This is a feature called "Beg Steal or Borrow," which is about when comic book characters are abruptly pulled from one book to another. I'm not talking about when comic book characters simply migrate from one title to another (I spotlight examples of that in my feature, "Looks Like I'm Moving"). I mean examples where a writer has a character taken out of the book against their wishes. It almost always happens in team books, but sometimes it occurs in solo titles, as well.

Today, based on a suggestion from reader Kyle M., I take a look at how Cable and Deadpool dealt with the loss of, well, you know, one half of the team in the book!

Cable and Deadpool was a novel idea for an ongoing series. Despite both being major players during the 1990s, both Cable and Deadpool had lost their respective series early in the 21st Century. In each case, their book was revamped under a new title (Soldier X for Cable and Agent X for Deadpool. In Deadpool's case, Agent X turned out to be an entirely separate person than Deadpool). When their series ended, it seemed like it might be awhile for either hero to hold their own series again.

However, in 2004, Fabian Nicieza, who had co-created Deadpool and written all of Cable's earliest solo adventures, launched a new ongoing series that teamed the two characters up into a single title.

The hook of Cable and Deadpool was that Cable and Deadpool were both almost killed by an alien cult. They were essentially turned into goop. However, Deadpool's healing powers allowed him to heal from the process, but since his goop intermingled with Cable's goop, Cable was healed, as well, and the two men were now directly linked to each other.

This then led to a whole storyline where Cable took his flying satellite base, Graymalkin, and turn it into a floating island utopia known as Providence. It was sort of its own island nation. This made lots of people worried about what Cable might be up to and often, these outsides would turn to Deadpool to find a way to take down Cable. This went on for quite a while and Deadpool and Cable had many adventures over the next four years.

This, though, then took us to the lead up to the X-Men crossover known as "Messiah Complex," where first there was a mini-crossover called "Endangered Species" where the Beast confirms that there is no way for the mutant race to ever start up again. Once he is finished discovering that fact, then everything is thrown out of a whack when, wouldn't you know it, a mutant baby was born!

Before the crossover officially began, though, Gambit and Sunfire, both working with Mystique and a version of the Marauder, attack Cable on Providence in X-Men #200 (by Mike Carey, Chris Bachalo and Tim Townsend)...

Cable then appears to blow himself (and Providence) up....

So first off, we see in Cable and Deadpool #41 how that fight was presented in that issue and how the people of Providence were saved.

Then, though, what happens next?

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Cable and Deadpool #42 ends with the destruction of Providence but also Cable secretly making sure that Deadpool teleported back to his apartment (which is where Deadpool started the series) safe and sound. Deadpool is struck by Cable's sacrifice and thoughts of protection for him and vows to not let Cable down...

The next issue, he is approached by Cyclops to help the X-Men out...

This then sends Deadpool on a series of adventures where he teams up with a different Marvel hero in every issue, with the title of the comic book having Cable crossed out and a different character's name being written in. The covers were all done by the legendary Skottie Young and they are AMAZING...

The book was mostly drawn by Reilly Brown and Ron Lim during this period. The series ended with #50, where Deadpool gets his own solo cover...

Manhattan is attacked by Savage Land dinosaurs covered with Venom symbiotes and Deadpool teams up with the Fantastic Four and the Mighty Avengers (the Superhero Registration Act approved version of the Avengers) to save the day, thus proving himself as a hero in front of some of the greatest heroes in the world...

Then Nicieza calls back once more to how the series began, with Deadpool at home just watching TV, only now he is watching it with the extended cast of the series (including the series' top creation, Bob, Agent of Hydra)...

Nicieza really rolled with the punches well here.

Thanks to Kyle for the suggestion! If anyone else has a suggestion for an example of a comic book character being ripped from a series, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!