Comic Book Questions Answered - where I answer whatever questions you folks might have about comic books (feel free to e-mail questions to me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com). Here is a link to an archive of all the past questions that have been answered so far.

A few different readers wrote in to me this week to ask for clarification regarding a scene in this week's awesome "4-part crossover in a single comic book!" Deadpool/Daredevil/Power Man and Iron Fist event, so I'll detail the sad history between Deadpool and Typhoid Mary...

Here's the scene in question from Deadpool #13 (from the first chapter of the comic. The idea is that the comic is split up into four chapters, with each chapter being the length of a full comic book, and the chapters featuring Daredevil and Power Man and Iron Fist are written by the writers of those titles, so it is a real old fashioned four-part/three-comic crossover, just done in one big comic instead of four normal-sized comics - the first chapter was by Deadpool writer Gerry Duggan and artists Jacopo Camagni and Veronica Gandini)....

So basically, a few readers wanted to know if this was for real, as it is not exactly something that is talked about a lot, ya know?

The whole thing started in the second Deadpool mini-series by Mark Waid, Ian Churchill, Ken Lashley, Bud LaRosa and some other inkers, where Deadpool teams up with an old friend of his, Banshee, and Banshee's daughter, Siryn, to take on Banshee's evil cousin, Black Tom (and Tom's good buddy, the Juggernaut). Deadpool is infatuated a bit with Siryn, so he's distraught when he loses his mask in #4...

They part as friends at the end of the issue...

Jeph Loeb continued it a little bit in X-Force, as he had Deadpool save Siryn from some bad guys and getting captured in the process (Siryn then rescued him later on).

When Joe Kelly gave Deadpool his own ongoing series, he used Siryn in an interesting fashion. She was sort of the heroic ideal for Deadpool, something for him to aspire to, while also, of course, lust after. Here's a bit from Deadpool #3 (by Joe Kelly, Ed McGuinness and Nathan Massengill)...

That aspect of the relationship was in full force in Deadpool #5, the end of the opening arc on the title, where Siryn is able to convince Deadpool not to kill one of the guys responsible for him being what he is...

In Deadpool #6, Typhoid Mary (who was in a mental institution) hired two mercenaries (each one hired by one of her multiple personalities). One to kill her and one to free her. Deadpool was the one hired to free her, which he did, but then she confronts him in #7...

During their fight, he accidentally jogs her memory of an incident that happened to her years ago involving Daredevil, so the pair head off to New York City to confront Daredevil (we covered this one in a spotlight on how it retconned a major event from Frank Miller's Daredevil: The Man Without Fear).

Once her issues with Daredevil were settled, though, Typhoid Mary and Deadpool began to have issues. Deadpool was trying to be a hero, in large part due to Siryn's influence, and Mary wanted to keep being, you know, a psycho killer (Qu'est-ce que c'est). This led to a dramatic confrontation in Deadpool #8. People sometimes forget how BLEAK Joe Kelly's Deadpool could get at times. Mary keeps trying to kill people and Deadpool keeps trying to stop her and she decides to push his buttons on the Siryn issue...

Ouch. That's rough. He beats her up, thus essentially proving her point that he is not yet ready to be a hero.

Over the next few issues, though, Deadpool keeps trying to redeem himself and things look good. Which, as you know, is right when things go not so good. Go to the next page to see what happened...

The pressure of trying to be good has been getting to Deadpool, and in Deadpool #12 (by Joe Kelly, Shannon Denton, Pete Woods and Nathan Massengill) he reaches out to Siryn in an attempt to get some sort of confirmation that he IS a good guy and Siryn is in no mood to give him that validation...

But then she visits him again that night, and they make love...

The next issue, however (by Kelly, Woods and Massengill), he learns the truth...

This basically breaks Deadpool, and he sort of snaps and gives up on being a hero. This is all part of a plot by Kelly where he totally breaks Deadpool down before he could begin to officially build him back up. He needed to make Deadpool hit rock bottom first, which hadn't happened yet. And now that it has, he could begin to start over on a clearer path to herodom (something that sort of culminates in Deadpool #25's famous kick to the groin).

But anyhow, that's the context behind the Deadpool/Typhoid Mary relationship and how she violated him.

Thanks for the question, people who wrote in! If anyone else has a question, drop me a line at bcronin@comicbookresources.com