While Wolverine is a man with many enemies and only a few friends, Deadpool isn’t quite either of those. No matter what tactics Wade Wilson employs it seems he is destined to remain on Logan’s bad side. Wolverine and Deadpool teaming up once more in the new mutant era, and their relationship remains as rocky as ever. As the mercenary strives to earn his spot on the mutant paradise of Krakoa, lifetime loner Wolverine continues to grapple with his place on it. Their unplanned rendezvous on Chesapeake Bay has led to an uneasy alliance that will likely stir Logan’s indwelling disdain for Wade, but from whence does this avarice stem?
Deadpool has been tied to Wolverine from the beginning, both fictionally and in publication. Although the two characters did not share panels until 1994's Wolverine #88 by Larry Hama, Adam Kubert, and Fabio Laguna, Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld was a Canucklehead fan and eager to link their origins. So it was eventually teased out that Weapon X head scientist Emrys Killebrew was responsible for using a portion of Wolverine’s DNA to give Deadpool an artificial healing factor. The process wasn’t easy; Wade had already undergone enough physical and psychological torment to break a dozen men. One would think this might garner him some empathy from Wolverine—shared trauma and all that. Alas, this is not the case.
For one thing, Logan just straight up finds Wade annoying. Wolverine consistently ranks among Marvel’s surliest characters while Deadpool, on the other hand, is hyperactive enough to give even Spider-Man a headache. Like the wall-crawler, Wilson’s penchant for nonstop quipping often serves to mentally overwhelm his opponents in combat. But Wolverine takes it as a sign that the mercenary isn’t serious about his work, and therefore largely unreliable as an ally. What’s more, Logan sees Wade’s insanity as an act; a shield for a reckless and chaotic man to indulge his destructive tendencies. For someone like Logan, who has spent decades fighting to regain and maintain his self-control, that idea is profoundly vexing.
But even if Deadpool's morals diverge from Wolverine’s 90 percent of the time, it would be unfair to suggest Wade has no morals at all. During his stint with X-Force in the 2010 series by Rick Remender and Jerome Opena, he carves pieces of his own flesh to feed Warren Worthington, aka Archangel, after an encounter with Famine on a mission to kill Apocalypse. When they discover Apocalypse has been reincarnated as an elementary-aged child, Wade is among the members conflicted on whether to carry out the task. But Fantomex shoots the boy anyway and Deadpool voices his dismay to the team, at which point Wolverine calls him “a tick” motivated only by money. Wilson replies soberly: “Yeah. But I never killed a kid.” Warren then reveals that Wade has been working with them for free, proving Logan wrong.
It may be entirely too optimistic to hope that these two ever see completely eye to eye, and that is part of what makes their relationship so compelling. The Regeneratin’ Degenerate has found just about every conceivable method to piss Wolverine off, including multiple assassination attempts and that one time he delivered a gleeful shoryuken to Kitty Pryde. The irate Canadian isn’t one to let bygones be so easily. Yet they continue to find themselves allied in the pursuit of safety for all mutantkind, and as long as Deadpool can take the heat, that goal may be worth suffering Wolverine’s bark (and bite).