WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Infinite Frontier: Secret Files #6 by Dan Watters, Joshua Williamson, Christopher Mitten, Dave Stewart and Tom Napolitano, on sale now.

Most of Deadpool's humor comes from his ability to break the fourth wall with witty comments where Wade Wilson acknowledges his status as a fictional character. Addressing the audience in such a self-aware, tongue-in-cheek manner is one of the most amusing and endearing things about the Marvel character. However, breaking the fourth wall is no joke for DC's most self-aware character in DC's Infinite Frontier. In fact, it's the most terrifying thing in the DC Universe.

Infinite Frontier: Secret Files #6 focuses on Psycho-Pirate, witness to every Crisis and the only one who can remember every version of reality. Psycho-Pirate is approached by someone seeking the power of his Medusa Mask, which grants the wearer the ability to manipulate emotions. Psycho-Pirate agrees on the condition that the man answers three questions. Psycho-Pirate is pleased with the first two answers provided, but not the third.

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Psycho-Pirate's third question is: "Who are you?" The man's answer pertains to his ordinary life up to now, proving to Psycho-Pirate that the man doesn't see the world as he does. Initially, Psycho-Pirate refers only to Dark Nights: Death Metal's multiversal reset and how the man couldn't have lived a full life with reality only being months old, but then Psycho-Pirate goes beyond that.

Psycho-Pirate explains how everyone else is stuck in "the pale gutters." Seeing the man doesn't understand, Psycho-Pirate gives a horrifying demonstration. He pulls at the edges of the panel he's in, tearing the structure of the comic apart and letting the story bleed into the literal pale white gutters of the comic. Wearing the Medusa Mask, the man's existential terror over realizing his life is part of a comic book is amplified. This scares him to death, literally.

This terrifying, deadly experience is in complete contrast to Marvel's history of breaking the fourth wall. Though the practice is associated more with Deadpool, Wade Wilson is hardly the first character to break down the fourth wall. John Byrne's The Sensational She-Hulk series saw Jennifer Walters addressing readers right off the bat, even threatening to destroy readers' X-Men comics if they didn't buy hers.

This method of addressing the reader for comedic effect was later adopted by Deadpool in Joe Kelly and Ed McGuiness's 1997 Deadpool series and has become an iconic staple of the character ever since. This parodic self-awareness has been used by Ryan Reynolds cinematic version of the character and inspired the origins of an entirely new character called Gwenpool. Her fourth-wall-breaking is arguably more prominent than Deadpool's, whom she's partially based off of.

Even when Marvel addresses the potential horrifying possibilities of breaking the fourth wall, they're still nowhere near as disturbing as DC's version in this issue of Infinite Frontier: Secret Files. Gwenpool Strikes Back by Leah Williams, David Baldeón, David Baldeón, Jesus Aburtov and Joe Caramagna saw Gwenpool trying to establish a greater presence in the Marvel Universe so that she can't be written out of existence. Whilst this is a terrifying existential threat, the entire premise is played for comedic effect, unlike Psycho-Pirate's journey which is all about terror.

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Gwenpool breaking the fourth wall and talking about DC heroes

Psycho-Pirate's self-awareness doesn't give him any sort of freedom here either, just another prison. The narrator of the issue points out that Psycho-Pirate isn't as free as he believes himself to be, panning out to reveal that the white space is the full stop of "Darkseid is." from Tom King and Mitch Gerads's Mister Miracle.

Darkseid brings Psycho-Pirate out of his prison and onto Earth Omega. Knowing that Psycho-Pirate hates being alone in this self-aware torture, Darkseid remakes Psycho-Pirate so that he can make others see his horrifying perspective on reality. Joshua Williamson and Xermanico's Infinite Frontier series revealed Psycho-Pirate's first recruit to be The Flash. Psycho-Pirate is sure to spread his self-awareness to others but one thing's for certain: it's no laughing matter.

KEEP READING: Infinite Frontier Calls Out the MCU and DCEU's Futures