Summary
Warning: Contains spoilers for Secret Steward chapter #1!Deadpool, Marvel’s iconic parody-laden superhero, is no stranger to being adapted into different media, and that includes the manga adaptation,Deadpool: Samurai.The short series had all the usual comedy stylings ofDeadpool, now with the addition of jokes about anime and manga, and since Sakura Spider had a cameo appearance in 2022’sEdge of Spider-Verse, that even makes the story canon to the Marvel Universe, to some extent.
Deadpool: Samuraiended its original run in 2022, but it was recently announced to be coming back with a new series appropriately titledDeadpool: Samurai 2nd Season. The recent release ofDeadpool & Wolverinehas madeDeadpoolthe most popular it’s been in years, so the manga’s return is likely to capitalize on that, and for fans of the original series, it’s great to see.
What makes it even more surprising, however, is thatDeadpool: Samurai’s return was only revealed through trolling by its marketing team, and consideringDeadpool’s writing style, there was no better way to do that.
Deadpool Samurai’s Return Was Disguised As a Brand-New Manga
Deadpool: Samurai Made Its Return As Weird As Possible
A week beforeDeadpool: Samurai 2nd Season’s release, it was announced that the team behind it was publishing a manga calledSecret Steward, a manga about a boy suddenly given a job working as a butler for the most popular girl in school. Halfway through the first chapter, though, Deadpool suddenly ran the boy over with a truck, with said boy being revealed to be an evil alien, and it all became moreDeadpool: Samuraifrom there. Essentially,Deadpool: Samurai 2nd Seasoncame about by disguising itself as a clichéd rom-com manga, something that’s perfectly on-brand for the offbeat anti-hero.
What made thingseven better was how far it went with lampooning manga. Not only was the romance angle ofSecret Stewardincredibly on the nose, butDeadpool runningSecret Steward’s main character over with a truck references the famous “Truck-kun” meme fromisekaianime, and when he was revealed to be an alien, Deadpool said that was the kind of bad cliché that only the smallest denominator would be into. Overall, the first chapter did a perfect job of poking fun at some of the clichés of the medium, and it made the manga’s return even better to see.
What Will Deadpool Samurai’s New Story Be About?
Because the Series Was Introduced With a Bait-and-Switch, the Main Plot Is Still Elusive
WithDeadpool: Samurai 2nd Seasonofficially released, that, of course, begs the question of what the story will be about. With how the originalDeadpool Samuraimanga went,Deadpool: Samurai 2nd Seasonwill likely be about Deadpool restarting the Samurai Squad from the original series, all of which will likely feature more Japanese versions of classic Marvel characters. Whatever the story ends up being, of course, ifDeadpool: Samurai 2nd Seasoncontinues the same clever writing it used to mark its return, then it will be just as good as the original series, if not better.
Deadpool
The merc with the mouth first appeared in an issue ofNew Mutantsin 1990, and since then has gone on to get his own series and a massive cult following. With his incredible powers of healing and regeneration, Deadpool was initially depicted as an X-Men villain but went on to become an anti-hero. After getting his own movie series starting in 2016, the third Deadpool movie finally brings the wisecracking, fourth-wall-breaking character into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
