Let’s f*****g go! That’s the rallying cry heard throughout Deadpool & Wolverine, which became the highest-grossing R-rated movie ever just days after its July 26 release. It’s also the perfect reaction to the news that Heritage Auctions is offering for sale the original artwork Rob Liefeld penciled and inked for the cover of New Mutants #98, which introduced Marvel Comics’ Merc With a Mouth.
The asking price: $7.5 million. If it sells, the cover of New Mutants #98 would become the single most valuable piece of original comic book art ever sold.
This marks the first time in nearly two decades that the historic cover has been offered for sale.
Its owner acquired the piece almost two decades ago and has received — and rebuffed — numerous offers ever since. But given the runaway success of Deadpool & Wolverine — already a $600-million-and-counting global smash hit pairing Ryan Reynolds with Hugh Jackman for a bloody, riotous romp through the Marvel Cinematic Universe — its owner approached Heritage about offering it for sale. Says the cover’s owner, “The time is right.”
Deadpool’s debut in New Mutants #98, alongside fan favorite Domino, was nothing short of a lightning strike that ignited fans’ attention and admiration like few characters before him. Marvel Comics once said the mail they received about Deadpool was the largest response to a character in years. In fact, two issues after his debut, Marvel ran the first of many fan letters celebrating his introduction.
With writer Louise Simonson, Liefeld began creating new characters, including Cable, later played in Deadpool 2 by Josh Brolin, and killing off countless others. When Liefeld and writer Fabian Nicieza took over the title for its final few issues, they introduced an army of characters who survived long enough to make the film franchise, including Domino and Shatterstar.
Liefeld was just 23 when he took over New Mutants, and it came at just the right time: As he’s explained, his father was in the midst of a 20-year battle with cancer (which Liefeld says informed Deadpool’s backstory), and his parents were “broke.”
Liefeld rewarded readers with one hell of a Christmas gift when New Mutants #98 hit newsstands in December 1990. Deadpool shows up toward the book’s end to kill Cable at the behest of someone named Mr. Tolliver — who, it later turned out, was a mutant from the future (and Cable’s estranged son) masquerading as an illegal arms merchant. Deadpool was almost fully formed when he fired his first gun: He was a brash, quippy, seemingly indestructible killing machine.
Less than a year after his debut, Deadpool appeared on the cover of Liefeld and Nicieza’s X-Force #2 — and, soon after that, as an action figure, a video-game character and the star of his own titles ever since. Though Reynolds made his debut as Deadpool in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine – in which the Merc’s mouth was inexplicably sewn shut — the actor and character have been inseparable since 2016’s long-awaited Deadpool, which spawned a global franchise that has now eclipsed the $2-billion mark.
