What Do Other Characters Think When Deadpool Breaks the Fourth Wall?

CBR

By Brian Cronin

Published May 30, 2018

You have questions, CSBG has answers! How do other characters react when Deadpool breaks the fourth wall?

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 brianc@cbr.com).

Today, based on a question from reader Joe R., we examine how other comic book characters react when Deadpool breaks the fourth wall.

First off, it is important to note how RARE it was for Deadpool to break the fourth wall in the early years of his comic book series. I think I did a "When We First Met" on this and it was a long ways into his series before he broke the fourth wall (unless you count his Wizard Deadpool #0 issue - that issue was all about breaking the fourth wall but it is unclear if that was intended to be part of Marvel continuity at the time or not).

The first notable time that Deadpool broke the fourth wall was in Deadpool #28 (by Joe Kelly, Pete Woods and Walden Wong), where Deadpool runs into his old buddy, Bullseye, who is trying to kill a woman who Deadpool seems to find reeeeeeeeeally familiar. Earlier in Kelly's run, there was a time when Deadpool was dealing with some serious life issues and so he spent and issue teaming up with Bullseye where they talked about life while killing people. It was a really good issue. So it was notable to see Bullseye in the book again. When they run into each other, Bullseye asks when they last saw each other and Deadpool breaks the fourth wall in answering that it was in Deadpool #16. It was a slight bit of breakage and Bullseye doesn't react to it.

Okay, so Kelly leaves the series with Deadpool #33. The end of the issue shows Deadpool ostensibly dying and walking off into the sunset with Death herself.

So new writer Christopher Priest plays with that idea by having Deadpool enter in the "hell" of comic book characters whose books had been written by Priest right before they were canceled...

Obviously, it turns out to be a dream as Deadpool works his way back to life and he finds himself in a tube being studied by a scientist (art by Paco Medina) and here, Deadpool breaks the fourth wall in obvious fashion, by far the most obvious fashion that he had ever done to that point in time...

Here's the problem, though. The scientist? He was actually a disguised Loki. He reveals himself to Deadpool eventually and when he does so, it is hard to really see Loki as being a guy who would even CARE if Deadpool broke the fourth wall, right? What does he care what a mortal like Deadpool does?

So what about people who are more in tune with Deadpool, like his fellow heroes. What do they think?

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During Cable and Deadpool, Fabian Nicieza and his artists began to use the recap page at the start of the issue as a breaking the fourth wall thing with having the characters address the readers directly...

When Domino appeared on it, she was weirded out, but these were ostensibly out of continuity...

When this stuff comes up in the comics themselves, everyone just treats him as though he is insane and believes that he is just talking to himself when he breaks the fourth wall, like Domino notes here...