Although not a mutant Deadpool is part of the X-Men franchise and what is X-Men? Disabled metaphors!
But Deadpool is one of the (more than you would think) comic book icons who have real-world disabilities to take subtext to text.
What I’m presenting to you now is an introduction to Deadpool in the specific context of his disabilities and I will try to point out the most reoccurring themes that disabled people know to be ableism but NTABs always miss.
Deadpool has a variety undiagnosed and undefined mental illnesses. Most assume they are either the result of his brain cancer or the ongoing medical torture he’s received throughout the years
Very little is known about Deadpool before his diagnosis of terminal cancer but regardless of whether he was ND before this time or not his childhood was very hard in ways that disabled children are very familiar with
Parental/caretaker abuse/abandonment
(Which recoccurred in his adulthood)
and socially “other–ring” in childhood
As stated before, Deadpool has undergone medical testing and abuse time and time again to the point where one diagnosis we can easily make is PTSD
Anxiety also seems clearly straightforward
as is depression and suicidal tendencies
In fact, his most popular romance with the personification of Death itself is debated to be real (as the personification of Death is an actual character within the Marvel 616 universe) or “all in his head”
The only clear physical disabilities are his deformities
(which formed as a result of medical experimentation after his diagnosis:)
and chronic pain
What isn’t as clear are what fans debate might be schizophrenia
and DID
Along with both forced and voluntary medical treatments he has also undergone forced and voluntary psychiatric treatments
Although Deadpool primarily seems ND he struggles with not having passing privilege
or self acceptance
But his self acceptance tends to be of the “fake it till you make it” variety which is handily torn down each time by an NTABs
And whenever he genuinely deals with ableism openly people judge him as bitter
and lazy
Although he tends to make friendships with the less advantaged and likewise disabled people
people tend not to want to be associated with him when in “better” company
and they are willing to use him as a scapegoat for any shortcomings they don’t want to take responsibility for
Despite actual ability or qualifications Deadpool is denied legitimate work
He experiences discrimination
has been raped (something that happens to disabled people more than any other marginalized group)
often lives in poverty
and he has to do destructive things as coping mechanisms
More often than not Deadpool gets simply disregarded as “crazy” or people try to find a “method to his madness”
but Deadpool is simply Deadpool and although no one else can understand it he makes it work for him as best as he can
Could you tell me which comics all of these are from? If not that is fine, i just haven’t read most of these unfortunately.
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I can’t recall the exact issues and I totally should have taken note of that.
The first run is from the 90s and it’s very very 90s but as far as content it was a little ahead of its time since no one was watching over the book.
People bicker over Daniel Way’s run but personally I liked it; the humor was on point and it was just as blatantly painful as the first run and there is an overarching plot of Deadpool trying to cure his mental illness in realistic ways like seeing multiple psychiatrists.
Gerry Duggan’s been on the book for a while now and he has consistently been great. He’s really taken the character seriously and since they can put blood in comics again it has a lot of beautiful violence. More importantly, he’s integrated issues like poverty, homelessness, illegitimacy, caretaker abuse, gas lighting, etc. etc. and he’s back to trying psychiatrists and they’ve got more specific about his diagnosis.
I highly recommend it.
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Thank you so much. 🙂 I would love to check them out so thank you. I did not know a whole lot of this so its wonderful that you’ve put them together for others to see. Sometimes its very hard to find certain comics and such.
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I’m glad you like it! I’m planning on doing more a little like I did Legion, explaining the disabled characters back stories a bit, I’ll make sure to list the key issues
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