According to Chelsea-Leigh Nolan, a 26-year-old comics fan from Kent, they are simply “more human”.
“No one is completely good or completely evil, so the idea of an anti-hero is really cool,” she says.
It is in these murky areas that Mrs. Nolan can see her “element.”
“I’m not overly perfect, and I don’t try to be,” she adds. “I can’t relate to the idea that there’s a hero who doesn’t make mistakes.”
For Rhys Connolly, a 30-year-old writer and performer who lives in London, the anti-hero is more realistic.
“They move towards the moral right, but they make mistakes, they regret things, they have bad habits and character traits,” explains Connolly.
In Deadpool #45 (2008), a group of trafficked women call Deadpool a “good guy” after he saves them, but the mercenary quickly rejects this, saying, “Um… okay, yeah – maybe there's a part of me that's good, but there's a part of me that's, um…”
His reluctance to hear that he is “great” is an admission of his own shortcomings.
The man Deadpool calls himself, the “Big Mouth Merc,” is loud, murderous, and crazy – everything a superhero shouldn't be.
