Decapitations, tranquilizer darts, and sort of sharing a beer. Deadpool and Wolverine's feelings
about each other are…hard to describe. "Time to make the chimichangas!"
Wolverine and Deadpool had their first team-up years before Wade Wilson even
began his career as a costumed mercenary. In "Deadpool Nerdy 30," a teenage Wade
accidentally gets handcuffed to Wolverine when Logan crashes his high school prom
while fighting Hydra agents. Although Logan initially protects Wade from getting shot,
the Merc-in-Waiting proves he's already got some skills when he uses an electric guitar
and cymbal to take out some Hydra goons and shield Wolverine from their bullets.
Impressed, Wolverine advises Wade to take that special talent within him
and "be the best at that, ya know?" It's an early sign of something that comes to
define their relationship: that Logan recognizes there's something admirable about Wade Wilson.
While Wolverine and the X-Men first battle Deadpool and the Brother of Evil Mutants in
the "Toys 'R Us" promotional comic "X-Men Premium Edition" #1, Logan officially takes
on the Merc with a Mouth in "Wolverine" #88. Their reunion starts off with a bang as Logan
finds the Merc With a Mouth on the prowl for his ex-girlfriend Vanessa Carlysle and her
new boyfriend Kane. Unlike in the movies, the comic book Vanessa is a shapeshifting
mercenary called Copycat. Not down with Wade's plan, Wolverine takes Deadpool on,
but gets stabbed in the back with Wade's twin swords. Wolverine recovers, and later stops
Deadpool from killing Kane and Copycat. However, Wade escapes by tossing a grenade at Logan.
Throughout the adventure, Wolverine fails to recognize Deadpool as the same young
man he'd fought with against Hydra years earlier. This may be because Logan forgot Wade's scent. Or
it might be because "Deadpool Nerdy 30" was published 27 years after "Wolverine" #88.
The X-Man and the Mouthy Merc cross paths again in "Wolverine Annual 1995." This time, Wolverine's
friend Maverick asks Logan to help him save Wade Wilson from a shadow organization that kidnapped
Deadpool to see if his healing factor can create a cure for the mutant-killing Legacy Virus.
Logan initially refuses, seeing Deadpool as a "stone killer," but comes around
after Maverick points out the scientists are torturing Wade just like the Weapon X program
abused them.The two save Deadpool and Wade actually helps Maverick leave the facility
after learning Maverick is infected with the Legacy Virus. Logan and Maverick lose
track of Wade after the three leap down a waterfall, but Wolverine decides Deadpool
"ain't a monster," and that he'd likely try helping toward a cure in his own way.
Logan's hunch proves right and Deadpool sends blood and cell
samples to the X-Mansion for analysis. While no cure is found, it's the first
time since meeting Deadpool in costume that Logan acknowledges Wade "ain't all bad."
Logan may have started seeing something special about Deadpool, but that doesn't mean they get
along right away. In "Deadpool" #27, Wade drives Logan into one of his famous berserker rages after
he uses Ken's Shoryuken move from "Street Fighter" and sucker punches Wolverine's friend Kitty Pryde.
Logan attacks, but is brought back to lucidity by Wade's incessant bantering. Turns out,
Wade only started this meaningless super battle after his psychiatrist Doctor Bong
told him it would help him deal with his recent hallucinations. Unfortunately,
while shooting his hallucinations, Deadpool accidentally hits Logan's
acquaintance Black Crane, making Wolverine accuse Wade of having no
honor or remorse. Yet Logan also sympathizes with Wilson, noting he'd once been like him.
Thanks to Logan encouraging him to deal with his past, as well as Doctor Bong helping him
understand what his visions represent, Wade is able to make the hallucinations disappear and
recall his wife, Mercedes Wilson. Thus Logan plays a key role in helping Deadpool's memory and mental
health… even if their encounter does end with Wolverine stabbing Deadpool with all of his claws.
Logan's actually happy to find Wade trying to kill Kitty Pryde's favorite horror author Duncan
Vess in "Wolverine Annual '99," mostly because he can get back at Deadpool for
the Shoryuken incident. As they fight, they run into a werewolf called Lycus,
who also has a beef with Vess. Turns out, Vess is secretly a werewolf himself.
Wolverine ropes Deadpool into keeping Vess safe, but Wade ignores Logan's wishes. Luckily,
Logan resurfaces before Deadpool can fulfill his contract, fending off both Lycus and the people
who hired Deadpool: a council of werewolves peeved at Vess for abandoning their kind and
writing about them in his books. Deadpool then tries to square things with Wolverine,
and after punching Wade in the face, Logan declares all feuds between them are settled.
The issue marks a turning point in the characters' relationship. While
Deadpool claims he and Wolverine aren't friends when he tries to kill Vess,
Logan seems keen on making amends by the story's end, even inviting a dazed Wade for
a beer after the face punch. The catch is that the beer's only for Logan… and Wade's paying.
Despite their improving relationship, Logan becomes Deadpool's target in
"Wolverine" #154 and #155 along with a team of fellow mercenaries called the Scourge.
Logan tries to get Wade to reconsider, but Deadpool fights Wolverine anyway,
citing money woes, and downs Logan with a ton of potent tranquilizer darts.
We later learn Deadpool's employer, an evil organization called the Watchtower, has offered to
use Logan's healing factor to treat the injuries of Wade's friend Theresa Cassidy, aka Siryn,
and restore her powers. Surprisingly, Wolverine doesn't hold this against Wade, deciding,
"You can't change what you are."
Their fight ends when Siryn rises from her tank, fully healed. Finally understanding Wade's true
intentions, Wolverine lets Deadpool leave with Siryn while he continues pursuing Watchtower.
The whole ordeal is proof that Logan and Wade's dynamic is changing. Rather than looking to
start a fight with Deadpool, Logan tries to talk him down. Wade, meanwhile, again gets
agitated when someone calls Logan his "friend," but only out of guilt for kidnapping Wolverine.
Deadpool later gets recruited into a new Weapon X program after its
scientists temporarily fix his scarred face. However, he later
turns on the organization after fellow member Sabretooth kills Wade's girlfriend, Copycat.
Weapon X retaliates by turning Wade's body to mush, leaving only a hand which they send
to Wolverine as a warning. Logan brings Wade's hand to the Merc's funeral in "Deadpool" #61,
placing it in a casket with Deadpool's costume — the only two things left of him. Fortunately,
Wade regenerates from the hand at the end of the issue, though he probably
would have preferred it if Logan had kept the hand somewhere above ground.
Wade returns the favor years later in "Death of Wolverine:
Deadpool & Captain America" #1 when he and Steve Rogers destroy Logan's remains so evil
parties can't clone him. Wade almost clones Wolverine himself for benevolent purposes,
but decides to imitate Logan instead in "Wolverines" #13 to hilarious results.
Seeing as Wade's tenure as "Wolverine" ends with him accidentally stabbing himself in the head,
it's probably for the best that Logan later comes back to life and resumes his duties.
Between Deadpool shooting Wolverine in the back in "Cable & Deadpool" #9, Logan slicing Wade's head
off over a misunderstanding in "Cable & Deadpool" #43, and a tense rooftop showdown in "Marvel
Team-Up" #25, it's safe to say the two characters' bond sours somewhat after Wade's resurrection.
This escalates in "Wolverine Origins" #20-25 when Logan again becomes the target of a
contract Wade's pursuing. After enduring a lot of hits, stabs, explosions, and gunshot wounds,
Wolverine is taken to Deadpool's safehouse and chained above a pool in which Wade intends to
drown him. Logan stalls Deadpool, however, with enough verbal jabs to aggravate the normally
jovial Merc. Wolverine then reveals an even bigger con – he had the hit placed on himself,
knowing Wade's attempts to kill him would lure Logan's son, Daken, out into the open.
"You're so dark! Are you sure you're not from the DC Universe?"
The showdown reveals that whatever respect the two have for each other is also accompanied
by a lot of resentment. Deadpool flat out states that killing Wolverine is something
he's envisioned doing for some time, partly due to his frustration of being compared to
him. He even expresses jealousy toward Logan, since, despite their mutual pasts as killers,
the X-Men have no problem making Wolverine a member, yet refuse to let Deadpool join.
Wade finally gets to try out for the X-Men in "Deadpool" #6 but botches his "audition" when
he tries to kill Ellis Kincaid, the father of X-Men member Mercury. It's Wolverine who
realizes it's all part of Wade's elaborate plan to restore the X-Men's reputation by
having them "save" Kincaid, who's falsely accused them of holding Mercury against
her will. While Deadpool's plan succeeds, its chaotic nature costs him a place on the team.
Still, Logan recruits Wade for his own team, X-Force. Friction forms,
however, when Deadpool objects to their teammate Fantomex killing a child version of Apocalypse,
and Logan nearly fires Wade. Wade later loses his healing factor in "Deadpool" #53,
leading to Logan, whose own healing gifts make him borderline unkillable,
asking Wade what it feels like "to be alive again." Despite their many issues,
Wolverine keeps Deadpool on the team, and the two serve on X-Force together until the team disbands.
After mutantkind sets up its own nation on the living island Krakoa , Deadpool,
recently crowned Staten Island's monster king, gets displeased he's never been invited and
hitches a ride inside the gelatinous body of the mutant Jelby in "Deadpool" #6. The
X-Men learn about this and agree to let Deadpool visit, but only "through the proper channels."
Before Wade goes, Rogue hands him a flower unique to the island — a gesture that she
and Wolverine explain is a token of the X-Men's friendship. It's a major moment, as not only
does Logan finally state he considers Deadpool a friend, but implies the X-Men feel the same.
"You have a good heart. It belongs here where it can grow."
Deadpool later loses his Staten Island royalty,
and decides he wants to live on Krakoa. After various foiled attempts to break in again,
he tries convincing Wolverine directly by botching a deal Logan has been investigating between the
A.I. known as Danger and the nefarious X-Desk in "Wolverine" #20. The two confront Danger,
learning the X-Desk had promised to return her cybernetic daughter under the condition she
create an army of mechanized X-Men dupes for them. After Deadpool saves Wolverine from Danger, Logan
offers Deadpool the chance to live on Krakoa, as part of the latest incarnation of X-Force.
"I just – I just want to say how proud I am of this team. You know, you guys look amazing!"
Wolverine and Deadpool are far too popular to remain confined to the comics page,
so it only makes sense they'd run into each other in animation. In 2009's "Hulk
vs. Wolverine," Logan is summoned by Department H to stop the Hulk's rampage, but finds his tussle
with the Jade Giant interrupted when Deadpool shoots both of them with tranquilizer darts.
Wolverine wakes up chained to a wall in Weapon X headquarters,
where he learns he's being used as bait so the program can capture and brainwash the
Hulk. Wade shoots Wolverine in the head but gets hit by the ricochet. Naturally, Deadpool heals,
but his later attempts to take down Banner and Logan don't go too well when Wolverine slices his
arm off. After Banner transforms into the Hulk, Logan chucks Wade's body at the rampaging monster.
While Wade often talks to Logan like he's an old buddy,
he makes his feelings toward Wolverine quite clear, telling him,
"We all hate you."
It's fairly consistent with Deadpool's portrayal in his
earlier comics, with the humor slightly ramped up.
Wolverine and Deadpool have it pretty complicated in live action. In "X-Men Origins:
Wolverine," the two start as teammates working
under William Stryker where Wade's constant wisecracks annoy Logan.
Wolverine later receives word that Wade's been killed. However, Wade's actually been
transformed into Weapon X-I, aka Weapon Eleven. Armed with the power of many mutants, XI faces
off against Wolverine and Sabretooth, leading to Logan decapitating Wade and seemingly killing him.
Thanks to time travel shenanigans though, Wade's time as Stryker's operative is wiped from history
when he reappears in the "Deadpool" solo movies. Wade does know of Logan,
however — or at least of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, as he hilariously wears a paper cut-out of the
actor's face from a People magazine cover. In "Deadpool 2," Wade gets ticked off by the movie
"Logan," which he feels has stolen his thunder by having an "R" rating and killing off its star.
"Well, guess what, Wolvie? I'm dying in this one too."
Wade's clearly resolved his jealousy issues when the two do encounter each
other after Deadpool travels back to the original "X-Men" movie timeline
and helps out Logan by shooting his Weapon XI self in the head.
And their rivalry seems to have cooled in the real world as well. After years of engaging in
a friendly feud, Jackman finally agreed to a request made by Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds:
"Hey, Hugh! You want to play Wolverine one more time?"
"Yeah, sure Ryan."
The announcement, which also sees both Deadpool and Wolverine joining the MCU,
promises to take Logan and the Merc with a Mouth to exciting new
places as we watch their complex relationship continue to evolve.