Deadpool is probably the world’s favorite superhero, with the first movie grossing nearly a cool billion dollars. We’re pretty certain Deadpool was pleased when he found out his origin story became the highest grossing grown-up-rated movie of all time.
The Merc With A Mouth hasn’t only gotten by on his boyish charm and horrible bad looks, however, he’s got a whole slew of sidekicks and friends who’ve helped him along the way. Who cares about those losers though, right? No, we’re here today to talk about bodies ladies and gentlemen, more importantly, Deadpool’s body.
The thing is a mess first-off, but it has a lot of weird little holes to discover and is bumpy in places you’d never expect, much like a standard American highway. Like an American highway, there’s a lot of things entering and exiting it constantly, bullets, blades, Ryan Reynolds, and today we’re going to explore all these things.
From that time a severed chunk of his body grew a whole new evil Deadpool, to his stint as a Sumo Wrestler before he had his powers. We’re leaving no bit of lumpy flesh unturned here and once you’re done reading this article you’ll be able to impress your friends and office workers with your knowledge about Deadpool’s bodily functions.
Without holding back, below are the 25 WEIRDEST facts about Deadpools body.
25 Man Of Many Faces
Before he started his superhero career, Wade Wilson was a life-taker/mercenary. Maybe. We think, his backstory changes pretty much with each writer who takes the reigns. In one of the many canon backstories he has, Deadpool used to take on hard contracts and missions other soldiers of fortune normally couldn’t handle.
In order to get close to his targets and keep his identity secret, after each mission Wade would undergo heavy plastic surgery.
Gaining a new face after every mark in order to continue being the best man for the job.
The mask idea would come far later in his life, only after he no longer needed subterfuge in order to get the job done. In the rare times Wade as Deadpool does need to disguise himself, he’s used a holographic projector to give himself a brand new fresh rotting appearance. Which is much simpler than getting a nose job after each mission probably.
This made his early career very formative for the kind of superhero he’d become, learning the strategies and tricks needed to tackle stealth missions. He could become anyone at any time, nobody was safe, several times he would replace someone close to the target and assume their identity.
24 He’s Forgotten How Many Times He’s Had Amnesia
One of the likely reasons Deadpool’s backstory is so complicated is because his brain “don’t do the memories too good.” Deadpool has gotten full-blown amnesia several times, had his brain turned into goop more times than a Jersey Shore fan and on one occasion swapped minds entirely with someone else.
It’s no surprise then that he can’t even remember if he’s the real Wade Wilson or not.
While his hippocampus regenerates each time it’s blown to bits he’s clearly losing more of himself. It’s only a matter of time before Deadpool forgets entirely about the few loved ones he has left.
Considering his immortality since he can’t perish from old age either, eventually much like in the Butterfly Effect, he’ll have too many memories stored up unless they keep wiping themselves. Which could one day be a really interesting character arc for the merc with a mouth.
The holes in his memory have been used against him by villains before, some who claim to be people from his past or those who just taunt him by claiming they know things he doesn’t. So far Deadpool has prevailed over all of them but maybe one day he’ll realize he isn’t the real Wade Wilson and what happens then?
23 Bulk’d Up
Deadpool wasn’t always skinny. Back at the beginning of his career, he took a tour of Japan, much like Wolverine, to complete a job. That involved infiltrating a sumo ring, which he didn’t do so well at until he bulked up and became… well, the proper size for a sumo.
To get that fat must have taken a lot of chimichangas.
While he might have a much harder time putting on weight these days, back before he gained his healing factor and his increased metabolism, he apparently didn’t have that trouble during this mission. After gaining the weight, he proved to be a nearly unstoppable contender in the underground sumo world. He wound up respecting the man he’d been sent to end and falling in love with his daughter and so ended up abandoning the mission. Sadly, he didn’t wind up with the woman he loved as he needed to return for his next mission.
Love just wasn’t in the cards for Wade Wilson yet and he made a powerful enemy that day. One that would eventually pursue him as Deadpool for vengeance. His sumo skills, however, came in handy in the future several times, as did his knowledge of Japanese.
22 Surprisingly Romantic
Thanks to the cancer that his healing factor is constantly keeping at bay, Deadpool’s face is a scarred mess. In the movie, they go into great lengths expressing shock and horror at poor Wade Wilsons disgusting transformation. This doesn’t seem to slow Deadpool down at all though when it comes to women.
Wade has a shockingly diverse, scandalous, and consistent love life.
He’s kept up relationships with many heroes and even a few civilians who can get past his awful looks. Lady Death’s interest in him is legendary for example, much to Thanos’ annoyance, and he’s even stolen Dracula’s girlfriend once before. Not to mention the list of women trying to seduce or stalk him.
Granted his relationships don’t seem to last very long before they crash and burn as spectacularly as he does as was the case with Domino. But still, it’s good to know a large number of characters in the Marvel universe can look past the face, not even a mother would love.
Strangely, Deadpool’s love life is one of the most consistent things about the character, however, it’s a little annoying at how each writer seems to try and one-up the other with who he ends up with during their run.
21 Lost Powers
What do you do, when your unbreakable body… breaks? Deadpool wound up after some moral shinanigans finding a way to cure his cancer at the cost of removing his powers. There was a long arc where Wade Wilson hung up his mask and swords and actually tried to live like a normal person.
His face healed, his terminal illness was gone, and his mind finally quieted so he could live the life he wanted for a short time.
Eventually, though, he found himself tired of normalcy and pursued avenues to restore his powers. It appears as though his healing factor and cancer go hand in hand as after he found a way to bring them back so did his disease. With great power comes great sacrifice in Deadpool’s case. We’re glad he took back up his iconic mask and swords, the world sometimes needs an anti-hero like the Merc with a Mouth. Not to mention his unique humor has made his appearances in any series an absolute treat. It would have been a blow to the comic industry had he, like Wolverine, disappeared for an extended period of time.
His retirement and subsequent return has been one of the most emotional moments in his history.
20 Does This Him And Wolverine Related?
Wolverine and Deadpool are extremely similar. Errr, in powers, not in personality or appearance. Although lacking the same adamantium skeleton Wolverine sports, Deadpool’s healing factor was artificially created with Wolverines. There are some subtle differences, like how Wolverines activates unconsciously and tends to straight up regrow limbs as opposed to Deadpool reattaching them in mid-fight.
It’s debatable who’s is stronger, in the end, both have recovered from some pretty painful and bloody demise.
Although Logan will claim they have nothing in common, the fact is that they share the same DNA now and Wade knows and loves it. It’s probably why he’s always trying to hover around the X-men, he finds it a hilarious riot to bother and annoy his superpower brother.
It’s gotten so bad for poor Wolverine, that the X-man has stated his greatest fear is outliving everyone else on the planet and then only having Deadpool for company. This would make a fairly interesting comic run actually, now that I think of it, both of them in an empty world trying to remove the other from it. Eventually one prevails and now the other is all alone with only their warped and twisted thoughts left with them.
19 Constantly Perishing
Deadpool’s body hates him. He gets an amazing healing factor like Wolverine’s in order to cure his cancer, and it only makes everything worse by fixing the problem in the worst way possible. Rather than outright curing and eliminating the illness it only means that he heals from the damage as quickly as it’s caused. Since this causes his cells to go regenerate extremely fast, this means the cancer is sped up too.
Like an eight-year-old at Thanksgiving, it’s running rampant and leaving a mess.
Summed up, Deadpool is constantly perishing and healing from his cancer at a rate that’s impossible to truly understand. This causes a lot of negative side-effects and his horrifically disfigured face and body is only one of them. Well, we don’t know how other diseases would interact with everything going on inside of Deadpool, it’s a safe bet that there’s at least one scientist itching for a look inside the Merc with a Mouth. If the CDC could get their hands on him, Deadpool might find himself a walking petri dish of apocalyptic viruses.
As a side note, his regeneration make it significantly harder for other common sicknesses to take hold so he rarely catches colds.
18 His Heart, Torn Out
The world’s favorite anti-hero has had his fair share of bad injuries that he’s had no right coming back from. His original nemesis, Ajax, kickstarted this train of close calls and awful scrapes by tearing out the newly empowered Wade Wilson’s heart and leaving him to perish.
This was the first time his body ever managed to heal from such a dire wound.
Wade’s thirst for vengeance was so extreme that his healing factor jumpstarted, regrowing his heart in his body and allowing him to walk away from the mortal wound. This is arguably when Deadpool was born and when Wade Wilson perished. The loss of Wade’s heart was symbolic of everything he had to leave behind, thinking he’d be able to come back to it once he’d been cured of his disease.
He never would. Once something’s gone, it’s gone for good. He will never get back what innocence he still managed to retain after his mercenary days. Deadpool knows this and that’s why his only path is forwards, never stopping, never resting.
It’s enough to drive someone insane. One day, maybe he’ll recover from his trauma and managed to rebuild some of his life. He’s tried before, perhaps next time he’ll succeed.
17 He Can Save Lives
Copycat is like a better Mystique. In that she can mimic someone down to a cellular level, allowing her to replicate their powers as well.
Originally, Copycat was Venessa Carlysle, Wade Wilsons girlfriend, she wound up manifesting mutant powers after he left her.
As the only logical course of action, she followed in his footsteps and became a mercenary.
After they were reunited and tried to reignite their relationship unsuccessfully, Copycat was mortally wounded during a hunt for advanced technological weapons which prompted Deadpool to share his powers with her. Permanently weakening his healing factor in order to fix her.
That’s right, Deadpool can sacrifice some of his healing factor in order to save others. While one might argue that Copycat’s case was special and her own mutant abilities contributed to this, it doesn’t stop Deadpool from doing it again LATER to save others the same way. This feels like sloppy writing, Deadpool’s whole character is that he sometimes outlives things that finish his allies. He shouldn’t be able to have this occasional get out of jail free card that he only uses on certain people, it cheapens the whole experience. Also although they’ve said it makes his powers weaker, we haven’t actually seen any evidence of that as of yet.
16 A Walking Science Experiment
While normally Deadpool paints the target on his own back through his actions and mouth, in some cases it’s actually not his fault. His body is a literal walking science experiment of which study could bring about new cures and progress medical science by leaps and bounds.
He’s not gonna sit still for it though.
His healing factor honestly attracts more attention from villains these days than Wolverine does, people taking him off the street to steal organs (he’s fine they’ll regrow) is only the tip of the iceberg. Several times people have nabbed him in order to use him as an unwilling research assistant. Thankfully, someone always tends to bail him out, but it’s been a close call a few times. While his volunteering in a study would likely change the course of medical science for the better, Deadpool knows that it could also unleash a great evil if they tried to make another weapon like they did with him.
He endured horrors in the Weapon-X program that left him scarred in more ways than just his face. He won’t let himself or anyone else go through that pain again. If only there was someone he trusted to share the secrets of his biology with.
15 Partial Medium
Wade Wilson’s brain probably isn’t your first choice for a vacation home. Honestly, it shouldn’t even be on the list at all, if your list includes hanging out in peoples heads you need a new list.
Although it’s not prime real estate, plenty of people do find themselves sharing Deadpool’s headspace.
But more on that later. One of the more prolific and strange renters of his madhouse was Emily Preston and the reason that sets her apart from all the other voices in Deadpool’s head is that she was deceased. After being slain when Zombie George Washington (it was a really bad comic run) attacked a S.H.I.E.L.D helicarrier, one of Deadpool’s allies, a necromancer named Micheal, put her consciousness in his head.
Neither was particularly happy, Deadpool didn’t want his S.H.I.E.L.D handler seeing his every move and Preston… wasn’t enjoying the afterlife she’d been subject too. They tried to fix the problem numerous times and eventually succeeded, but not after the strangest attempt at a buddy cop storyline in Marvel history. All these characters would eventually be cleaned up by other writers down the line, in addition, the end of Secret War came during the run which really overshadowed the woman in Deadpool’s head.
14 One Powerful Upgrade
Already powerful enough to regrow his heart, reattach limbs, and to have his head still SOMEHOW be rolling around and causing trouble, Deadpool’s healing factor didn’t need an upgrade.
It got one though, courtesy of the Weapon X program. Nothing suspicious about that, right?
After it was strengthened, Deadpool’s healing abilities skyrocketed. While strong and efficient before, this was essentially supercharging his superpowers. Now Deadpool could recover from even more grievous wounds in half the time, all the while still spouting one-liners. In exchange, all he needed to do was some odd (re: EVIL) jobs with Sabretooth for the program.
Obviously, this didn’t work out so well. Deadpool, though an Anti-Hero, still possesses some of his morals while Sabretooth… yeah, he doesn’t. This caused some extreme trouble for the Merc With A Mouth who disagreed heavily with some of the actions he and his team were being forced to take. Deadpool rather than just letting loose and destroying the facility or walking out on his team actually tried to go up to the director and voice his concerns in a mature and responsible way. It didn’t go very well which is probably why he never tried that course of action again.
13 Back From The Grave
As mentioned, Deadpool’s healing factor upgrade came at a cost. Work for the Weapon X program, doing incredibly evil stuff.
Eventually, this cost became too high for Deadpool, which lead to his demise at the hands of his former employer.
Like, actual demise. As in final, deceased. Upon bringing up his valid concerns of “Hey can we be like a little LESS evil?” to the Director of the Weapon-X program, the director wisely and calmly responded with “No.” Then the director attacked Deadpool and reversed his healing factor causing Deadpool to rapidly decay and then fall to pieces on the floor quite literally. This was the end of Deadpool, that’s an injury you can’t come back from and with no healing factor he had no chance of recovery.
Just kidding it’s a comic book, nobody stays gone, it’s bad for sales and Deadpool knows that.
Apparently, that upgrade they’d given him previously was still lingering around and was strong enough that when it finally kicked in it fixed the whole problem in a terrible display of writing. It also caused a new one, if you consider an amnesiac Wade Wilson wandering around with no idea who he is a problem.
12 Personal Demons
What’s better than one Deadpool? Five Deadpool’s! No wait, dang, that’s worse. That’s far, far worse. Wade Wilson wasn’t the only one running around Earth 616 (the main canon Marvel universe) as the Merc With A Mouth.
At one point, four other individuals all laid claim to the Deadpool name.
Just to complicate things, technically they all WERE Deadpool.
During his amnesic stint and before Weasal had helped him restore his memories, Deadpool’s longest running nemesis, T-Ray, concocted a plan. While in Thanos’ employ T-Ray used the Gemini Star in order to manifest different aspects of Wade Wilson’s personality as physical beings. This was so he could eliminate those, and then leave Wade Wilson an empty shell with no personality. Although… really, really complex it actually isn’t a bad idea if you think about it. A normal plan would have nearly no chance of even slowing Deadpool down. To beat the Merc with a Mouth, of course you’d need to think outside the box and come up with a plan as equally crazy as he was.
Anyways, he was foiled when Wade broke the Gemini Star and T-Ray accidentally absorbed the four extra Deadpool’s, which rendered him comatose after his defeat.
11 One Crazy Personality Complex
Alright, do your best and try to stay with me here cause this gets REALLY weird REALLY quick. So, the event that started this whole mess was when Deadpool took on a job to eliminate the Four Winds crime family. He proceeded to do nothing, took all the credit, formed a business, and reaped all the rewards. Meanwhile, it was a life-taker named Black Swan who’d done all the work.
Black Swan was understandably annoyed and came after Deadpool.
After a vicious fight ending in an explosion and the presumed demise of everyone involved, a guy stumbled out of the wreckage with both Black Swan and Deadpool’s powers.
Turns out Black Swan had stuck everybody’s minds and powers in the body of his unfortunate underling Nijo. This kinda broke Nijo and he wandered around with no memories for a while with people thinking he was Deadpool until the pair of anti-heroes resurfaced in his head and… well triple crossed each other about six times before they got everything back to normal. It took Nijo finally standing up to his overbearing former boss with Deadpool’s help and the pair uniting to take him down but eventually, they managed to give Black Swan what he deserved.
10 More Than Just Healing Powers
One trick ponies don’t tend to last long in the Marvel universe. Apparently, they don’t sell well and it’s cooler to have your characters be able to do anything they want whenever they want with no consequences.
It’s why Rogue can fly and Mystique can now manifest weird bodyparts like chitin plate armor.
That’s a mental image you didn’t need.
Deadpool’s actual abilities, though, have been pretty down to earth comparably. Yes, his healing factor is pants on head crazy most of the time but that’s part of the humor. The additional abilities and powers he gets all stem from that and are pretty acceptable. He’s got enhanced strength and speed, superior to any athlete on Earth. It’s a good thing he does too or he’d be taking a lot more injuries since his healing factor doesn’t technically make him a more skilled fighter. His background as a mercenary before he became Deadpool is a big part of why he’s so successful. If he ever retired from being a mercenary he’d probably earn Canada a lot of gold medals in the Olympics… if he could pass the tests, of course. Sadly, we’re pretty sure the Marvel Universe Olympic committee would do everything in their power to keep him out.
9 Who Exactly Is He?
I’ve referred to Deadpool as Wade Wilson often throughout this article, but that may not be fully accurate. As I’ve mentioned previously, Deadpool doesn’t really know who he is exactly. It’s thought he’s Wade Wilson but with the constant changing and retconning of his backstory, it’s up to the readers’ interpretation and the individual writer if he’s actually Wade or not.
Deadpool not being Wade Wilson is a distinct possibility as several others have made the claim that they are the former soldier.
T-Ray is the one who has the largest claim, but even then it’s not always cut and dry, Deadpool sometimes mocks his nemesis by providing proof that he’s the real Wade which tends to be returned in kind by T-Ray. Anytime something from Deadpool’s past comes up to cause trouble, this whole issue comes up again, like when someone claiming to be Wade Wilson’s wife (say that three times fast) nearly finished off the mercenary for good.
This leads us to the obvious question of “if Deadpool isn’t Wade Wilson, who is he?” So far, we don’t know. No good alternatives have been presented yet. One day we might get concrete evidence but right now it doesn’t look like it’ll be anytime soon.
8 Voices In His Head
If you’ve read a Deadpool comic, you already know about this. I’m only going over the obvious in order to set the stage for something I’d bet you didn’t know about a little later. Deadpool hears voices in his head. Big shocker.
While most comic characters will have an internal monologue going, Deadpool frequently argues with his.
He’s also capable of seeing the voices, so he may not be hearing them so much as reading them as they pop up beside his head. It can create some really hilarious banter if used well by the writer or it can be incredibly annoying “LOL RANDOM” humor. Unlike most things involving Deadpool, there actually is an in-canon scientific explanation for this strangeness that I’ll go over later.
For now, all you need to know is there are normally two voices in his head with distinct personalities, represented by White and Yellow. One is sassy and sarcastic, that one is the fun one, the other is militaristic and violent. Depending on who’s currently staying in his head, there’s sometimes more with varying and contrasting personalities.
Deadpool’s head is like an internet forum, lots of little rooms with people arguing about inane things.
7 Explaining His Insanity
As I mentioned, Deadpool hears voices. The White and Yellow boxes have been staples to his comics for an extremely long time. They’re always there. Pushing him to succeed, do things… or arguing with each other and their host.
What if I told you that the voices were real and had identities as well as personal agendas?
It’s true, the boxes are, or once were, people… it’s really confusing. To keep this brief, the White box is the lingering voice of Madcap. Originally a Captain America villain, Madcap and Deadpool wound up being turned to ash with the piles mixing together. When both of their individual healing factors activated they wound up fusing together into a single being. Even though Madcap eventually separated from Deadpool, the voice seems to have remained. This is a weirdly good explanation for a change for one of Deadpool’s oddities. Normally we just get an “It’s up to the readers’ interpretation on who he is” but in this case, it was confirmed in canon.
As for the Yellow box, it’s identity is still debated. It’s possible it’s Deadpool’s villainous psychiatrist Doctor Bong, but it could be someone else as there’s not enough proof yet.
6 An Unlimited Amount Of Stamina
As a neat little bonus, Deadpool’s healing factor has a few beneficial side effects. They’re not really unique powers so rather than name them all separately we’re gonna talk about them all at once.
The key to these helpful additions to his power, all stem from the fact that Deadpool is constantly healing.
This means that the neurons in his brain regenerate as they are perishing, causing him to think and react much faster and making him immune to brain injuries. It also means he’s immune to telepathic or any other normal mind-altering effect, of course, bad writers tend to forget about this so the ability is inconsistent.
It’s not only his brain healing too, it’s his entire body. The regeneration means his body heals from fatigue as quickly as it comes on, preventing him from ever tiring out. I can think of a few ways such side effects could come into use during his personal life but the main takeaway is that this means Deadpool is a tireless combatant. He can keep a fight going forever even after others would need to stop. Not even Wolverine has this kind of stamina and it explains how he can be constantly talking while in combat.
