Deadpool's Negasonic Teenage Warhead meet Empire readers. Empire readers meet Negasonic Teenage Warhead. You’re going to get along famously. To add to Ryan Reynolds’ tweet a few months back introducing Deadpool’s new compadre, we have a new shot of the two of them together and up to minimum good.
Named after a track by ‘90s gonzo rock contenders Monster Magnet and created by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely in the comic-book run, Negasonic Teenage Warhead’s real name is Ellie Phimister. Her mutant powers may extend to telepathy, a skill she learnt under Emma Frost’s tutelage. If you think her codename is a little, well, out there, Kitty Pryde would probably agree. "Wow, we really have run out of names,” she jokes in one of the comics. Not, on this evidence, that you’d want to say that to her face.
Newcomer Brianna Hildebrand plays Wade Wilson’s partner in crime, while Ryan Reynolds, of course, takes the blackly comic former special forces warrior-turned-mercenary. The movie will see him undergoing a rogue experiment as part of the Weapon X plan that leaves him brutally scarred but also boasting Wolverine-like healing powers. Armed with his new abilities and his pitch-dark sense of humour, he hunts down the man who nearly destroyed his life, while taking on other bad guys as he does so.
And according to producer Simon Kinberg’s pre-Comic Con comments, there’ll be no pussyfooting about in this adaptation. “Deadpool is a hard R,” he says. “It’s graphic. Nothing is taboo. You either commit to a truly outrageous boundary-pushing kind of movie or you don’t.”
Tim Miller is calling the shots for this one, working from a script by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. Deadpool is scheduled for cinemas on February 4 next year.