I'm about to go full "hipster" going on record saying I liked Deadpool before he was mainstream as in people would mistake my Halloween costume as Spider-Man and I'd be like "Yeah I'm Spider-Man" anyways...

So when I started to like Deadpool it was way back in his comic book mission in Marvel Ultimate Alliance (2006) and nowadays he is practically a houshold name. I've seen over the years as he's been featured in more games and has had more cameos in what little Marvel animated shows to eventually getting his own movie. Deadpool is just about everywhere. You name it and it's probably a Deadpool logo slapped on it. At first I was buying the stuff to support the character and help, if only a little, get the characters name out there (I have 20+ Deadpool shirts and someone noticed I'm sure) but now it's just...too much stuff for pathetic my wallet.

This is to say Deadpool is PRETTY marketable right now and if "Wolverine's Popularity" is anything to go by that usually has a negative impact on the character or rather how he is written. I think some would consider Daniel Way's version of deadpool aka Waypool to be the standard for "watered down/popular" version of Deadpool but are we about to get a new version of the "watered down/popular" character due to the amount of revenue Deadpool is generating? Do you this this newfound mainstream popularity is, in essence, appealing for new/casual fans but killing the character for long time fans?

@robert2928: I don't believe popularity can kill a character. Nothing ever dies because it's popular, it just becomes popular and then less popular. It still stays around. The only thing that can kill a character is bad writing. Honestly Deadpool getting killed off because of bad writing almost happened when Daniel Way was writing the series, and if it wasn't for Rick Remender on Uncanny X-force and a few other writers I firmly believe Deadpool would be incredibly dead right now.

Today we have Gerry Duggan, and he's doing a great job on the series. So as long as the quality in his work remains, the character will stay strong. Plus judging by Gerry's future plans, sounds like Deadpool isn't getting watered down. He's going back to his roots as a horrible anti-hero/villain.

This happens constantly. A somewhat obscure character suddenly gets a movie or whatever, the fanbase explodes, and the people behind it want to make the character more up to date for the general audience, and they make some changes, then the long time fans say the character has been ruined.

I think Daniel Way is what ruined Deadpool.

Duggan thankfully brought some dignity back to the character.