DEADPOOL: Page 6 of 18

Publication Date: 18th May 2018
Written By: Monolith.
Image Work: Douglas Mangum.
Biography

BIOGRAPHY - page 6

Wade continued to unravel as his quest for heroism came apart and he desperately sought validation from Siryn. To make matters worse, T-Ray had zeroed in on what Siryn meant to Deadpool, and started taunting Wade about getting to her first. Wade got fed up and finally accepted a challenge to fight T-Ray in San Francisco the next day. When he eventually tracked her down, Deadpool came on too strong and started a fight with Warpath while trying to get Theresa alone to talk with her. This put her in no mood to listen to Wade's issues that day, and his increasingly forceful attempts to get her alone only pushed Terry further away. Wilson collapsed into his own misery as Siryn and Warpath left, getting drunk in the field where he found them. Miraculously, however, Theresa seemingly came back to Wade later that night. She said she was sorry for storming off before and the two of them reconciled. They curled up on a blanket together and made love under the stars, finally putting Wade at peace with himself. [Deadpool (2nd series) #12]

And the very next morning, everything turned rotten and crumbled to ashes in Wade's life. When he woke up, Wade discovered "Siryn" was actually Typhoid Mary using an image inducer. She had tricked him into having sex with her just to stomp on his heart when he learned the truth. Indeed, Deadpool felt abused and violated by what Mary did, snatching away what he thought he had achieved with Theresa. Wade became violently ill for the rest of the day, but refused to confide in Blind Al about his problems. He teleported to Weasel's place to have a bro talk, only to see from Weasel's computer tracker that Weasel was. at. the. Deadhut.

Weasel and Blind Al had forged a friendship behind Wade's back over the last few weeks. Al knew it was a bad idea, for she could still smell the rotting corpse in the walls from the last time someone entered the Deadhut without Wade's permission. Weasel had never seen that side of Deadpool, though, and didn't understand the danger. Besides, Blind Al enjoyed having someone else to talk to for a change. Deadpool returned to the Deadhut in a fit of psychotic rage, furious at Weasel for violating his personal space and at Blind Al, his prisoner, for breaking the rules. As Weasel and Al pled for mercy, Wilson rendered them both unconscious and placed them inside the Box for punishment.

At the end of his rope, divorced from all his friends and loved ones, Deadpool half-heartedly showed up for his rendezvous with T-Ray. The battle was a foregone conclusion, for Wilson just wasn't in any condition mentally to confront such a deadly opponent. T-Ray brought Deadpool to his knees, glorifying in the events he and Typhoid had set in motion together to destroy Wilson's entire support system. He summoned a supernatural blizzard and left Deadpool, beaten and broken, in a field of snow. [Deadpool (2nd series) #13-14]

And with that, Wade was ready for the Mithras Directive. It seemed he needed to be separated from other people's expectations about his future and his heroism in order for Deadpool to seek heroism for his own sake. Zoe Culloden brought him to Landau, Luckman & Lake, placing him under contract for the Mithras Directive. Her partner Noah DuBois was less than impressed by Deadpool, and Overboss Dixon was downright incredulous. Still, Monty and the other psychics in LL&L's employ pointed to Wilson as the primary Mithras candidate, so they were forced to go along with it.

Wade's problems at home didn't end just because he had a shiny new job, though. Weasel escaped from the Box and vacated his apartment, leaving behind a note telling Wade not to follow him or look for him. T-Ray had stolen Wade's belt as a symbol of his victory and pinned it to the wall of Hellhouse. Deadpool was now persona non grata at his old mercenary haunts. Although Blind Al remained at the Deadhut, she couldn't forgive Deadpool for putting her back in the Box. As revenge, she ended their personal relationship entirely, referring to Wade as the master and herself as the prisoner. She did not engage with him or his banter, but cooked and cleaned and pressed his underwear just like a good slave. Wade understood how badly he messed up with Al, but couldn't find the words to apologize. [Deadpool (2nd series) #15-16]

Deadpool's renewed dedication to self-improvement meant he swore off killing (...again), but Landau, Luckman & Lake found him other paying jobs while preparing for the Mithras Directive. He was hired out to Oracle, Inc. and their Heroes for Hire team as a temp. Deadpool annoyed Luke Cage and Iron Fist to the best of his ability during a conflict with Silver Sable's Wild Pack. He also first crossed paths with a similarly-crazed indestructible super-healer named Madcap, a relationship that would take an unlikely turn in years to come. [Heroes for Hire (1st series) #10-11]

Culloden and Landau, Luckman, & Lake finally explained what the Mithras Directive was to Deadpool after processing his contract. LL&L's psychics years ago prognosticated the arrival of an alien messiah who would bring about an unprecedented age of peace and harmony on Earth. The Mithras was a heroic figure destined to play a key role in the alien's success and the rise of this new age. Wade Wilson was one of several potential candidates for the Mithras whose odds had risen and fallen over the years, last peaking just before his cancer diagnosis ruined his odds and sent him down the wrong path. Now, years later, his Mithras prospects had risen again, making him the most likely savior of the planet.

Wade was completely overwhelmed by this destiny, and panicked as he tried to back out of the deal. Culloden and Monty went after him and tried to get Deadpool's confidence back up, but Wade just couldn't reconcile his currently poor self-image with the true blue hero worship he was being fed. In response, Montgomery disobeyed LL&L protocols and told Deadpool his own future. He made a set of three vague prophecies designed to convince Wade of the authenticity of his precognitive visions, and the Mithras Directive based on them.

Although Wade didn't fully believe Monty, the first bit of prophecy he received had a clear meaning. Wilson returned to the Deadhut and boarded up the door to the Box immediately. He explicitly apologized to Blind Al for his treatment of her, and asked for forgiveness. Al thawed, and was happy to see Wade grow as a person. Wade took it a step further and began to declare Blind Al a free woman when his teleporter activated... [Deadpool (2nd series) #17]

...transporting him into a punch, already in progress. Wade was knocked over the side of a cliff as he materialized, leaving him on the brink of death at the bottom of the ravine. He was visited by Mistress Death again and learned that his attacker, codenamed Ajax, was his old nemesis Francis the Attending from Department K back from the dead. It seemed Ajax had been busy, hunting down and killing the other escapees from the Workshop before finishing off Wilson himself. Reminded of the oath he swore to avenge Worm Cunningham and the others by Death and the spirits of his friends, Deadpool returned from the edge of death to fight Ajax again. [Deadpool & Death Annual '98]

Wade learned that Ajax had kidnapped Killebrew in order to remotely access Wade's teleporter logs from their previous encounter. Wade reluctantly rescued Killebrew and went on the run in the remote Swiss Alps where his broken teleporter had dumped him. The unlikely duo sought refuge in the isolated cabin of Ilaney Brukner, a German ex-pilot hiding out from the world after a tragic crash. Ilaney joined Deadpool and Killebrew fleeing through the woods after Wade and Ajax's fighting destroyed her cabin. In their Predator-style game of hide-and-seek with Ajax, Killebrew threw himself on the murderous cyborg in order to save Wade's life and buy him time to escape. Ilaney was injured, frostbitten and nearly drowned in a mad leap into the nearby river, leaving Deadpool to face Ajax alone. He used a series of tiger traps and psychology to lure Ajax in close, damage his armor and guide the sparking mechanical parts into the river, leaving Ajax to electrocute and drown, finishing him for good this time. [Deadpool (2nd series) #18-19]

Closing the Box, fulfilling his vow to the Workshop rejects and witnessing Killebrew's sacrifice completed the three prophecies Monty gave him at LL&L, and so Wilson decided to show his appreciation to the crippled, shut-in precognitician. He kidnapped Monty from LL&L and brought him to Monte Carlo to have some fun and relax a bit. Of course, Deadpool's idea of fun was to cheat at the casino and get into a brawl with Batroc (ze Leaper!), but it actually did raise Monty's spirits and forge a bond between the two of them. Sadly, the draconian Overboss Dixon believed Deadpool wasn't the true Mithras and planned to sacrifice Wade as a pawn. He mind-wiped Monty in order to eliminate the memories of their trip and maintain control over his precog. [Deadpool (2nd series) #20]

Deadpool continued his training with Zoe Culloden to become the Mithras, but was shocked to learn what his true role in the coming of the messiah was. A threat named Tiamat was prophesized to intervene at the messiah's arrival and prevent its message of peace. As the Mithras, Deadpool's job was to kill Tiamat first. After all of LL&L's grand talk of heroism, Wade was shocked to learn he was once again just a hitman, murdering for someone else's cause. Wilson got significantly drunk and went to see Siryn, who had moved to San Francisco with the rest of X-Force recently. Cable stopped Deadpool from actually contacting Theresa, though, and the two old rivals got into a brawl. Wade and Nate eventually stopped long enough to actually discuss the pressures of having a "destiny," something Cable knew quite a bit about. They parted on better terms than usual, and Deadpool returned to LL&L. [Deadpool (2nd series) #21-22]

In Wade's absence, Zoe's partner Noah DuBois was killed by Tiamat, who had arrived on Earth earlier than predicted. Deadpool armed himself for the final conflict and sought out Tiamat's hidden ship under the SETI deep space observatory in Puerto Rico. Culloden had learned about Dixon mind-wiping Monty before being sidetracked by Noah's death, but didn't realize the full implications of this betrayal until too late. Dixon had mind-wiped Monty SEVERAL times, keeping Zoe and Monty in the dark about multiple visions Monty had seen but no longer remembered. Deadpool, the Mithras, was destined to fail against Tiamat. Dixon intended to use Deadpool as a stalking horse, gaining combat telemetry on Tiamat so that his "second string" candidate Captain America could ultimately defeat the creature. Sure enough, Tiamat beat Deadpool and Wade only survived by removing a functional teleporter from Noah's body to escape. He wept openly back at the Deadhut, cradled in Blind Al's arms as he blamed himself for failing the human race. Zoe Culloden arrived to warn Deadpool about Dixon's treachery, just in time for the overboss to set off a bomb, destroying the Deadhut.

Wade, Blind Al and Zoe were saved by the unlikely intervention of Gerry Lequare. To Deadpool, Gerry was a drunk and addle-minded homeless guy from the park that he hung out with. Wade thought it was funny to screw with Gerry's sense of reality with his image inducer and teleporter making him seem like a figment, and he could confide in Gerry without feeling like he was exposing too much of himself. To Zoe, though, Lequare was the original fourth "L" of Landau, Luckman, Lake & Lequare who started the Mithras Directive and was seemingly killed shortly after the first prophecy. Gerry revealed he faked his death after Dixon tried to sanction him, hiding in plain sight while surveying the Mithras Directive from afar. He knew Wade was the true Mithras, and did his best to guide him and the other players in the game to their proper places.

Wade rejected the idea of being manipulated for so long, for Gerry also took responsibility for T-Ray and Typhoid's actions as well as his failure against Tiamat, in order to shape Deadpool into the proper hero of destiny. Still, after learning that even Noah DuBois had believed Wade was a hero (if not THE hero of destiny), Wade decided he had to try again regardless. He returned to the battle and found Captain America and Tiamat locked in combat in Egypt as the messiah finally arrived from space.

In a shocking twist, however, the messiah's "endless peace" came at the expense of free will. Wars would end and conflict would become a thing of the past because the entire planet would enter a state of permanent bliss from which they could not escape. Wade was alerted to this twist by Tiamat's psychic elders, who passed on the protective armor of their champion to the Mithras once Tiamat fell. Deadpool learned they were telling the truth when the messiah possessed Captain America and crowed about its success eliminating the "flaw" of free will from Earth. The only human left unaffected on the planet, Wade Wilson was forced to choose between the value of free will and unconditional happiness for everyone. Despite doubting his own choices as he made them, Deadpool decided people had the right to remain flawed and killed the messiah to end its influence on humanity. [Deadpool (2nd series) #23-25]