Deadpool’s Success Shows How Great Times Are for Comic Book Fans

Looking back at it, this email I fired off to a buddy a couple of weeks ago cracks me up:

Hey, what kind of numbers are you thinking for “Deadpool” opening weekend? I can’t see it doing a big result with that R rating. It’s funny, if I’d been in charge of Marvel, I definitely would’ve made it PG-13. Kids know Deadpool because he shows up on that Spider-Man cartoon.

I’m thinking $25-$35 million, and it’ll run neck in neck with Zoolander 2 for the top spot.

As the whole world knows by now, the contents of that email couldn’t have been more wrong. I was only off by about a $100 million or so as “Deadpool” shattered all kinds of records over its opening weekend and continues to power on.

And you know what? I couldn’t be happier that my pessimistic nature took a well-deserved knock.

It just goes to show that comic books — and everything around them — have truly arrived.

Sure, superhero movies nowadays more often than not make hundreds of millions of dollars. But Marvel/Fox took a huge risk releasing an R-rated feature, even based on a character suitably nicknamed the “merc with a mouth.” Based on what transpires in the comics, all Wolverine-related movies should’ve gone the R route, as well as the upcoming “Suicide Squad” film. It’s a testament to the filmmakers and lead actor Ryan Reynolds that “Deadpool” saw the types of numbers that it did right off the bat.

And of course, credit goes to us devoted comic book fans, too.

We live in an amazing time — one in which our longtime love of the medium has finally paid off. You see, I’m part of a slightly older generation (X, to be exact) and I remember as a kid when comics didn’t easily spin off into toys, movies and the like.

When I was 9 years old, a friend made his own version of adamantium claws by taking the tines off a rake and taping them to the top of a paper cup. He then cut out the bottom of the cup, put his hand through and there you have it: instant Wolverine. (Well, maybe not so instant: How do you take off rake tines?)

Personally, I took a paper plate; colored it red, white and blue; and drew a star in the middle: instant Captain America shield.

Now, it’s nothing for today’s youth (or grown-ups, if they’re so inclined) to go to the store and just get toys like that. Superhero stuff is everywhere and gets all kinds of coverage. And just look at what we have on prime-time TV, where there were short-term hits and misses for decades.

The writers of those shows do so much for us, too. Case in point: I just started watching “The Flash,” and on an early episode, one of the main characters — Harrison Wells — in dialogue fired off these names: Ralph Dibny, Al Rothstein, Grant Emerson, Will Everett, Bea DaCosta. My mind almost shut down hearing the alter egos of the Elongated Man, Atom Smasher, Damage, Amazing Man and Fire, respectively — on a mainstream show, no less!

I’m only halfway through season 1, but I hear a recent episode had an appearance of a Legion flight ring in it.

I can barely handle it.

Comic books and all they entail are almost everywhere: from garnering mainstream coverage to podcasts to TV to blogs. And obviously, with the success of Deadpool, superheroes and such aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Who knows? Maybe one day, one of these billionaires out there in the world will get bored with their lives of leisure and invent a suit of armor with top-flight tech gadgets, take up archery or invest in making themselves an ultimate fighting machine armed with the best weapons to wage a war against crime.

Wouldn’t that be awesome, if we got a real-life superhero one day? We’re already seeing out-of-the-ordinary things, like Deadpool or Guardians of the Galaxy movies becoming box-office blockbusters.

I don’t think it’s too big of an ask, is it? After all, I kind of made that paper-plate Captain America shield work…

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