The Bea Arthur: The Only Ship Capable of Killing both Galactus and Deadpool
There is one spaceship in the entirety of the Marvel Cannon that was able to single-handedly take out Galactus. Sort of.
We all have our first loves. Some get crushes on cartoon characters when they’re at the exact right place in their lives. Others develop crushes on cool and/or quirky TV characters. And even Deadpool can’t escape from this fact.
Before he became the Merc with the Mouth, Wade Wilson was like any other boy, with hobbies, interests, and of course, a powerful crush that would inform much of his career as a superhero. But who could tame the Merc’s heart? Was it a cartoon vixen like Jessica Rabbit? A classic teenage heartthrob like Ally Sheedy or Melissa Joan Heart
The answer is someone a little more regal. A real golden girl, you could say.
That’s right. Wade Wilson’s biggest crush was none other than legendary actress Bea Arthur. Known for her role as Dorothy Zbornak in The Golden GIrls and for doing the Urkel at the 1991 American Comedy Awards Ceremony (either are possible moments for Deadpool’s nascent crush to form), Bea Arthur would go on to be a constant in Deadpool’s life.
Bea and Arthur are the name of Deadpool’s swords. And when it came time for the Deadpool Corps to go to space, they did so in the only vessel fit for a Pool, the Bea Arthur.
The Bea Arthur – Thank You for being a Spaceship
The Bea Arthur was a starship with a distinctly Deadpool flair. It was given to the Deadpool Corps in order to defeat an entity known as The Awareness. The Awareness was able to absorb the consciousness of thousands of planets, subsuming them under his mental control. However, the brainwave of a Deadpool (from any universe) was unstable. Ever-shifting. Ever breaking through the fourth wall. And this, rendered them unable to be absorbed by the Awareness.
So it was that the Elders of the Universe gifted the Deadpool Corps with a spaceship. However, for a mission of reality-saving import, the ship herself had to be fitted out in Deadpool fashion. Which includes a red and black mask, marking the ship forever as one of the Corps.
The specifics of the Bea Arthur don’t matter, because she had it where it counts. What she lacked in weaponry and armor, she made up for in personality. The Bea Arthur, the spaceship, had the wit and drive of her namesake actress. And was just as unstoppable as well.
This fact saved the universe twice. For in the aftermath of the mission to stop the Awareness, the being known as Dreadpool formed his own version of the Deadpool Corps, but evil. The Evil Deadpool Corps was on a marauding mission to wipe out every single version of Wade Wilson in the Multiverse.
And to that end, they played dirty pool (not to be confused with Dirtypool), bringing in Galactipool, which is just Galactus but he’s also Deadpool. His appetite for geologic chimichangas was legendary.
In the end, it was the heroic flying of Lady Deadpool that helped rally the other members of the Deadpool Corps to join a resistance against the evil Deadpool Corps. Lady Deadpool found Deadpool-616, the hero of most Deadpool stories, and took him to join the resistance in the Bea Arthur. But this was a short, bittersweet reunion for Pool and Ship. No sooner had he arrived at the rebel base, than the facility came under attack from the world-eating Galactipool.
Lady Deadpool took the controls of the Bea Arthur and flew directly into the head of the worldkiller. Galactipool was slain in an instant, but so was Lady Deadpool.
Though the Bea Arthur was destroyed, the ship’s memory, like Celine Dion’s heart, will go on.
