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I have a confession to make. When I first started reading Rick Remender, Jerome Opeña, Esad Ribić, Phil Noto, and more, I had a vendetta against Deadpool. For reasons I won't get into here, I just hadn't read a book with Deadpool where I found him enjoyable or funny. But then Deadpool made a "dingo ate my baby" reference in issue #4, and I burst out laughing. As the series went on, it was impossible not to notice how Uncanny X-Force's Deadpool felt both a bit more mature than your typical Merc-With-A-Mouth appearance (I mean, were any of us really expecting Wade Wilson to have seen the 1988 Meryl Streep and Sam Neill film, A Cry in the Dark?) and elevated. By the end of the series, I had grown quite fond of Deadpool, to my surprise. 

Well, as it turns out, there's a good reason why Deadpool has a slightly different character voice in Uncanny X-Force. In a recent AMA on League of Comic Geeks, writer Rick Remender was asked by a fan, who also remarked that Remender's Uncanny X-Force "made Deadpool really interesting" to them. Remender responded in part by writing, "When I took that job, I had never read a Deadpool comic book, so I just wrote my character Black Heart Billy in his place. So, if you enjoyed my Deadpool, there is a new BLACK HEART BILLY hardcover we just put out at Image that you would probably enjoy."

This explains why Deadpool feels so emotionally grounded and human in Uncanny X-Force. Remender wasn't writing Wade with fan expectations for how Deadpool should "sound" or "act" in accordance with his previous appearances. Instead, he voices his awareness of just how harrowing the team's missions are (the first of which is to kill a clone of Apocalypse who is just a child) without pulling attention away from the plot. If Deadpool wasn't in Uncanny X-Force, providing comedic relief without overstaying his welcome, I would have ended up crying a lot more than I did the first time I read it. 

Perhaps Remender needed to write Deadpool as his own creator-owned character, Black Heart Billy, for Uncanny X-Force to be the very best version of itself. And I'm grateful that he made that decision because I love great art. The journey that Deadpool goes on as a mentor to Evan Sabahnur is incredibly sweet and moving. 

To me, my X-Men fans. Want more about Marvel's mutants? You don't need Cerebro to find what you should read next... we made a list!

• The best X-Men comics
• Every Omega-Level X-Men mutant ranked by power
• How to read the Marvel Comics' X-Men in order following the Krakoa era
• Why the Krakoan Age of X-Men was ended by Marvel
• How to watch the X-Men movies in order