This week’s stupid tempest in a teapot? Skottie Young being forced to clarify that no, he was not nonsensically drawing a Pokéball on the cover of Deadpoo/Batman #1 and then being forced to take it out by Marvel’s legal department.
This probably requires a little more explanation than that, so let’s get into it. Back on July 3, Marvel revealed a variant cover for the upcoming DC and Marvel crossover issue by Young, which features the title characters and an image of the Merc with a Mouth having taken over the Bat-signal from a very annoyed Batman. The signal clearly features Young’s simplified version of the Deadpool insignia, and nobody really said otherwise.
…Until Young posted a new version of the cover two days ago (August 11) on Instagram. Said Young, “Spot the difference. Gotta love legal! Deadpool Batman # 1 on comic shop shelves everywhere September 24!”
And naturally, comic book fans sent up a signal of their own. The new cover features a split logo on the Batsignal, half Batman, half Deadpool, but is otherwise the same. However, two things caught the attention of fans. The first was that “legal” got involved, which seemed to indicate some sort of conspiracy. The second is that multiple articles popped up speculating that Young was asked to change the logo because it was a Pokémon Ball, aka a Pokéball.
Again: it’s not. It doesn’t even look like a Pokéball, unless you rotated it, I guess. But Young took to his newsletter to clarify anyway.
“There are a bunch of articles floating around about my Deadpool/Batman cover and about an edit that was made and wow…they are all so wrong. Hahahaha,” Young wrote. “We posted the original cover that had the DEADPOOL LOGO up in lights instead of the Bat-signal. The Pool-Signal. See what I did there? Get it? That’s the joke.
“But for some reason someone thinks I put the POKEMON BALL in the light and that’s why there was a need for the edit. WHY WOULD PUTTING A POKEMON BALL IN THE LIGHT BE FUNNY???? Or have anything at all to do with DP/BM? Hahaha. What I’m saying is, that’s NOT the Pokemon Ball or Pokeball or whatever it’s called. (Sorry, I’m old.) It’s the way I’ve been drawing Deadpool’s symbol for years as you can see below.”
A little more seriously, Young continued to explain that though he was asked to make a change by legal, “the words Nintendo, Pokemon or anything else outside of the Batman and Deadpool was never said.” And as for the change, Young noted that he felt the new version was “even funnier,” which is why he posted “gotta love legal,” thanking them for the “assist.”
I will personally be much more dubious about that last part; nobody in the history of the human race has said “gotta love legal” and meant it literally. But we’ll give Young the benefit of the doubt here.
That said, Young did reveal yet another cover for the upcoming issue featuring none other than Wolverine fighting Space Wolverine, aka Lobo. The variant will only be available in Skottie Young’s online shop, which is pretty neat. Bub. Here’s hoping legal — who we all love — doesn’t make him change this one, as well, because when it comes to Deadpool/Batman covers, you gotta catch ’em all.
Deadpool/Batman #1 hits stores on September 17, 2025.
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