The original “Heroes Reborn” event was a Marvel reboot of sorts that occurred in the 1990s. After Franklin Richards created a pocket universe, known as Counter-Earth, to save the lives of the mightiest heroes of Earth, the Avengers and Fantastic Four found themselves reliving their lives with notable alterations to their histories. However, some characters in this universe were constructed by Franklin Richards and did not originate on the Earth-616 universe, such as the hero who would become this timeline’s Deadpool, the Avengers’ Swordsman.
Swordsman was the only member of the “Heroes Reborn” interpretation of Earth’s heroes to be a creation of Franklin Richards and not one of the original heroes of Earth-616. First appearing in Avengers #1 in 1996 by Rob Liefeld, Jim Valentino and Chap Yaep, he was recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. to join the team. When Loki encounters the Swordsman while sneaking around the Avengers facilities, he remarks that Swordsman is a narcissistic braggart.
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Loki wasn’t the only one unimpressed by Swordsman’s personality. Swordsman also got on Captain America’s bad side after almost killing Kang the Conqueror, as this went against the code Cap had put in place for the Avengers when they formed. But when his hands were crushed in a fight with Hulk, which put him in a coma, Swordsman gained Cap’s respect, with his bravery in battle leading Cap to see him as a true hero.
After the Earth-616 heroes left Counter-Earth, Swordsman was the only hero left on the team, dubbing himself “the last Avenger.” After learning he had cancer, he decided to form a new team of heroes to fill the hole left by comrades like Captain America and Thor. The story of this new team was told a few years later in Heroes Reborn: Remnants by Joe Kelly and Ethan Van Sciver.
The Remnants was a team formed out of a number of unlikely heroes who got their powers from whatever was left behind by the long-gone heroes of Counter-Earth. In the comic, this odd team would take on their former leader Swordsman, who was now known as Deadpool.
When the Remnants confront the new Deadpool, he tells them about how he learned the truth of the universe. Discovering that they were all essentially toys imagined into existence by a child, Deadpool let himself go, recruits a kid sidekick called Cap and decides that he must destroy Counter-Earth.
After the Remnants fail to stop their former leader, Deadpool launches nuclear missiles at the moon where they hit the Watcher’s moonbase. Although he failed to destroy the Heroes Reborn universe, Deadpool did fracture all of space and time, leaving the Remnants to wonder how they could fix the entire universe.
Deadpool was presumed dead as he was riding one of the missiles to the point of impact. However, the anti-hero did not die in the nuclear explosion, but was instead launched into the tear that he created in the fabric of his reality, somehow making his way to Earth-616. The next time this Deadpool is seen is in Cullen Bunn and Salva Espin’s Deadpool Kills Deadpool #2 in which he is recruited, amongst many other Deadpools, to seek out and kill the Deadpool Corps before his own untimely demise.
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