Next week, DESPICABLE DEADPOOL #300 marks a landmark moment in the history of the Merc with a Mouth. Written by Gerry Duggan with art by Scott Koblish, Matteo Lolli, and Mike Hawthorne, the issue presents an explosive finish for both this era of Deadpool and for several members of this all-star creative team.

Among those celebrating their final outing alongside the Regenerating Degenerate is Hawthorne, who has drawn more pages of Deadpool comics than any artist in Marvel history since he started with the character six years ago.

Jordan D. White, the editor on every page of Hawthorne’s Deadpool run, says, “Mike Hawthorne was one of the first artists we signed up for Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn’s DEADPOOL, doing main art duties on the second arc of the book. Since then, he’s taken Deadpool up against S.H.I.E.L.D., got him married, made him rich, gave him a new arch-nemesis, shot him into space, and much, much more! He’s been a dream to work with, and honestly, no matter how much praise has been heaped on him for his work on this series, it’s not enough. He’s a star.”

To celebrate the culmination of the artist’s Mercenary activities—and the massive story on the way in DESPICABLE DEADPOOL #300—we thought we’d hand the mic over to Hawthorne himself for a look back at his favorite pages and stories.

Mike, over to you…

DEADPOOL (2012) #8, page 2

This page was literally the first Deadpool page I drew (back when I also inked my work on the book), so it holds a special place in my heart. However, it also served an important story point we returned to over and over: Deadpool’s Mind Museum. This “Chuck E. Cheese” inspired mind room was just a front for Deadpool’s actual mind—the Museum itself.

This page also established the tone for how I wanted to approach the book, with a focus on storytelling and tons of visual sight gags to embellish the jokes Gerry was telling. I wanted to set Gerry up as much as I could to sell his story and humor, and I got to show him how I might do that with the very first page.

Most importantly, we have Deadpool together (inside his mind) with Agent Preston. Preston, for me, has been the most important person in Wades life. He’d later get married, have a child (or two), make friends, but no one got as close to Wade as Preston did (…well, maybe one other person did, but we’ll get to him later). I can’t imagine the series without her, and I’m thrilled I got to nail down how important she was from my very first page.

DEADPOOL (2012) #23, page 3

This page is just one of an entire issue where Deadpool takes down a helicarrier full of bad guys. I think we managed to nudge Wade out of the clown territory a bit here and make it clear that he is a very, very dangerous man.

DEADPOOL (2015) #1, page 2

Gerry and I got to relaunch the series with a new #1, and Gerry wrote this incredible action sequence for the new book. I don’t want to give too much away for folks who haven’t read it, but we got to play a little with Wade’s life (rich! Avenger!). We also played with his cast, adding some really interesting players to the roster. This was very much a Team Deadpool comic, no longer just a solo comic. That opened up many story options, expanded the kinds of stories we could do, and gave us new ways to torture our guy Wade. Nothing like giving someone money and friends before taking them away to make a guy miserable!

And boy did we go out of our way to make poor Wade miserable!

DEADPOOL (2015) #5, page 4

Later on, Gerry and I really wanted to give Wade a villain to play against, and Madcap was perfect. After all, who else could out-Deadpool Deadpool?

I think we needed to find a character that could symbolize how being near to Wade can feel like a curse, and maybe also serve as a stand-in for Wade’s self-loathing.

DEADPOOL (2015) #30, page 14

On its face, this spread wasn’t important to the story on a whole. However, when you dig deeper into issue #30, you find that two important things happen here. One is that we get to see Wade expanding his reach beyond Earth-bound fist fights. Seeing Wade having adventures through the galaxy was a thrill for me, and allowed us to show that Deadpool can be Deadpool anywhere.

The second takeaway is the reason Wade is in space: he’s in a desperate search for a way to keep his family safe. He’s quite literally willing to search the entire galaxy to find a way to keep his loved ones from harm.

This issue illustrates the overarching motivation for Wade in our run. He’s willing to do anything—and I mean anything—to keep the people he loves safe…even from himself.

On May 9, catch the finale of a landmark Wade Wilson story in the oversized DESPICABLE DEADPOOL #300!

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The younger brother of Florida school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz is getting out of jail again after violating probation for previously trespassing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, site of the Feb. 14 massacre that killed 17 people.

Two Victorian shipping mysteries may have been solved thanks to the £50 million search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. While sonar devices have failed to pinpoint the wreckage of the Boeing 777 which disappeared with 239 people on board in March 2014, they have located a pair of shipwrecks on the Indian Ocean seabed. One is believed to be West Ridge, a 220-foot iron barque, built in Scotland, which was lost while carrying British coal to India in 1883, claiming the lives of 28 crew. It was found on December 19 2015, 12,000 feet below the surface, 1.500 miles off the west coast of Australia. The wreck was found lying upright and evidence uncovered by Australian archaeologists suggest that the vessel weight between 1,100 and 1,655 tons and had at least two decks. Sifting through the debris, scientists found a coal sample which, on further analysis, suggested that the ship was British. That information and the surviving anchors and metal fasteners enabled researchers to identify the West Ridge as the likeliest candidate. The search for MH370 Built in Glasgow in 1869 the 1,405 West Ridge’s dimensions appeared to match those of the wreck. However even if West Ridge is the most likely candidate, Dr Anderson did not rule out two other possibilities – Kooringa and Lake Ontario, which were lost in 1894 and 1897 respectively. Greater uncertainty surrounds the identity of a second wreck, a wooden ship which was found on May 19 2015 about 22 miles away from the iron wreck. Using shipping records, scientists have narrowed down the identity of the wooden ship – which weighed between 250 and 880 tons – to one of two vessels. One is the W.Gordon which sailing from Scotland to Australia in 1877 with 10 crew on board when it sank and the other Magdala, which was lost five years later during a voyage from Wales to Indonesia. “Most of the material widely scattered on the seabed consists of the remains of the coal cargo that had spilt out of the hull prior to it striking the seabed,” said Dr Ross Anderson, curator of maritime archaeology at the West Australian Museum. In brief | The disappearance of Flight MH370 “The evidence points to the ship sinking as a result of a catastrophic event such as explosion, which was common in the transport of coal cargoes.” Dr Anderson said more work – and funding – is needed before his team can be certain over the identity of the wrecks. "If it was a shipwreck that we could dive on ... we'd be looking for any artefacts like ceramics or bottles or anything that could confirm providence," Dr Anderson added. "These are the deepest wrecks so far located in the Indian Ocean, they're some of the most remote shipwrecks in the world, so we try to maximize any information."  The wrecks of two other trawlers, which were lost in the 20th century, were also found, but the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which supervised the hunt for MH370 did not ask the museum carry out further research. When the sonar search first located the wreckage, it was briefly thought that the remnants of MH370 had been found. Hopes were dashed when high-resolution images showed that it was a ship rather than aircraft which had been discovered. The search for MH370 is continuing with Texas-based Ocean Infinity carrying out the work. The Malaysian government has promised to pay the company $20 million if it finds the plane or its black boxes.