Deadpool #40 – NM – 2000 (Marvel)

NM — Bagged and boarded.

Christopher Priest's Deadpool run is criminally underrated — and Wade training student mercenaries to seize an orbiting space station while accidentally threatening Earth with a death ray is peak absurdist Priest plotting. S.H.I.E.L.D.breathing down his neck while millions of lives hang on a merc's pass/fail grade is exactly the kind of high-stakes comedy this era of Deadpool excelled at.

• 40 pages, full color
• May 2000
• Notable: Deadpool as mercenary instructor; space station takeover mission; death ray threat to Earth; S.H.I.E.L.D. intervention; Christopher Priest run
• Cover price $1.99

Written by Christopher Priest. Art by Paco Diaz, Jon Holdredge, Rich Perrotta, John Czop, and Scott Elmer. Cover by Cully Hamner.