Spiderman/deadpool - Blog Posts

Okay, I know this is stupid, but now I want to know if Peter walks up to Wade dressed as Peter Parker and says "I'm fucking Spiderman" if it gets blocked out too? Or is that okay because Wade will just say "I fucking knew it!" and get all pissed off because he thinks Peter is FUCKING Spiderman?

....

... I now want Peter to befriend Wade as Peter Parker and just accept the strange fact that Wade is friends with Spiderman AND Peter, but Wade legitimately has no idea they're the same person and Pete just rolls with it like nbd, doesn't try to hide it or anything, and when Wade asks about their relationship Pete just explains his inner struggles on being Spiderman and Peter as fake relationship drama.

Like, Johnny Storm walks in on them playing video games as Wade and Peter and Wade makes a comment about Spiderman and Peter being boyfriends and Johnny just looks at Peter like "wtf?" and Pete's just going with it and describing relationship issues with himself that get Wade all worked up.

*Spoilers for Spiderman/Deadpool #42*

Headcanon: The real reason Pete's face and name are blocked out for Wade is because Wade mentally can't handle knowing that he killed his idol multiple times and unintentionally corrupted him to a point where Peter almost went darkside.

LMAO  I just realized in the new Spiderman/Deadpool issue, Wade literally made them drive in a heart shaped loop on their road trip at some point.  It’s in the center of his map XD  This series is a treasure in so many ways

Spiderman/Deadpool Story Boarding

Can I just say, I really love the story boarding of Spiderman/Deadpool?? 

 It’s been good throughout the whole comic, but there are two instances that make me fanboy all over this, because it represents how I feel about their relationship. Spoilers Ahead!!

This is the first instance.  

I love the layout of this spread so very much.  The panels and speech bubble flow mirror each other.   The top panel on both pages is the outside of a place they belong to with opening words from prominent women in their lives (Ana Maria and Shiklah).  The next panel is of the boys, Pete upside down, Wade right side up, and both are cross legged, back to back.  One mostly naked with a mask and one covered without a mask.  Ana Maria and Shiklah are both in the background observing and poking at both the boys’ shortcomings.   Followed is two panels with each character having their own individual panel, which leads into a final panel with Ana Maria and Shiklah holding Peter and Wade’s faces and trying to convince them to stay away from one another, to which they both resist in their own ways.   Ugh, this page is beautiful.  It’s like a comic page yin/yang style (Even the colors!  One predominantly blue and red and the other yellow and red).  This page really represents how I kind of view these two characters together and I love it, can’t get enough of it.  The next story boarding sequence that I love is this one.

Mephisto has just told Peter that no matter what he does, he will always feel empty, incomplete, alone, etc.  This is all timed in Peter’s bedroom which is starkly empty, without any sense of personality, and very lonely much like Mephisto said.  The panel that gets me is the 3rd one with the word “emptiness.”  Here we have Peter feeling the emptiness Mephisto said as he sits in his impersonal barren room in the dark.  Alone.   And yet as you look down the panel out of the darkness of the ceiling there is one things that sticks out, the only other thing in the room besides Peter. Something that stands out against the emptiness.  

It’s a little Deadpool plushie.  Now, while Peter is not very happy about what he reads in the apology card or to see the plushie, to me, this story boarding technique foreshadows what I want their relationship to be like... or at least half of it. I want them to be able to fill in the gaps in each other, much like this panel is indicating.   Where Peter is alone and empty because of the deal with Mephisto involving his relationship with MJ, maybe he doesn’t have to be completely alone.  Maybe he and Wade can be lonely together.   This just fills my head with so many wonderful scenes of them sitting on rooftops together and being buds.     Okay, I’m done, I just really really love these two scenes and I needed to gush about them.  :)

So talking of finales penned by spn writers.

One of my fav comics the last few years has been Spider-Man/Deadpool, written by our very own Robbie Thompson.

Obviously, Deadpool is a character I was always gonna be fond of, since his fourth-wall breaking power / chatacter trait makes him all about the meta, and metafiction is My Jam.

Spider-Man/Deadpool has the additional fun of being about Wade and Peter's relationship specifically, which is just fun and adorable any which way, but the series also makes constant nods to the idea of them as a romantic couple (the title IS a LITERAL REFERENCE to slash fic/shipping). Never in a baity way either. The writing celebrates the idea of Spider-Man/Deadpool without ever teasing the idea it might actually happen. It's mostly Wade explicitly referencing them as a slash pairing in his various fourth-wall breaking speeches, while in the 'reality' of the universe the writing is pretty clear on the fact Peter only thinks of Wade platonically (or occasionally antagonistically :p), while Wade genuinely has an explicit romantic crush, but overall just simply respects and cares for Spider-Man as a person and primarily wants to be and have him as a friend (tho there's absolutely, deliberate, space left in the writing to imagine/fanfic a mutual romance between if you want).

(ASIDE: PETER PARKER IS NOT A KID IN THIS CURRENT VERSION OF MARVEL CANON HE IS 100% AN OF AGE ADULT, like he is in the Spiderverse film - in case anyone was freaking out)

So yeah, that's all fun and sweet and completely catering to my interests.

One of the big, big things about the characters and their relationship, though, is the fact that WADE DOES NOT KNOW SPIDER-MAN'S IDENTITY. And this quickly became one of, if not THE, things at the heart of their evolving friendship/relationship. The closer they get, the more and more you WANT Wade to find out or, better, for Peter to TELL HIM. Because you want them to reach that place of love and trust where they each know intimate things about each other, where Peter cares about and knows he can trust Wade enough to share that vulnerable truth about himself.

So, Peter telling Wade his secret identity - that's, basically, the ship/relationship endgame everyone is rooting for.

SO.

In the *cries* final storyline of the series, this whole epic Thing happens, that I won't explain cos it'll take too long. But basically, the world appears to be ending and in that context of dire and angsty straits - Peter reveals his identity to Wade! *insert Deadpool movie shock gif*

Now closer than ever, they team up with a rag tag collection of other characters to take on the Big Bad and, long story short, they discover the whole epic end of the world Thing has been a fake reality created by the real villain of the piece -

THE WRITER, aka Robbie himself!

Due a series of implausible comic book events they are able to confront and defeat him and he offers this in his defence -

and I just -

<3

aw Robbie

your supervillain origin story was... WANTING FICTIONAL CHARACTERS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS TO GROW?

(#relatable)

When I first read this (which was, oh, back near the very beginning of spn S15) I thought

a) amusing that an ex-spn writer is, like spn itself, writing a meta story in which the writer is the villain

b) it's funny how spn's villain writer and Robbie's villain writer both harm/manipulate their characters for the exact opposite reasons - Chuck wants to prevent the characters from developing, comic!Robbie wants to force them TO develop

(and c) I wonder if this lament over characters not being allowed to grow, and the fact that wanting to change that associates Robbie with villainy, in any way connects to... other writing jobs he may have had... before the comic...)

The tragedy, tho, is that after his defeat, as Spider-Man and Deadpool are locking comic!Robbie away, he tells them his capture doesn't matter because in the end HE WON, because Wade now knows Spider-Man's identity!!

To which we end with this -

The growth Robbie wanted was denied!

*sad face*

(I forget the in-universe explanation, if there was an explicit one - either defeating comic!Robbie and his fake world caused all memory/experience if that world to be lost/destroyed... or there was genuinely no real explanation and that in itself was a meta nod to how comic book narrative is constantly dropping/discarding/ignoring/retconning plot points in order to maintain the wider status quo of the comic universe narrative)

AND YET - while the biggest growth of learning Peter's identity was denied (presumably because, as noted above, wider comic book canon requires/insists both characters and their relationship remain in a specific, static, status quo - so the industry can keep churning out multiple comics with them without necessarily having to bother with the extra time/hassel of researching specifics of continuity - because, money), as Peter and Wade's further discussion points out, SOME development HAS happened at least. Wade has grown more moral/heroic in how he doesn't immediately kill his enemies. And Peter has come to care deeply enough about Wade to be proud of him for this and tell him so. AND they walk away together side by side, their friendship cemented.

So bottom line - the story ends. And it's not in the BEST way. It denies the readers and the characters (and the writer!) the fulfilment of that key endgame plot point.

And YET.

It manages to still be a funny, heartwarming and ultimately SATISFYING end. One that, tongue in cheek, lampshades the development the rest of the story has, in many ways, been building up to and, using metafictional tricks, tells readers in a way that is funny, entertaining and also feels somewhat apologetic, that it simply wasn't a plot the creatives involved were able to give. But offers SOME growth at least, and leaves things open enough for readers to imagine the characters are poised for more in the near future (...although due to the nature of comics that may well have been jossed by other comic book runs at this point - I haven't read any that include the characters since this title ended).

WHY am I making a longass post about this you ask?

Well

a) because the comic is great and I think more people should read it, consider this a recommend (tho sorry for spoilers!)

b) ...just ...wanted to big up Robbie Thompson for a bit. A++ Robbie, way to land an ending, both in fiction and meta, kudos to you, nice to be reminded that it can be done!

(also in case by some miracle anyone at Marvel is reading this - I said the ending was satisfying, but that doesn't mean I WOULDN'T SPEND GOOD MONEY ON A REVIVAL OF THIS TITLE IN A HEARTBEAT! just because I'm ok with the last comic being the end doesn't mean I don't WANT MORE WITH A BURNING PASSION why must you cancel all my favs?? ...*coughs* so, yes, thank you any Marvel execs for your time...)

pet peeve here, because this is really putting a bee in my bonnet. the tom holland spiderman movies are good, they’re wholesome and fun and they tick all the boxes you want a superhero movie to tick and he plays the character well and that’s good, it really is, but as someone who occasionally reads and interacts with spidypool content there is a probem

and that’s that tom holland looks like a fresh young baby, no matter what is real age, and he is playing a literal minor. and so shipping him with grown man ryan reynolds deadpool is just- red flags, not comfortable, no thank you please

and that would be fine, im not going to police what content people create or what stories they want to tell but oh my god please tag the fic as being part of the homecoming adaptation if you’re explicitly headcanoning holland as spiderman. please tag it. please please tag it. and not just as “spiderman” but as specifically “homecoming/holland spiderman” bc man there have been too many times where I’ve been reading a story being like “ah yes, my grown man spiderman, basically university aged, having here romance” and then seen them say in the authors notes or somewhere they based it on tom holland and have to nope out of there so hard. and this is after having explicitly chosen to specifically exclude the homecoming fandom tag

like. i am doing my level best as an individual to curate my own content and avoid the stuff that I personally find uncomfortable, staying in my own lane as it were, and yet it’s still there. there is literally nothing more I as an individual can do to to avoid it than what I am currently doing

im not saying you can’t write it. im not saying it’s wrong. but please this should be tagged on the same level of ticking “underage” because I don’t know how old tom holland is and whether hes a minor or not and I don’t care, because he plays and looks enough like a minor when playing his character that its something disconcerting to see unwarned in a romantic or explicit context with a much older partner, especially when you went in thinking it was a story between two consenting adults

like guys c'mon individual adaptation fandom tags exist for a reason. for this reason. please use them. just please tag it