SOLO: Page 4 of 4

BIOGRAPHY - Page 4

Solo returned to the mercenary life, and apparently found the means of saving or reconstructing his damaged eye. (This may be when he received his occular implant, letting him probe solid structures to better position himself during blind teleports.) He tried to find a balance between his calling for counterterrorism and paying jobs to support his lifestyle. Bourne’s expenses grew when he got together with another mercenary named Catita and they had a daughter. James and Catita’s relationship didn’t last, but they remained in contact and he was intent on helping to support his child. Unfortunately, mercenary work became harder to come by, and high paying jobs often went to more famous soldiers-for-hire like Deadpool. At one point, Solo had the inspiration to pose as Deadpool while seeking work in order to get hired and secure a bigger payout.

“Deadpool” was contracted for an apparently simple job – a man was paying off a ransom in Washington D.C. and wanted a sniper as back-up to ensure the pay-off went smoothly. Once he was in position, however, Solo noticed an ambassador’s motorcade moving through the streets. Another sniper’s nest was set up nearby to assassinate the diplomat, and the Secret Service working the motorcade had been compromised. Solo realized Deadpool was being framed as a patsy to take the fall for the assassination. He leapt into action to save the ambassador from sniper fire and got him away from his untrustworthy bodyguards. With his teleporting and a few lame jokes, Solo inadvertently drew massive amounts of public recognition to Deadpool as the man who saved a peace conference. [Deadpool (5th series) #16]

After the job, the real Deadpool found Solo and confronted him over the impersonation. When they were done  exchanging blows, Solo laid out his reasoning for the imposter act, and Deadpool was struck with inspiration. His public profile was already skyrocketing thanks to Solo’s work, so Deadpool decided to build a team of Deadpool impersonators to fulfill all the job offers he was getting. In exchange for continuing to dress as Deadpool, Solo would get a percentage of every job he did at Deadpool’s rate, which was still higher than the rate he was charging before. Plus, Deadpool wouldn't kill him! And so, Deadpool and his Heroes for Hire were born. [Deadpool (5th series) #7]

Actually, after consultation with Luke Cage and his legal council, Matt Murdock, make that… Deadpool and his Mercs for Money! Solo was quickly joined by several other mercenaries willing to work under Deadpool’s banner, including Foolkiller, Terror, Stingray, Masacre, Slapstick and Madcap. Deadpool was hardly an ideal employer, however, running off on a whim to perform non-paying gigs or assemble with the Avengers Unity Division, who were also using the Schaeffer Theatre as a base of operations. Furthermore, Madcap was secretly nursing an old grudge against Deadpool. He was responsible for the set-up in Washington D.C. and joined the Mercs for Money just to take Deadpool apart from the inside. When a man posing as Deadpool started committing murders around town, Wade tried to get Solo and the Mercs to dress in Skittles-colored Deadpool uniforms before finally relenting on the “Deadpool franchises” idea. Madcap was driven off by the Mercs after sending the city into a riot to get his revenge on Deadpool. [Deadpool (5th series) #1-5]

Back in their individual uniforms, Solo and the Mercs for Money joined Deadpool in recovering a mysterious package. When their buyers were killed by a third party, the Mercs opened the package and found a Rigellian Recorder robot from the future, filled with knowledge of upcoming events. Deadpool decided to sell off the robot to the highest bidder and held an auction amidst the criminal underworld. They made a sale to the Ozarks Kingpin, but delivery was fraught by an ever-increasing number of attacks from parties seeking the robot. Solo ended up serving as Deadpool’s conscience, pressing him to remember he was a hero now, and not just a heartless mercenary. He needed to consider the dangers of allowing the Recorder’s knowledge to fall into the wrong hands. Wade accepted Solo’s counsel and destroyed the Recorder in order to bring peace back to the underworld. [Deadpool & the Mercs for Money (1st series) #1-5]

Unfortunately, moments where Deadpool listened to his “minions” were few and far between. Deadpool was too used to working alone, charging in as a nigh-indestructible murder clown regardless of the consequences. Solo and the other Mercs didn’t have the same healing factor, and constantly suffered due to bad intelligence, poorly chosen assignments or Wade’s impulsive behavior. They reached their breaking point after Deadpool took a job from Umbral Dynamics to collect radioactive super-beings without running background on the company. Deadpool then started sabotaging their own collection assignments when he developed a conscience about turning the targets over to their employers. [Deadpool & the Mercs for Money (2nd series) #1-3]

The Mercs also weren’t getting paid on time as Wade’s Mercs for Money business was still subsidizing the Avengers Unity Division. Solo and the mercenaries got tired of being treated like secondary characters in Deadpool’s life. They ransacked his office looking for their contracts in order to destroy the originals and maybe start their own mercenary franchise away from Deadpool. Their indignation only grew when they realized Deadpool was stealing money from their pay to redirect it towards the Avengers. The contracts were located at a safety deposit box in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, but Deadpool caught Solo and the Mercs as they broke into the bank vault, and they all ended up trapped overnight by the time lock. It was a low point for Official Avenger Deadpool and his hirelings, and the Mercs for Money were finished. Solo destroyed the contracts, but Deadpool issued his own termination clause – if any of them ever competed with him for a job or found themselves opposite him in a fight, they had to walk away or else he would terminate them. [Deadpool (5th series) #14-17]

[Note: Inconceivable as it was for a teleporter like Solo to be trapped in a bank vault, he claimed his power worked through line-of-sight only. Many other sources contradict this as one of his limitations.]

Solo went back to work on the mercenary grind looking for jobs to support his estranged family. He received a surprise call from Dum Dum Dugan of S.H.I.E.L.D. to provide mission support as a freelance agent. Solo knew he had been on the S.H.I.E.L.D. burn list known as the Red File, mercenaries to never work with under any circumstances, and so he was honored by the chance to go legitimate again. An undercover operative named Stokes was working with the Zoo Family, weapons dealers acting as middlemen for a source of alien firearms and technology being introduced on Earth. Solo found Stokes before he identified the supplier, and his arrival inadvertently drew suspicion onto the agent. Stokes died in a firefight, but Solo used an image inducer to turn the Zoo Family against each other. While posing as the Zoo Family’s leader, Leo, he made contact with the aliens in orbit providing the tech and dropped a homing beacon for Dum Dum and S.H.I.E.L.D. to find their targets. Solo had to take the hard way down, using an escape pod for re-entry. Fortunately, Catita sent him coordinates to land relatively safely, and he got to spend a little quality time with his daughter. [Solo (2nd series) #1-5]

Solo remained in circulation as a mercenary. When Deadpool worked for Hydra during their takeover of America, Maria Hill formed a Deadpool Task Force to take him down. Solo was likely VERY pleased with the mission, regardless of what it paid. [Despicable Deadpool #298] As S.H.I.E.L.D. fell during Hydra’s reign, Maria Hill instead recruited Solo for her independent group of military operatives answering to Force Works. They were empowered to enforce the anti-terrorism act against an uprising of Artificial Intelligences demanding equal recognition as sentient lifeforms. Solo was teamed with War Machine and Gauntlet, but he quit after Rhodes showed too much sympathy for “the enemy,” getting Gauntlet injured in a bomb blast. [Force Works 2020 #1]