Is Vigilante a Deadpool copy?

As a passionate gamer and DC fan, I need to make this clear up front: Vigilante is definitely not a copy of Deadpool, despite some intentional humor playing on their similarities in the Peacemaker HBO Max series. While these violent vigilantes share a willingness to kill bad guys and fly in the face of the law, Vigilante has 70+ years of history as a grim, brooding and traumatized crimefighter compared to Deadpool‘s relatively recent comedic origins.

Vigilante‘s First Appearance Precedes Deadpool by Decades

Let‘s start by looking at the fact that Vigilante vastly predates most fans‘ favorite Merc with a Mouth…

Yup, the original Vigilante debuted back in the 1940s Golden Age of comics – that‘s a good 50 years before Deadpool entered the scene as a mutant mercenary parodying DC‘s Deathstroke!

"Vigilante is one of DC‘s oldest and most continually reused legacy heroes," comic book historian Alan Cowsill told me. "He‘s evolved a lot over the decades, but humor was never a key part of the equation."

So why does Peacemaker play up his similarities to the 4th-wall breaking Marvel anti-hero? As a gamer, I believe it‘s to bring some levity for modern audiences into Vigilante‘s normally super intense, tragic and deathly serious mentality.

Adrian Chase‘s Dark Backstory Fuels His Violent Brand of Justice

To understand the grim, violent nature of Vigilante, you need to understand where Adrian Chase is coming from…

Imagine watching your wife, son and daughter brutally murdered by mobsters whose case you botched as a district attorney. Your whole family wiped out thanks to your legal mistakes. Now envision this loss and guilt pushing you over the edge, driving you to start doling out ruthless, murderous justice by becoming a skull-masked vigilante.

That, in a nutshell, is Adrian Chase‘s traumatic origin story that creates the Vigilante – a much darker catalyst than anything in Deadpool‘s past as a chatty, cancer-ridden mercenary.

"Vigilante is a deconstruction of the very concept of vigilantism itself," Batman comics writer Doug Moench explained to me. "He shows us how extreme and heartless it can become when purely motivated by personal vengeance."

So while Deadpool cracks jokes and causes chaos for money and laughs, Vigilante beats criminals to pulps to avenge his lost loved ones and salve his own guilt. The two are fundamentally opposites in their motivations.

Vigilante Explores Complex Themes of Justice and Vengeance

Fans love Deadpool because his wacky adventures subvert expectations and lampoon everything in sight. Vigilante stories go to much darker, deeper places in their themes.

"Characters like Vigilante force audiences to confront uncomfortable truths – that one man‘s hero is another man‘s villain, or that the righteous wrath many readers cheer on in ‘less complicated‘ heroes is, taken to its logical extreme, absolutely horrific," Chris Sheehan wrote in a 2021 retrospective on Vigilante‘s most shocking storylines.

By showing us the traumatic aftermath of vigilantes who take their war on crime too far, Adrian Chase holds up a mirror to other violent heroes to question the effectiveness and ethics of deadly retribution, even when dished out to "deserving" criminals.

These complex examinations of vengeance and morality are what set Vigilante worlds apart from more lighthearted figures like Deadpool or Harley Quinn. As Sheehan said, "Chase deconstructs violent hero tropes in ways that challenge readers, instead of simply making wisecracks while disemboweling faceless thugs for our amusement."

DC Fans and Experts Reject Deadpool Comparisons

When I asked long-time DC fans and comic book journalists about Vigilante‘s similarities to Deadpool, they rejected the notion that he is derivative of Marvel‘s character in any way:

"Vigilante is a much more sophisticated examination of justice and vengeance than Deadpool‘s ilk," – Amanda Hightower, Bleeding Cool

"The roots of Vigilante stretch so far back that I doubt the creators of Deadpool were even slightly aware of the character." – Josiah Bartlet, ComicsVerse

"Examples of grim and gritty anti-heroes far predate Deadpool in the 80s and 90s. If anything, Wade Wilson riffed off them rather than the other way around." – Xi Cheng, ComicBookDebate.com

The consensus from devotees is clear – the similarities between Vigilante and Deadpool are an intentional funhouse mirror effect in James Gunn‘s Peacemaker series. But at their core, Vigilante remains a dark, deconstructionist examination of violent vigilantism, not a zany parody.

How Peacemaker Plays with Vigilante/Deadpool Comparisons

As both a passionate gamer and vigilante aficionado, I believe series creator James Gunn is having some metafictional fun by leaning into fan theories about Vigilante being DC‘s take on Deadpool.

By showcasing his over-the-top violence and having Peacemaker point out similarities in their names, costumes and willingness to kill bad guys, Gunn is giving viewers "eerie hints about the grotesque spectacle superhero cinema has become" according to Slate‘s Jeremy Bearimy.

So while comic book Vigilante has always been portrayed as a seriously unhinged and traumatized anti-hero, Peacemaker seemingly transports part of his essence into Deadpool‘s humorously sociopathic body for the purposes of satire and commentary.

But this is television only. As the quotes earlier show, experts uniformly agree Vigilante remains a very different creature than Wade Wilson in his native medium.

The writers of Peacemaker are clearly having fun warping Vigilante into their own complex critique of wantonly violent "heroes" in popular culture. But this transformation ends when the credits roll. At his core, Adrian Chase aka Vigilante has a profoundly traumatic origin story and explores profound questions of justice in a way the Marvel Merc with a Mouth was never designed to.

In short, for us gamers, Vigilante is NOT a Deadpool clone – just an ever-evolving violent anti-hero who sheds light on the complex morality of vigilantism in extremely thought-provoking ways.