Deadpool: Suicide Kings #1

Issue Date: 
June 2009
Story Title: 
untitled
Staff: 

Mike Benson and Adam Glass (Writers), Carlo Barberi (Pencils), Sandu Florea (Inks), Marte Gracia (Colours), Virtual Calligraphy’s Cory Petit (Letters), Mike McKone (Cover Artist), Jody Leheup (Assistant editor), Axel Alonso (Editor), Joe Quesada (Editor-in-Chief)

Brief Description: 

Deadpool wants to make some money, so he responds to an advert in a magazine for Mercenary of the Year. He goes to the location of the competition, a storage warehouse, where he is greeted by three other “contestants.” A fight soon breaks out between them and, after Deadpool kills them, a young man named Conrad enters the room and tells Deadpool that the advert was a set-up so that he could meet and hire Deadpool. He tells Deadpool he owes a lot of money to a bookie and he can’t pay up so he wants the bookie killed. He offers half a million dollars up front and another half a million when the job is done. When Deadpool asks where he will get the money from Conrad reveals his family is very rich. Deadpool hesitates at first but finally agrees to kill the man. That evening, Deadpool goes to Harlem and enters a residential apartment block, only for the entire building to explode immediately thereafter. As Deadpool scrambles from the rubble, he sees a man calmly filming the scene and quickly realizes he has been set up. He returns to the warehouse but finds nobody there except a confused janitor. Deadpool heads to a bar, where he sees a TV news report about the explosion, showing footage of Deadpool holding some explosives and naming him as the suspect. Elsewhere, Conrad is talking to the gangster Tombstone, the man to whom he owes the money. Mocking Conrad, Tombstone forces him to tell the story again of how he lost a lot of money on a basketball game, which was lost as a result of Deadpool injuring the team’s star player. Unable to pay, Conrad has bet Tombstone double or nothing on a wager involving Deadpool. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city, the Punisher is watching the TV news report and prepares to hunt Deadpool.

Full Summary: 

(Now)

Deadpool is standing in a warehouse surrounded by the bodies of armed men who have been shot, stabbed and had body parts sliced off. The voices in his head goad him into saying something witty until he finally gives in and says “Is there a doctor in the house?”

(Earlier)

Deadpool is in his apartment standing in front of a mirror with his costume on and singing to himself. The voices in his head start musing about how he needs to get paid, so he picks up “Black Ops Magazine” and finds an advert in it for Mercenary of the Year. The winner receives a year’s subscription and two hundred thousand dollars in cash and prizes.

An hour later, he is standing outside Vito’s Self-Storage warehouse. He walks into the facility and greets three other men inside. He asks one of the men when the auditions start and the man says to take a load off and they will be out soon. As he sits down, the man asks if he is Deadpool. Deadpool asks what gave it away, to which the man responds that he is a legend and has quite a rep in the community. If he knew Deadpool was coming, he would have saved himself the trip.

The man starts to smile and stare at Deadpool, which make him nervous. Deadpool asks if there’s a problem and the man removes a knife from his jacket whilst asking why would there be a problem. The man tries to stab Deadpool whilst the other two men stand up and come towards him. Deadpool grabs the first man’s arm and twists it so that he stabs the second man in the heart. He quickly kicks the remaining man in the stomach and unsheathes his katana. As he slices the first man’s head off, the third man holds a gun to the back of his head. However, Deadpool quickly spins around and chops off the hand holding the gun. He then stabs the man in the chest and asks if there’s a doctor in the house.

A young man in a white suit starts walking towards Deadpool and clapping. Wade immediately points a gun at the man and demands he starts talking. The man replies that he wants to hire Deadpool but he had trouble getting in contact with him, so he had to get creative as to getting his attention. Deadpool asks if the men were part of the plan and the young man replies that they were only supposed to rough Deadpool up a bit and that no-one was meant to get hurt.

Deadpool continues to hold the gun at the man’s head and demands he keeps talking. It turns out the man is in debt to a bookie who has threatened to kill him and his entire family if he doesn’t pay up the money he owes. But he doesn’t have the money. So he wants Deadpool to kill the bookie and chop him up into little bits.

Deadpool thanks the guy for wasting his time and starts walking away, but the man begs him to stay. He can pay half a million in cash and another half a million when the job is done. When Deadpool asks where he can get that kind of money from, the man says he has a monthly allowance from his dad. He goes on to explain that his grandfather invented rubber and he was a rubber baron. He can’t ask his father for all the money, though, as he thinks his son has a gambling problem.

Deadpool is still apprehensive, as he knows the man is bad at paying debts, however the young man begs him and says, as collateral, Deadpool can hold him to ransom and his father will pay the ransom fee. Deadpool starts imagining all the things he can do with one million dollars (mainly himself and large-chested young women riding bouncing balls) as the man continues to beg. Deadpool finally accepts and the youth tells him he knows exactly where the bookie lives.

(That Night, Harlem…)

Deadpool walks down a street and into an apartment building. All the people he passes give him odd looks due to his costume and weapons. He approaches a door and kicks it in. As he stands in the doorway, though, the entire apartment block explodes in a huge fireball.

Deadpool is thrown into the street below amongst the rubble. He gets up just as a man runs out of the building on fire. Wade tries to help the burning man but it is too late and the man soon dies. Deadpool directs his attention to a man who is standing next to him, filming the burning wreckage on his cam recorder. Deadpool tells him to call 911 but the man ignores him and continues to record the scene. Deadpool then starts yelling at him that there are people dying but the man only offers a cold and emotionless glance out of the corner of his eye. It is only when he starts to hear sirens that Deadpool suddenly realises that he was set up by the man in the white suit.

Deadpool returns to Vito’s Self-Storage warehouse and finds a janitor there. He asks him where Conrad, the man in the white suit, is. Deadpool says there were bodies all over the floor here yesterday but the janitor doesn’t know what he is talking about and says he should speak to Mister Vito. Deadpool leaves confused.

He goes to a bar called Knockers and orders some food and beer from an amply endowed waitress in a low cut top. When she asks him if there is anything else he’d like, he can only stare at her breasts and imagine marrying her. He is suddenly brought back to reality when he hears a news report about the explosion on the TV behind him. The TV reporter says they have exclusive footage of the attack at which point an image of Deadpool holding a stick of TNT appears on screen. Deadpool remarks that’s out of context and asks for the check as the other patrons in the bar start looking at him.

Elsewhere Conrad is sitting in an apartment talking to someone standing behind him. The same news report that Deadpool saw is on the TV and Conrad remarks that the footage is seamless and enquires how it was done. The other man replies that green screens were used and that they could even make Conrad look like a man. Conrad laughs sarcastically, to which the other man replies that, until he gets all his money back from Conrad, he hasn’t even started mocking him yet. He then asks Conrad to retell the story of how he lost all his money as he never gets sick of hearing it.

Conrad explains how Shantee Williams was a starting forward for the NY Kicks and how he is so rich he got into a fight outside a nightclub when he wouldn’t pay to go in. Deadpool just happened to be passing by at this point with a freshly bought pizza. As the fight broke out, Williams accidently knocked a pizza slice into Deadpool’s face. Instead on apologizing, he goaded Deadpool into a fight. Deadpool punched Williams to the ground, at which point the man reached for a gun in his jacket. However, Deadpool chopped off his fingers before he could pull the trigger.

Because Williams was such an important player, he was quickly rushed to the hospital and had his fingers surgically reattached. This was all hush-hush, of course, but the following week he was playing a big basketball game and he kept missing the hoop, which caused his team to lose. Conrad had a lot of money riding on that game and lost it all.

Grinning toothily, the other man, in fact the gangster Tombstone, replies that fate’s a bitch. All he knows is that he wants his money or Conrad will be buried next to Jimmy Hoffa.

Conrad says he still has a bet with Tombstone and, if he wins, he won’t owe Tombstone jack. Deadpool got him into this mess and the merc will get him out of it. Tombstone says he had better hope that’s the case, or else Conrad will owe him double. He will also be doing a little incentivizing to make sure Conrad comes through. Conrad then complains that the story keeps replaying over and over again on TV, so Tombstone sends him out to get some food.

Elsewhere, the news report of Deadpool is playing on another TV screen. The news reporter describes the explosion as an act of terrorism and that not much is known about the person responsible….only that he is named Deadpool. The room with the TV in it has knives and guns all over the walls and a collection of devices from notable super-villains. As the news reports continues, it describes Deadpool as being public enemy number one and states that local law enforcements and the F.B.I will work together in a manhunt to catch him and bring him to justice. Just as the news report finishes, a man takes one of the bigger guns off the wall. Scoffing at the word “justice,” the Punisher cocks his weapon.

Characters Involved: 

Deadpool

Conrad

Tombstone

Three Mercenaries

Waitress at bar

Patrons at bar

Harlem residents

Man with cam recorder

Janitor

Punisher

(On TV)

News reporter

(In Deadpool’s imagination)

Priest

Thor

Captain America

Iron Man

Rogue

Spider-Man

Other wedding guests

(In Conrad’s flashback)

Shantee Williams

Bouncers

Onlookers

Story Notes: 

The song that Deadpool is singing in the mirror is from Geto Boys’s song, “Mind Playin’ Tricks on Me.”

As Conrad never stated his name during their on panel conversation, he presumably told Deadpool off panel after what was depicted.

The restaurant Deadpool patronizes, “Knockers,” is most likely to be a spoof of the franchise “Hooters.”

Top Ramen is a brand of instant noodles.

Jimmy Hoffa was a US labor union leader who mysteriously disappeared in 1975 and whose body has never been found.

In Punisher’s weapons room, you can see Ant Man’s helmet, Green Goblin’s pumpkin bombs, Electro’s gloves and Scorpion’s tail along with other super-villain paraphernalia.

NY Kicks is an obvious analogy of the basketball team NY Nicks.

Issue Information: 
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