In "When We First Met", we spotlight the various characters, phrases, objects or events that eventually became notable parts of comic lore, like the first time someone said, "Avengers Assemble!" or the first appearance of Batman's giant penny or the first appearance of Alfred Pennyworth or the first time Spider-Man's face was shown half-Spidey/half-Peter. Stuff like that.

Reader Michael C. wrote in to ask when Wolverine and Deadpool first met each other in the comics.

This one fascinates me. I have this column called "Foundationed Deep." The idea behind this column is the fact that the Marvel Universe is constantly retconning people's back stories so that we find out that Character X is connected to Character Y because they went to the same high school or something like that.

Well, two of the characters with the most notable examples of connecting them to other characters through retconned backstories are Wolverine and Deadpool.

Here is just a simple example from each one of them.

In Deadpool: Sins of the Past, a 1994 mini-series that featured Mark Waid's debut work for Marvel Comics. The mini-series was initially drawn by Ian Churchill and Jason Minor. In the previous Deadpool mini-series from the previous year (by Fabian Nicieza and Joe Madureira), we had established that Deadpool was familiar with Black Tom Cassidy.

In this sequel series, Cassidey's cousin, Banshee (along with Banshee's daughter, Siryn), tries to find out where his cousin has been taken following the events of the previous series. During this point, Banshee comes across Deadpool, who is also about to be taken prisoner by the same people who have Black Tom.

In the process, we learn that Banshee and Deadpool know each other...

In Avengers Annual #10, the X-Men took Carol Danvers in after she lost her superpowers (courtesy of Rogue stripping away Carol's powers and much of her personality through her mutant powers).

So Carol was living with the X-Men for a few months when, out of nowhere, in Uncanny X-Men #154, we learn that Carol and Wolverine know each other!

A couple of years later, in Marvel Fanfare #24, Claremont then wrote an "untold tale" set after Uncanny X-Men #167 to explain after the fact how Carol left - she sort of leaves off-panel. Here, they go from knowing each other a bit and working with each other in the past to being practically soulmates...

When he was hallucinating after being crucified by the Reavers, Carol was one of his hallucinations.

Larry Hama Howard Mackie did a nice graphic novel in 1996 with Carol and Logan back in their earlier days together.

Meanwhile, in Deadpool's second appearance in X-Force #2 (by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza), we discover that Deadpool was actually a product of the same Weapon X program that had created Wolverine back in the day!

So think about it. Both of these characters were notable for revealing that they knew other characters back in the day before they REALLY met them. Plus, Deadpool is FROM THE SAME PROGRAM THAT MADE WOLVERINE.

Surely, then, they must have had a meeting in the past, right?

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Well, oddly enough, it appears as though they did not actually meet until 1994's Wolverine #88 (by Larry Hama, Adam Kubert, Fabio Laguna, Mark Farmer and Tim Townsend), when Wolverine goes to check in on Kane (the dude from X-Force #2) and instead runs into Deadpool...

Wolverine's healing powers were a bit out of whack at the time, but it's still impressive to see Deadpool take Wolverine out so easily.

As an aside, Kubert was finished with that particular issue after a couple more pages and then Laguna took over and, well, let's just say that it is one of the more infamous swipe-filled issues of the era (and there were a lot of examples of stuff like that back then).

EDITED TO ADD: My pal Sam noted that they DID retcon Deadpool into Secret Wars (but he was erased from everyone's memory of the events, including his own), so that sort of counts, right?

So there ya go, Michael!

Thanks for the suggestion! If anyone else has a suggestion for a comic book first, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!