Trying to guess the age of a comic book character can be considered a sport in itself, as the timeline is never completely fixed, and relaunches and retcons often disrupt the timeline. It becomes yet more complicated when your character is shrouded in a little bit of mystery.
It worsens when your character has a particular relationship with the truth, like Deadpool. It’s not completely his fault, though. Deadpool’s brain doesn’t function normally because of the regenerative nature of his cells and the bizarre experiments he was subjected to, with drugs, virtual simulations, death, and memory implants.
Some rumors on the web imply that Deadpool was born Wade Wilson in Regina Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1973, but that information has never been verified (and comes from the movie, anyway). He may have had an ordinary childhood. Or not. He may have killed his parents. Or maybe they’re alive.
Wade Wilson has a lot of pasts, making it difficult even for him to know the truth about himself. If we’re not sure when and where Wade Wilson was born, what do we know?
A bit of history about Deadpool
His most consistent story is that he joined the Army when he was a teenager (it is said 17 on Marvel.com), but that didn’t last long. After that, he decided to become a mercenary until he was diagnosed with inoperable cancer.
After all conventional treatments failed, Deadpool was recruited and became a test subject for the Canadian Department K’s Weapon X program with the hope of being cured and becoming a hero. There, he gained an enhanced healing factor, and his cancer was cured.
At least, that was what everybody thought until it was discovered that Wilson’s healing factor has some issues, as every cell in his body – cancer cells included – was hyper-regenerative. Wilson was deemed a failure and was sent to Dr. Killebrew to be experimented on… until death came.
This is where Wade Wilson lost what remained of his mental stability and gained his name. The test subjects ran a betting pool on how quickly each patient would die–called a “dead pool”. So When Wilson broke out after having died and came back, he became Deadpool.
It wasn’t the last time Deadpool was experimented on by Weapon X, where he was later sometimes sedated, and manipulated with drugs and virtual simulations, following a new arrangement he passed.
Deadpool, a man of mystery
So what’s true and what isn’t about Deadpool? No one knows, even Deadpool himself! Or he simply prefers to ignore it. And because of his healing factor, Wade ages slowly, making it almost impossible to guess how old he is.
We also know he can live at least 800 years, as we have seen in the alternate future of Deadpool of Earth-80521, where he was stuck beneath a collapsed building during all those years (in the storyline).
So… Anyways… How old is Deadpool in the comics? As Deadpool doesn’t really physically age, it is speculated he must be in his late 20s, early 30s, and sometimes even 35.
The truth is… nobody really knows. Your guess is as good as everybody else’s.
So if you want to celebrate Deadpool’s birthday, December 11th seems the best date as this was on this day in 1990 that Deadpool was introduced to the world in New Mutants #98.
Go explore Deadpool’s history and try to guess his age with our Deadpool Comics Reading Order!