"Now it's over, I'm dead, and I haven't done anything that I want..."

"Or I'm still alive, and there's nothing I want to do." A tip of the hat to anyone that recognizes that lyric, and click to enlarge as usual.


This isn't my favorite point in Deadpool's continuity, but it is one I thought I could have some fun with. As usual, I'm going off memory here, but during Frank Tieri's run on the book, Deadpool did a four-issue stint in Weapon X, that ended in his death. The next issue was a silent one (or at least mostly) with Pool's funeral, the only thing left of him being a hand. Then, four different versions of Deadpool show up, each representing different aspects of his personality: square-jawed do-gooder, attention-whore glory-hog, cold-blooded hitman, and a drooling psychotic that only yells "No pickles!"

Frankly, the joke ran a little long, but in the end Deadpool is back, with relatively little explanation on how or why any of that happened. Except for the last page, featuring, from nowhere, Thanos. Now, Thanos had long been established as having a creepy relationship with Death, and not cute Neil Gaiman Death or hot Warlord Death, hooded skull-face Death; although I don't think he was still pursuing Death as a lover then. (Although now that I think about it, I do believe Thanos had a brief cameo at the end of Joe Kelly's run; showing up with flowers and candy but Death's gone to hang with Pool.)

I guess Thanos is currently dead, as of Annihilation; but that would be an interesting wrinkle to him: Thanos may no longer love and worship Death, but to him, killing his enemies is very much sending them to a better place, and Thanos does not want that for his enemies. He referred to Deadpool as "Cursed, to life!" and Pool might agree: dead, he'd be at peace; while alive, the suffering just keeps going and going and going...We'll have a scan from that issue up on Friday, so you can see it's not just all in my head.

OK, the Thanos figure: this one is from the 90's Fantastic Four cartoon line, which had it's moments. I liked the cartoony Thing figure, the Mr. Fantastic was pretty good, and the line made figures of Galactus, Dragon Man, Black Bolt, and more. Thanos got another figure in the Silver Surfer line, and that would've been nice since it's big evil grin Thanos, the Thanos that loves his work. More recently, there was a Marvel Select version, which I'm kicking myself for not buying before. Came with a Death, too.

This may be sacrilege in certain circles, but I like Thanos better than Darkseid. I don't think you can deny that Thanos has been in better stories: Jim Starlin's Warlock alone trumps most of Darkseid's body of appearances. And Thanos was the big bad in the classic Marvel Super Heroes fighting game. And yet, I have two Darkseids, and only one lonely, tiny Thanos. It's a cruel universe. Thanos would want it that way.