Wade Wilson: Deadpool #1: A (Wild) New Beginning

It’s clear from the early pages of Wade Wilson: Deadpool #1 that Benjamin Percy gets Deadpool’s comedy. Wade slings dairy-themed jokes as he shoots, carves, and gets shot at through a drug ring disguised as a Midwestern crop farm. He moves on to making mob bosses feel uncomfortable and getting embarrassed by his roommate, the beloved Blind Al. All of this is very Deadpool, and it lets both longtime readers and newer readers coming from the films get acquainted with Benjamin Percy’s version of Wade Wilson.

The new series title Wade Wilson: Deadpool is justified just after the opening sequence. Deadpool is, well, himself. But Wade Wilson is an enigma, even to himself. And that’s the setup for this new series; it’s building itself up to be a journey of self-discovery, which may sound weird for a Deadpool story, because it is. That being said, all of this is just set up, more or less, as the story of issue 1 isn’t really much of a story at all. Instead, it reads more like an issue #0 with the goal of letting readers “settle in” to a new era of Deadpool in 2026.

Deadpool’s “voice” in particular is the main highlight of the issue. Wade Wilson as a character has always been unapologetically himself, and that self is unhinged. Percy makes this clear in scenes of normalcy by having Deadpool be anything but. Drinking coffee turns into a face mask that no retail store in their right mind would sell, dealing with a mob boss becomes uncomfortable… for the mob boss. This is all classic Wade and makes the otherwise quick pacing of the issue feel significantly more immersive to the reader, who’s so transfixed by Wade’s character that they don’t notice the lack of normal plot hooks and payoffs.

Geoff Shaw’s art feels complete with Alex Sinclair’s colors. Every good Deadpool comic has to have at least some action in it, right? Well, Wade Wilson: Deadpool #1 has action in spades. From guns to explosions and crazy antics, this issue is messy with the usual Deadpool chaos. It works as far as exciting scenes go, but where it really shines is in what it does for the story. Throughout issue #1, Deadpool doesn’t dodge anything; he just kind of stands there and gets lit up by everything. This is explained in the dialogue as Wade’s love of pain. That’s not anything new to longtime Deadpool fans, but what it does is reinforce the storyline of Deadpool’s melancholy and boredom.