Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the six hundred and eightieth week where we examine comic book legends and whether they are true or false.
As always, there will be three different posts for each legend this week! All Deadpool legends this week!
NOTE: I noticed that the the CSBG Twitter page was nearing 10,000 followers. If we hit 10,050 followers on the the CSBG Twitter page then I'll do a BONUS edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed during the week that we hit 10,050. So three more legends! Sounds like a great deal, right?
COMIC LEGEND:
The movie Twins influenced the creation of Deadpool.
STATUS:
True
As I noted in an old Comic Book Legends Revealed a few years back, when Rob Liefeld came up with the idea behind Deadpool, his concept was that he was Weapon NINE, with Wolverine's Weapon X standing for ten instead of the letter X. That concept did not actually end up translating to the comic by the time that Deadpool's back story was actually gotten into in X-Force #2, but that was clearly something that Liefeld had in mind when he invented the character.
It's literally right there on the sketches for Deadpool that he did for Bob Harras back in the day...
However, what is interesting is how, exactly, Liefeld was influenced into having Deadpool be sort of the "lesser" version of Wolverine's Weapon X...
As it turned out, a big influence was the film, Twins, where Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito play twins who were part of a genetic experiment to combine the DNA of a bunch of guys to form the perfect kid. As it turned out, Schwarzenegger got all the "good" parts while DeVito's character got the leftovers...
That was exactly the way that Liefeld saw Deadpool in relation to Wolverine. Back in 2016, he told Complex, "“I stole that crap straight out of Twins. When they go to Danny DeVito, ‘How are they twins?’ he goes, ‘All the purity and strength went into Julius. All the crap that was left over went into what you see in the mirror every morning.’ That’s Wade Wilson. I wanted a mercenary, a bounty hunter who got in the Weapon X program, got screwed up and pissed off and sold his talents to the highest bidder. He was a jackhole.”
I love how open Liefeld is about all of his influences. That's still why I buy him when he says he didn't base Deadpool on Deathstroke. He's EXTREMELY open with all of the various influences he put into Deadpool, but he's going to lie about just that one? Come on.
Check out a pair of Deadpool legends from Legends Revealed:
Is Deadpool a Part of Fox’s X-Men Movie Deal?
Was a Joke In An Issue of Cable/Deadpool Really the Inspiration for Ryan Reynolds Playing Deadpool?
Check back Saturday for part 2 of this week's legends!
And remember, if you have a legend that you're curious about, drop me a line at either brianc@cbr.com or cronb01@aol.com!