“Deadpool” becomes a complete sitcom in Marvel’s reboot from the author of “Rick and Morty.”

When Cody Ziglar asked about his favorite Deadpool story, he mentioned author Fabian Nicieza’s seminal series Cable & Deadpool, naturally. But he got really eloquent when he talked about a single Deadpool scene in a single issue of Uncanny X-Force.

“There’s some fun Wade stuff in there [Uncanny X-Force], but there’s also some really, really great emotional weight,” Ziglar said. “The [scene] I’ve been accompanying myself for 10, 15 years now. I think about that interaction all the time when I think about who is Wade Wilson and who is Deadpool.”

A veteran of Rick and Morty and from Marvel Comics Miles Morales: Spider-Man And Spider PunkZiglar has been thinking a lot lately about Wade Wilson for his new one Dead Pool Solo series with the artist Roge Antonio (Bloodbath, She-Hulk) at Marvel Comics. “Funny Wade stuff” combined with “emotional weight” sounds a lot like his plans for Deadpool, which at the highest level involve forcing Wade Wilson to stop ignoring his daughter.

How was 2011? Uncanny X-Force #5 Do you deserve such a place in Ziglar’s ​​heart? In the series’ first story arc, the mutant black ops team spends four issues attempting to assassinate a child clone of the villain Apocalypse. In issue #5, Deadpool catches the group’s attention.

“Wade has a big bang when he thinks: Hey, I didn’t get into this to kill children. That’s not my thing. And it’s clear to us that in all the missions we’ve seen, in all the trouble he’s been in, Wade has never cashed the checks. He essentially does it from the bottom of his heart because he believes he is doing something [good]. […] You think he’s comedic, comedic, comedic, but you also learn something about him as a character in a normal way.”

Ziglar has his sights set on the intersection between comedy and character, and the weapon he has chosen is family. When Marvel Comics announced the series in December, there was news that Deadpool’s biological daughter Ellie would star in the book. And – judging by the Marvel Comics preview pages you can see exclusively on Polygon – Deadpool’s other “biological daughter”, Princess the talking symbiote dog, is also in the mix.

“I’ve been reading Deadpool for so long,” Ziglar said, “and something I’ve really enjoyed in the last few runs is the introduction of the theme of family.” For the longest time [Wade has been like], I’m that solo guy who can’t be killed; I only care about myself. […] I really enjoyed Alyssa Wong’s run, I really liked the inclusion of Valentine and Princess. And we had this floating thing with Ellie out there – she didn’t really get picked up in a few runs.”

“And besides,” he quipped, “it’s fun to have Take Your Daughter to Work Day when your job is to be a mercenary.”

At Wong Dead Pool, completed last August, Princess was born Xenomorph-style from Deadpool’s intestines after a mad scientist grafted a symbiote into his organs. But Ellie’s origins are much more mundane: Wade didn’t know she existed until her mother (an old flame of his) tracked him down. Since then, Deadpool stories featuring Ellie have been more about Wade protecting Ellie from his enemies and Ellie living far away from him with her loving foster parents.

Ziglar wants to break the streak of Ellie being threatened, rescued, and brought back to safety because Wade thinks she’s better off without him.

“When Deadpool says, ‘I can’t father you because I have to protect you,'” he told Polygon, “what if her response was, ‘Fuck it, I’m not going to be a damsel in distress for myself.'” Father. […] I will track you down and make you a parent to me.’”

One certainly wonders how Princess, all in all a rather cheerful character, will react to a sister. Fans of the big red murder dog will be happy to see her reappear behind Wong’s Dead Pool, but perhaps wonders about the absence of another character. Wong’s series, between all the carnage, assassinations, and birth of symbiotes from eating Deadpool’s flesh from the inside out, was a bona fide romantic comedy that introduced non-binary mutant scientist/assassin Valentine Vuong as Deadpool’s new sweetheart.

On these preview pages from Dead Pool #1: However, Wade and Valentine appear to have broken up. But Ziglar brought up Wong’s run and Valentine before we could, and while he didn’t want to go into spoiler territory, he reiterated that he was a big fan of the character. “I’m also a big fan of having people of color in books and not having them disappear from the picture or be killed off.” So fans of “Valentine” can rest assured that there’s more to her story.

“A lot of this book is Wade processing,” Ziglar said of Wade and Valentine. “You get something – you fall in love or you get the job – but it’s about acquiring things and actually keeping them. […] “Maintenance” is the word I will use without giving anything away. After acquiring something, what can Wade do to maintain something?”

If this all sounds like weight to the fourth-wall-breaking, gross-choking Merc with a Mouth, Ziglar is aware of it. If nothing else happens, the comic comedy is better left on the page (which you can read below!) rather than rehashed in an interview. But he shared that he finds writing a Deadpool solo series a different balancing act than, say, writing him in a buddy book Cable & Deadpoolor a team book, like that Uncanny X-Force.

“If Deadpool is just the focus of a book, in my opinion you have to find that balance, otherwise I know that as a reader I will think like this: I don’t want to hear another joke, I want to hear a little about the drama of it all! That’s the inspiration I took from my television work in particular Rick and Morty. Rick can be very funny, but I also think you can find a really nice balance where it’s 70% silly and then 30% really grounded and wholesome. That’s what I’m trying to bring to this book.”

Dead Pool #1 comes out April 3rd and you can read the first five pages below.