosity about Deadpool’s vendetta against Kane cause him to leave himself wide open for the Merc with a Mouth to ram his swords through his back and into his lungs.
Victorious, Deadpool spots a poster for the Grand Guigol theatre, realises that’s where his targets are, and skedaddles, leaving the critically injured Wolverine bleeding on the floor. At the Grand Guigol theatre, Kane and Vanessa are trying to establish normal lives for themselves as stage actors. Kane struggles with his lines and to find his motivation as an actor, but Vanessa encourages him to channel his infatuation with her and his desire to leave behind their tumultuous past into his acting. She’s ecstatic when this appears to result in a more convincing performance, only to find that he was startled by the sudden appearance of Deadpool. Delighted to find his targets and begging to know that Kane’s fighting skills have become as bad as his acting, Deadpool leaps at Weapon X, swords drawn, only to find his strike deflected by Kane’s mechanical arms. When Deadpool refuses to leave them be or forgive Kane for stealing his girl, he gets a beatdown from an enraged Vanessa and doesn’t hesitate to take a swipe at her, too. Kane gets in on the action, pummelling Deadpool and chastising him for interfering in their lives, but he loses the advantage when Deadpool temporarily blinds him with a flash of light from…somewhere… Back at Kane’s apartment, the wounded Wolverine struggles to his feet, his healing factor slowly taking care of his injuries, and cottons on to Deadpool’s lead. Wrapping the worst of himself up in a kimono, he stumbles out into the streets and into the back of a taxi that he demands take him to the theatre.
During the taxi ride, Wolverine endures a particularly chatty cab driver and is grateful to find his wounds have healed. However, when the cab’s brakes malfunction halfway to the theatre, Wolverine’s frustrations get the better of him and he slices off the cab door and opts to skate the rest of the way on the severed cab door! Although Vanessa intervenes before Deadpool can decapitate Kane, she ends up getting knocked on her ass by Wade’s unpredictable agility and Deadpool offers Kane a choice: defend himself from one sword or catch the other sword tossed right at Vanessa’s heart. Luckily, Wolverine shows up, bursting in “like a runaway freight train” and intercepts the blade, saving Vanessa. Deadpool’s stunned to see Wolverine alive and well and finds himself outnumbered by the three unlikely allies; as such, he chooses to toss a grenade into the group and beat a hasty retreat. In the aftermath, Wolverine helps tidy up Kane and Vanessa’s apartment and offers them advice about moving on from their violent and chaotic pasts. He also helps Vanessa to see that Kane chose to save himself so that he’d be able to help Vanessa rather than being selfish, and then rides off after noting that they were lucky he didn’t catch a cab with good brakes.
The Summary:
I often find that the comics I review are a little light on action and fight scenes; characterisation, interpersonal drama, angst, and outdated sensibilities are often the order of the day, meaning fights and visual spectacle are few and far between. That’s not the case with Wolverine #88; if anything, the opposite is true, and the issue is more style over substance. It’s definitely a side chapter in Wolverine’s larger story; we’re seeing how Logan is coping being “the best there is at what he does” with a less reliable healing factor and his awful bone claws, which often puts him at a disadvantage and makes him more vulnerable. This is the case here; while he’s still a skilled fighter and his feral nature allows him to go all-out against the likes of Deadpool, he can’t just leap head-first into fights these days and that costs him. In fact, Wolverine even notes that if he’d been injured like he was at Deadpool’s hands just a few months ago, he’d probably have been killed, though Wolverine’s mortality was often emphasised even before he had the Adamantium ripped from his bones. I quite like seeing Wolverine going out and doing his own thing, though, and having loyalties and adventures beyond the X-Men. It would’ve helped to emphasise this if he’d been wearing his brown/tan uniform instead of his yellow/blue one, but it adds a lot to his character that he’d do a favour for James Hudson and go out of his way to protect Garrison Kane and Vanessa despite them not really being in his close circle and their ties to the Weapon X project. I quite enjoyed seeing Wolverine stumble about, bleeding out in a daze, and struggling to knit himself back together in the back of the taxi. He had some amusing moments here, such as accidentally smashing his face into a picture of the Grand Guigol theatre and “skateboarding” through the streets on a car door, while still being a formidable and honourable (and brutal) fighter.
As ever, Deadpool really makes an impression here; this is still before he started breaking the fourth wall and being depicted as a nigh-immortal, ultra-skilled character, but he’s still absolutely out of his mind. The unique depiction of his speech bubbles and his hyperactive, deranged nature match perfectly with his dynamic agility, which allows him to perform physics-defying moves that out-fight the legendary Wolverine and fend off attacks from both Kane and Vanessa. Deadpool’s despicable nature means he’s not above fighting dirty and he’s perfectly happy to attack and even attempt to kill Vanessa, which only goes to show how warped he is since his entire motivation here is to kill Kane for stealing his ex and presumably win her back from him. Deadpool’s fighting skill, marksmanship, and swordplay are only part of the story here; he now sports an advanced healing factor that lets him fight Wolverine up close and dirty and isn’t afraid to use the small arsenal he carries both as offensive and defensive weapons. I still don’t really get what that blinding flash was supposed to be since he’s not shown pulling out a flash grenade or anything. In fact, as fun and dynamic and vicious as the issue’s art is, some of the fight scenes and narrative pacing was a little confusing (such as Vanessa randomly querying Kane’s actions at the end completely unprovoked) but there’s a visceral “nineties” feel to the issue that helps make everything feel entertaining and chaotic. This suits both Wolverine’s volatile nature and Deadpool’s madcap demeanour and results in Wolverine #88 being a visually fun, if narratively light, first meeting between the two; they establish an instant animosity based on how similar there are as fighters and in their Mutant abilities and it was fun seeing them tangle. I would’ve liked to delve a little deeper into that dynamic and maybe focus a little more on Wolverine as a protector to Kane and Vanessa, but I liked the race against his own body and time to intercept Deadpool and how open-ended the story finished so I’m excited to check out future meetings between the two someday.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Pretty Good
What did you think to the first meeting of Wolverine and Deadpool? Were you disappointed by the lack of plot or did the brutal fighting win you over? Were you a fan of Wolverine’s bone claws? What did you think to Deadpool’s characterisation as a deranged psychopath? What are some of your favourite moments between Wolverine and Deadpool? Whatever your thoughts on Wolverine and Deadpool, feel free to share them below or on my social media, and be sure to check out my other Wolverine and Deadpool content across the site.
