Deadpool/Wolverine: WWII First Look: Writer Joe Kelly Dives Into the Marvel Team-Up (Exclusive)

Joe Kelly is no stranger to Deadpool, having written what many consider an unsurpassed run on the character’s solo title in the late 1990s that solidified Wade Wilson’s status as a marquee Marvel character, which he’s maintained ever since. Kelly has occasionally returned to Deadpool’s orbit, most notably in the 2016-2017 Spider-Man/Deadpool series, which saw Wade teaming up with Spider-Man, a hero he looks up to. Kelly is back at Marvel with a similar project as he joins legendary X-Men artist Adam Kubert on Deadpool/Wolverine: WWIII. The first issue of the new series launches in May, right about when the hype train for the highly-anticipated should be pulling out of the station.

ComicBook.com had the opportunity to speak with Kelly over the phone about Deadpool/Wolverine: WWIII. Marvel Comics has also provided ComicBook.com with an exclusive first look at Kubert’s work on Deadpool/Wolverine: WWIII #1. Our conversation with Kelly and Kubert’s artwork follows.

I don’t know if you heard, but a Deadpool & Wolverine movie is coming out this summer, so it’s no surprise that Marvel might want to put out a comic with the same or similar name on the shelf. Where did this idea for Deadpool/Wolverine: WWIII come from? Did they bring you a pretty fully formed pitch? Was it something you’ve had in your back pocket for a while? What’s the genesis of the story?

Joe Kelly: I’m lucky that the people at Marvel are kind enough to think of me when crazy stuff comes their way. And Mark Basso, the editor, reached out about whether I’d be interested in doing something like this. And people have asked about Deadpool and me for a while. Sometimes I’m tempted to go back and do some Deadpool stuff, but I also feel like I did a lot of stories that I wanted to do, and unless there’s a different angle, I don’t know if I’m going to jump in. So, something like Spider-Man/Deadpool is a no-brainer. That’s like, “Oh, I love Spider-Man, I love Deadpool, I’m going to get to work with Ed. Perfect.”

That was how it was with this. Mark called up and said, “We want to do this Deadpool/Wolverine thing, and what do you think about working with Adam?” And it’s like, okay, well that’s it. Here’s a magic formula right there. I love Adam, and I haven’t gotten to do a lot of Wolverine stuff — I wrote him in X-Men, but obviously as one piece of a much bigger tapestry — so those elements were cool.

And then they had the title, which was this Deadpool/Wolverine: WWIII, and that was it. Then stuff got cooked up from there, and Mark was like, “I don’t know what this title is exactly, but we thought it was cool.” I was like, “Okay, great. Let’s go.” And then the story got cooked up.

I would say that the title turned into a surprise for me, and I hope it will for everybody else as well. I would not take it too literally. I think with Deadpool you can pretty much guarantee that literal is almost always going to get you in trouble.

Deadpool is a character who has been treated differently, tonally, over the years, ranging from serious to humorous. Then you put him with Wolverine and their relationship is similar, where they’re both like ex-mercenaries, but also have a tense “friendship,” if you could call it that. Where does this series fall on that humorous to serious-action scale? How does it compare to the Deadpool stories that people know you for?

I think it goes back to probably where I was on this series, to begin with. My favorite version of Deadpool, for me — has nothing to do with what other people do because I think people have done amazing work with this character — but I like this tortured clown version where, yeah, he’s funny, I love a funny Deadpool, but there’s always something dark going on beneath the surface. Sometimes it’s his impulse control issues that he’s got to work through, and sometimes it’s self-loathing that he’s trying to process, or he is making up for the sins of his past. That’s my favorite version of him, a guy who knows that he wasn’t the best human, and is trying, in some ways, to make up for that.

And that’s what draws him to characters like Wolverine or Spider-Man. Spider-Man, there are maybe more layers to that relationship, but he certainly sees Spidey as the ultimate hero, the best, the goodest of the good. But Wolverine is somebody who walked a similar path. He was a tough guy; he was a mercenary. He’s done bad things in his life, and yet he’s probably one of the big paragons of virtue in the Marvel universe. That attracts Deadpool to Wolverine in a lot of ways.

I think with Wolverine, I don’t know that he knows that he believes that Wade is capable of that kind of change, and that makes for a strong dynamic. There was a lot of stuff in [ that they were together in, where things were very much not pretty because of the way that Deadpool chose to handle situations and where Wolverine would draw the line. I think that’s interesting fodder for these guys.

It sounds like maybe Deadpool would like to believe there’s some of himself in Wolverine, but maybe Wolverine is doesn’t want to see any of himself in Deadpool, if that makes sense?

Yeah, that’s 100% true. Taking that as a character basis for these guys and as a driver for the story, and then you get into this wonderful stuff about these are probably two of the most indestructible characters in the Marvel universe, which makes for a lot of opportunity for really savage action. And this thing gets brutal — over-the-top brutal — which I find hard to say without laughing because it makes me giddy how nasty we can beat these characters and they’ll bounce back.

Can you say anything more about that aspect of the book? Is this something that’ll make people’s stomach churn a little bit? More over the top? How gritty and gory are we going?

I hope it’s both. I think for me, there are body horror elements. It feels like a natural fit, especially where the story ultimately led us. But throwing those guys into… We’ve seen both guys get put through the physical ringer in many ways, and part of the fun is trying to one-up the next person, or whoever played with these characters before you, but always in service of the story. And I think in this case, my hope at least, is that we came up with a way to use these guys’ very, very unique abilities in a way that reflects what’s going on with them emotionally, which may sound like a stretch for body horror, but we tried, so we’ll see if it works.

As you mentioned earlier, you’re working with Adam Kubert on this book, an iconic artist for Marvel and one whose name turns up on practically any list of the best X-Men artists. How are you approaching your collaboration with him besides getting him to draw grisly body horror stuff? Did you write the story in a way that plays to his strengths? Are you trying to do things that will challenge him and get him to do things maybe he hasn’t done before and wanted to try? What’s the approach there?

Well, I was so excited to get to work with Adam again. It had been a long time since we had done a book together, and I know he’s good at everything. I mean, he’s literally good at everything. Part of it is letting him know that, when it comes to the storytelling and the collaborative aspects of putting a comic together, I trust him implicitly. Whatever he wants to do works. It’s like, “What would be fun for you? What are some weird story elements that will engage you and help push things a little bit harder?” And a lot of that sometimes comes down to interesting layouts and storytelling techniques that he doesn’t always get to do because, in an ongoing, that’s a little bit challenging to maintain. But we do some fun graphical things in this book that he maybe doesn’t always get the chance to, letting him off the chain, because he literally can do it all.

And it’s funny, I think of him in some ways as a “classic superhero artist,” with quotes around it. And then you look at his stuff and realize how expressionistic he can go. He can push the envelope, maybe not to a Sienkiewicz extreme, but a lot more expressiveness and, I don’t know… It’s a grounded yet heightened world that he constructs. Giving him the opportunity to do as much of that as possible is my goal, and he’s so open to ideas, throwing things back and forth, and thoughts on the script. He’s an easy guy to work with and super fun, so it was nothing but joys, and the mutual admiration society all around.

What can you tell me about the book’s new villain, Delta? The press release describes them as an agent of change. Can you give me any more context or details?

Part of the big question in this story in general is, “Can people change?” That’s probably one of the root questions these guys struggle with in the story. Delta is an agent of change. It’s his whole raison d’etre. He is a character who exists to facilitate the change that people want to make within themselves, and he does so for a variety of motivations, not the least of which is the entertainment of others. He’s created whole cloth for this story, but it’s always about what’s the character stuff first, and what would be the most interesting exchange between Wolverine and Deadpool, and then breaking out and externalizing that stuff with the villains, and settings, and action to illustrate that point. It is a story about change, as in my not-at-all-clever naming of the character after the symbol for change. I think he’s cool, and certainly, Adam brings him to life in a spectacular fashion.

If he does these things, at least sometimes, for the entertainment of others, are we talking about a showman-style villain in the vein of Arcade or Mojo?

No, not exactly that. It’s more that it facilitates his vocation and his avocation. Science is expensive, and if you want to do good science, you need backing from somewhere. There are some people who are very wealthy and who enjoy the idea of watching these “becomings,” as they’re called in the book, and will pay a lot of money to see these superpowered becomings. That’s what this guy specializes in. Wolverine and Deadpool wind up pulled into this world of treating superhumans as a spectator sport, what happens when you give people the thing they think they want, which is more power, and just how it often goes catastrophically wrong.

Having done Spider-Man/Deadpool already and a Daredevil/Deadpool Annual a while back, and now Deadpool/Wolverine, are there any remaining Deadpool team-up stories you’ve got in mind that you’d like to tell?

I feel like I was thinking about this quasi-recently, but now I don’t remember who I thought would be on that list. There’s an interesting Cap/Deadpool thing. I don’t exactly know what it is but because Cap is so good and pure, what happens when you stick those guys together? That’s sort of interesting to me. There are more, but I’m completely blanking but it’s a good question because I think the fun thing about Deadpool is that he works as such a twisted mirror for the other characters you pit him against. With Spidey, it’s like the road not traveled, and that’s a fun way to look at these two generally funny characters put together.

With Wolverine, I wouldn’t exactly say it’s a darker mirror. They’re cut from the same cloth, but one had guiding hands that helped them back into a lighter place, and the other didn’t. To see those subtle differences and how they intersect, and what happens when you look at somebody that reminds you of the worst parts of yourself, that brings up interesting dynamics, certainly for a character like Wolverine who’s worked so hard to distance himself from who he used to be, or who he was at various points of his life.

There are many characters that can use that type of mirror. And then there’s also just the fun as hell, how wild and bouncy can you go with Deadpool? Deadpool and Doctor Strange would be a fun couple of guys to hang out with for a while, at least to me.

I’m going to go a little off-topic because you’re one of the major contributors to Deadpool’s comic book history and ask if there’s anyone from his supporting cast that you’d still like to see get brought into the live-action movie series.

Yeah, absolutely. I would love to see — if somebody could because he was a challenging character for us — but T-Ray. T-Ray was an important character during the run, but he was so specific to a version of Wade’s backstory that we didn’t get to do — we had to reverse course at the last second because of the book being canceled and not canceled and canceled, and not canceled. I always loved him. I always loved this ridiculous design that Ed did, with the Band-Aid on the nose and the weird sorcery. Everything about him I just thought was cool and scary. It would be really cool to see T-Ray hit the screen someday.

And then all the knuckleheads from the Hellhouse. They were so fun and stupid that now I think you could pull off those characters as cannon fodder. Just one of these guys taking up the big screen would be great.

I did not create her, but Typhoid Mary is such a wild, awesome character, and she was critical to the early part of the run. It would be great to see her in a film as well.

But yeah, mostly I would say T-Ray, because once we got Blind Al, then it was like, “Oh, all right, life is good,” especially the way she’s portrayed so masterfully, it’s just like, “Yeah, that’s some good stuff right there.”

Before I let you go, I know you split your time between different mediums. Are there any other comics projects in the works that fans should be keeping their eyes out for?

I’m talking to Marvel about more stuff, which is always awesome. I love working at both big companies, but Marvel was where I got my start, so anytime I have an opportunity to go back there, it brings out the kid in me, iit makes me really happy.

I’m doing more independent books, but they’re all in the early stages, so Ken Nimura and I did Immortal Sergeant last year and I decided waiting 15 years between books is a bad idea, so we’ll do another one much sooner than later. So, a couple of things on the horizon, but nothing immediate.

• Deadpool/Wolverine: WWIII #1
• MAR240603
• (W) Joe Kelly (A/CA) Adam Kubert
• WADE WILSON AND LOGAN AT THE ENDS OF THE EARTH – AND EACH OTHER’S THROATS!
• The most intensely mismatched team-up in comics and pop culture – the best there is and the merc with the mouth – undergoes a radical change as we kick off a three-part, globe-spanning saga for the ages! The mysterious DELTA believes in change. Change is good. But as he sets his sights on DEADPOOL, and WOLVERINE is caught up in the plot, is the third time really the charm, or the curse? Get ready for WWIII to erupt on the scene with the wildest duo in comics from legends Joe Kelly (DEADPOOL, UNCANNY X-MEN) and Adam Kubert (WOLVERINE, UNCANNY X-MEN)!
• Rated T+
• In Shops: May 01, 2024
• SRP: $4.99

This interview has been edited and modified for clarity and length.