Somehow, twelve years of "The End"?

Way back in 2009, we started looking at last issues with the Intimates #12, one of the few titles we've seen get cancelled and stay cancelled. This year's first book has had a mini-series since, but she'll be back: from 2018, the Unbelievable Gwenpool #25, written by Christopher Hastings, art by Gurihiru.

The writing had been on the wall for a while, and Gwen knew her book was coming to an end. (An earlier issue has her take a moment for a surprisingly affecting goodbye to Batroc, since she knew he would probably be different in his next appearance than he had been in her supporting cast.) As she has adventures with the Avengers, Guardians, and various Spider-types and wraps up plotlines for her supporting cast; Gwen also wonders what, if anything, the future holds for her. She is visited by another future version of herself, but a friendly one, telling Gwen her comic would be read further and further in the future, among other things. That could be read as a commentary on the book finding it's audience: as sometimes happens, I don't think I hopped on the bandwagon until the ride was already ending.

Gwen catches up with her friends, which does include the return of her former boss MODOK; blows off spending more than a page with her police contact; and visits a young fan multiple times in her life, from child to elderly. Her book might be done, but Gwenpool would go on; first in the short-lived (and somewhat iffy) West Coast Avengers relaunch; then in the fun but exhausting Gwenpool Strikes Back. In that limited, she seemed to lose some of the confidence she had here and be worried about her place. She shouldn't, she'll be back. After all, one of her inspirations looked down the barrel of cancellation more than once:

From 2002, Deadpool #69, "Healing Factor, part 4" Written by Gail Simone, art by Udon. (Mainly Alvin Lee, I think.) It is shocking how great, yet how short, Simone's run on Deadpool proper is. While Deadpool's brain is erasing itself, courtesy of jealous merc Black Swan, Pool has bigger fish to fry: his assistant Sandi was beat up and hospitalized by her ex. While Pool is able to cheer her up a bit, Sandi still makes him promise not to kill said ex, as she didn't want that on her conscience. Pool couldn't hang out because of the Swan thing, so he left Taskmaster to watch over her, and left with his "biographer," homeless dysphasic Ratbag. A pouting Pool tells a janitor to get Sandi anything she wants, but Ratbag notices the 'janitor' was a bad guy: Nijo, who had been hunting Pool because he killed his mob boss brother. Nijo had been working with Black Swan, but takes exception at being ordered to kill Sandi, and quits.

Pool catches up with Sandi's ex, and administers a world-class beating, but lets him live...for about 30 seconds, until Taskmaster shows up: "...I didn't promise her squat." Pool then makes a few (mostly prank) calls, before setting up transportation to Germany, to face Black Swan. Nijo was still there--apparently unwilling to do Swan's 'spying,' but still wanting Pool dead. After killing his way into Swan's castle, Pool commandeers...Swan's sound system! Bastard! He and Ratbag also vandalize a lot in a brief time; but Pool has put together Swan's deal: at the start of Simone's run, Pool had pulled off the "Four Winds" hit, killing four mob bosses with seemingly impossible shots. Those shots were in fact impossible: Swan had killed them, but Pool had been given the credit. Nijo is stabbed by Swan, who admits killing his brother.

Pool has a very large bomb, and a very big ask, for Swan: not to save himself, but to fix Ratbag's broken head. Ratbag is cured and flees, but it's still a standoff: there's no cure for the virus erasing Pool's mind, and he's not about to give Swan the code to disarm the bomb. Swan turns out to be an expert swordsman, and while trying to psychically extract the code also cuts off Deadpool's hand; but then Pool turns the psychic attack back on him, giving him full access to his horrible, horrible mind. Pool beats the 'snob' Swan and leaves him with his head crammed into a fireplace, then tries to remember the code to disarm the bomb. "Oh, yeah. I wrote it on my hand..." Still able to see the humor in that one, he jumps for his severed hand, as the bomb explodes, destroying Swan's castle...

This was the end of Deadpool, but in two weeks Simone and Udon would deliver Agent X, sort of the Player-2 version of Pool but not really: all the clues are in this issue. I could be misremembering, but I could've sworn Deadpool and Cable were both cancelled because Marvel thought they could maybe do without the Rob Liefeld-aspects of the characters, or cut him out of any deals, if any. (I know that's wrong, I've referenced it before, yet still think it happened!) Nah, it very well may have simply been Deadpool and Cable sales were in the toilet. I don't think either Agent X or Soldier X took off at all, possibly due to lack of sales push, or editorial interference: Simone would leave after #7, and despite two super-fun issues from Evan Dorkin the book was going to be cancelled with #12; but Simone returned for three issues to bring back Deadpool. If you haven't read those issues, you've seen them referenced online; they had some jokes!