Marvel Comics

Deadpool: Beginnings collects the mercenary's earliest appearances — from his New Mutants debut through his initial solo outings — before the character had fully evolved into the fourth-wall-breaking icon he would become. Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld created a character who was initially played fairly straight as a threat, and watching the early material shows how gradually the humor, self-awareness, and meta-commentary were layered onto what began as a fairly conventional 90s assassin concept.

This omnibus collects the crossover stories placing Deadpool within the orbit of X-Force — two of Marvel's most extreme 90s properties colliding in stories that use the mercenary's irreverence to comment on the grimly purposeful world Cable built around him. The contrast between Deadpool's chaos and X-Force's militant discipline produced some of the most entertaining comics of the era, with Fabian Nicieza's sharp dialogue ensuring the comedic potential was fully exploited.