#writing this up got me like. is there a term for tvtropes' genre theory of comedic sociopathy that isn't called that.

[brawltogethernow]

Why hasn’t Deadpool never been an official member of the X-Men?

With affection: Probably because of his overpowering Deadpool stank!

In universe, almost nobody in the mutant hero community likes him, also he kills people. Out of it, everybody likes him too much. If you put Wade in a book with any amount of focus, well...congratulations! It's a Deadpool book now! He's a very loud personality dripping with distracting gimmicks that might as well be designed to force a writer's hand to make him the main character of the universe if he shows up for more than a cameo. On top of how whenever he's on page (or screen) he causes a major tone shift, his name sells like crazy, so an X-Men book with Deadpool recurring in it is just going to become Deadpool and the X-Men.

I do think he can work as a non-headlining member of a team, but a sprawling, unironic soap opera of one like the core X-Men would be...challenging. You'd have to spend so much energy getting him to not ruin the vibe making fun of the latest love triangle. And this brings to mind how other fourth wall breaking characters have functioned in team books. When She-Hulk was in the Avengers at the same time that her own title was a metatextual gagfest she full stop didn't get to, which worked fine because the fourth wall's never been her main thing. With Gwenpool, for whom it is, they filed her down to a nub to keep her from being storybreaking when she was a West Coast Avenger, and the meta gags that were left over still managed to be grating. Of course, everything else about that book except the art also sucked. Anyway.

While I generally think leaving the meta trait on the table with characters heavily associated with it is a coward's move, I do get it, because once you bring that in uhhh your whole story wants to be about it. Wade is basically quarantined in titles with his name on the cover to protect everyone's peace of mind. It's honestly fascinating what books he hasn't been in. Like not to make everything about Spider-Man, but Wade had a fifty issue (!!) team-up book with the guy, and I think he's been in one of Peter's books while Peter was there (so not Superior)...nnnnnnnever? This pattern repeats less dramatically with...a lot of characters. Like every character he's headlined a book alongside. Wade barely even gets to hang out with Cable, who before they had their team-up titles he was introduced as a supporting character for. That's insane. Unless you look at Wade and his lowest common denominator star power for two seconds and then it's like. Ah. Yeah.

Actually hang on I am going to bring this back to my powerful disappointment in WCA volume 3, as a metaphor-example. It's like. If there's no room in the structure of your book for an indestructible, potentially murderous jester character drawing attention to how it's all just a story, and you strip away those traits, you have to confront the traumatized little freak who was cowering under them. If you can't do that you are doing a bad job. But if you can holy shit. Lmao actually maybe Wade should be on the X-Men.