Deadpool has become something of a household name. The character was always popular, but he would become much more popular when he was changed so that he knew he was a comic character and started to break the fourth wall. He wasn’t the first comic character to do this sort of thing, but he’s become the most popular, paying dividends for Marvel. DC Comics has been trying to create their own version of Deadpool in the 21st century for years, and the closest they got was Harley Quinn. While she was as extreme humor-wise as Deadpool, she didn’t have everything. However, DC began planting the seeds for their true answer to the Merc with the Mouth 20 years ago with Superboy-Prime.
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Prime is an interesting character in DC history. He first appeared as part of the crossover event Crisis on Infinite Earths. He was the Superman of Earth-Prime, the “real” Earth, and was meant to represent the history of Superboy. He helped end the threat of the Anti-Monitor, and would be basically forgotten by fans in the years after the story ended. However, all of that would change with Infinite Crisis, where DC would start planting the seeds of who the character is today. Superboy-Prime has changed a lot since then, and all of it would come from the best DC event of the 21st century.
Infinite Crisis Made Prime a Star and Planted the Seeds of His Current Status Quo
Superboy-Prime’s return would change the character from the goody-goody pre-Crisis teen into something more realistic. This version of the character didn’t “know” he was a fictional character, but he did know that comics starring the heroes and villains of the DC Multiverse existed. He had grown up reading them on Earth-Prime and after the end of Crisis, he ended up watching the history of the new DC Universe unfold, much like he had back on Earth-Prime.
This new version of the character was based on readers. He was the DC fan who was always complaining about the changes, about how dark the company’s books had become. He was the type of reader who never wanted anything to change, which is why he had teamed with Alexander Luthor to remake the DC Universe so that it would be more like the one that they had fought to protect in Crisis on Infinite Earth. Of course, there was a certain irony to this sort of characterization, since Prime ended up becoming just the kind of character that he was trying to “protect” the DC Universe from: a dark, violent villain. It was an interesting subversion of the his goals and it was the beginning of the character’s road to where he is now.
After Infinite Crisis, the villain would show up in “The Sinestro Corps War”, Countdown to Final Crisis, and Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds, with the last story establishing him going back to Earth-Prime, where everyone saw what he did in the comics and he became an Internet troll complaining about DC. This is when the character finally became cognizant of his fictional nature, putting him on the road to becoming the new Deadpool. The character made a few more appearances after this, getting his happy ending in Adventure Comics (Vol. 2) #5, which led to his death in Death Metal and recent return for DC K.O.
The current Prime has become the new Deadpool, and it’s all because of the seeds planted in Infinite Crisis. The character was transformed from a representation of DC history to a representation of the worst kind of comic readers. This change is the one that led the character to where he is now, and his future is brighter than ever.
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Image Courtesy of Paramount
