While Deadpool. The Merc with the Mouth's co-creator Rob Liefeld gave a series of interviews ahead of the first Deadpool film released in 2016. In one such interview, he shared just how essential Danny DeVito is to Marvel's fourth-wall-breaking maniac of a protagonist.
Like Deadpool, DeVito has played a variety of roles over the years that range from the heroic to the murderous. Even though his performance as the Penguin is 30 years old this year, Danny DeVito remains connected to the comics industry. Just last year, DeVito made his debut as a comics writer in DC's Gotham City Villains Anniversary Giant #1 with his and Dan Mora's short story "Bird Cat Love." Hopefully Liefeld or someone else has let Danny DeVito know that the world of comics has benefitted from his career just as his career benefitted from them.
In an interview with Complex, Rob Liefeld shared that he originally envisioned Deadpool as the failed version of Wolverine. The idea was that Logan is peak achievement of the Weapon X experiment while Wade is the somewhat spectacular failure of the same program is endlessly entertaining, and it's a dynamic pulled straight from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito's roles in Twins. Specifically, Liefeld had this to say:
“I stole that crap straight out of Twins. When they go to Danny DeVito, ‘How are they twins?’ he goes, ‘All the purity and strength went into Julius. All the crap that was left over went into what you see in the mirror every morning.’ That’s Wade Wilson. I wanted a mercenary, a bounty hunter who got in the Weapon X program, got screwed up and pissed off and sold his talents to the highest bidder. He was a jackhole.”
Liefeld created Deadpool with fellow Marvel writer Fabian Nicieza and debuted the character in The New Mutants #98 back in 1991. Due to similarities in design, civilian names, and mercenary backgrounds Deadpool is often thought to have pulled inspiration from Deathstroke, the DC villain Slade Wilson. However much water that discussion may hold, the far more interesting and underreported aspect of the inspiration behind the despicable Deadpool is writer, director, and actor Danny DeVito.
Pansexual, ridden with super cancer, and hugely popular are all apt descriptors for Wade Wilson, and 'inspired by Danny DeVito' is the most interesting thing to be added to that list in a while. Funnily enough, Liefeld's analogy between the Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito's dynamic in Twins and Wolverine's relationship with Deadpool is as prescient as when the character was introduced decades ago as clear in Benjamin Percy and Adam Kubert's Wolverine.
Source: Complex
