Deadpool

Wade Wilson's early life is mostly unknown. His mother died of cancer while he was young and his father (who was in the military) was physically abusive. Wade was a deliquent in his teenage years, possibly to spite his father. However one night while drinking with his friends his father attempt to take him out of the club one of his friends stole Wade's Fathers handgun and killed him. Following a brief stint of military service, Wade began his mercenary career while still in his late teens. Accepting assassination jobs only against those whom he felt deserved death, he made a habit of using plastic surgery and technology to take on a new identity whenever he failed an assignment. Many years later Deadpool's nemesis T-Ray accused Deadpool of killing his wife and stealing his identity after a failed mission, but Deadpool's restored memories revealed this to be a lie; in T-Ray's account Wade was wearing his Deadpool costume, which he didn't have in till after he joined Weapon X.

Little is known of Wilson’s subsequent mercenary activities. At one point he was active in Tangier, Morocco, where he romanced a woman named Francie. When this relationship soured, he traveled throughout Asia, and was hired in Japan by a crimelord, the Boss, to infiltrate a sumo-wrestling ring owned by a rival criminal, the Oyakata. Wilson spent three years as a wrestler under the Oyakata’s tutelage and became romantically involved with his mentor’s daughter, Sazae. When the Boss finally ordered the Oyakata’s murder, Wilson refused to complete his assignment, allegedly the first time he had ever done so, and relocated to the United States.

In America, Wilson met and fell in love with teenage prostitute Vanessa Carlysle, with whom he shared dreams of a better life. Wilson was subsequently hired by Middle Eastern interests to assassinate a blind British government operative named Althea, also known as Blind Al, but upon arrival at the Zaire base where she was stationed, he killed everyone except for Al who had fled. Wilson’s employers sought vengeance for his failure by targeting Vanessa, who was rescued by Zoe Culloden, an employee of the interdimensional firm Landau, Luckman, Lake, and LeQuare. Culloden was keeping Wilson under surveillance, believing he was destined to play a vital part in a potential threat to the world.

Learning that he had contracted cancer, Wilson broke up with Vanessa rather than force her to remain with a terminally ill man. In Canada, he was offered hope in the form of Department K, a special weapons development branch of the Canadian government. Wilson became a test subject in Department K’s branch of the joint U.S./Canadian superhuman enhancement project, the Weapon X Program; his cancer was temporarily arrested via the implantation of a healing factor derived from another Department K agent, the mutant adventurer Wolverine. Wilson was active in a covert field unit alongside the near-invulnerable Sluggo and the cyborgs Kane and Slayback. Vanessa herself was later affiliated with the team after having manifested mutant shapeshifting abilities, calling herself Copycat.

During one mission, Wilson killed his teammate Slayback. As a result, he was rejected from the Weapon X Program and sent to the Hospice, allegedly a government facility where failed superhuman operatives were treated. However, unknown to the Canadian government, the Hospice’s patients served as experimental subjects for Doctor Killebrew and his sadistic assistant Ajax, with the patients placing bets in a "deadpool" as to how long each subject would live. Killebrew subjected Wilson to various torturous experiments for his own deranged satisfaction. In due course, Wilson formed a semi-romantic relationship with the cosmic entity Death, who regarded him as a kindred spirit. Wilson’s emotional strength during his trials earned him the respect of his fellow Hospice patients. Then Ajax, angered by Wilson’s taunts, lobotomized one of Wilson’s friends. At Death’s prompting, Wilson killed his friend to end his suffering. However, under Killebrew’s rules any patient who killed another was to be executed; Ajax subsequently tore out Wilson’s heart and left him for dead, but Wilson’s thirst for vengeance was so strong that it jumpstarted his healing factor, regenerating his heart, although not curing his scarred body. Wilson then attacked Ajax, leaving him for dead in turn, and, taking the name Deadpool, escaped from the Hospice with his fellow patients.