The following contains spoilers from Wolverine #20, now on sale from Marvel Comics.
Although Deadpool has had many short-lived team-ups with other Marvel heroes, the Merc with a Mouth's flippant and talkative nature has made him an outcast within the Marvel Universe. In the past, Deadpool has always managed to take being shunned by his fellow heroes in stride, but Wolverine #20 (by Benjamin Percy, Adam Kubert, Frank Martin, Dijjo Lima, and VC's Cory Petit) shows that the Regenerating Degenerate's repeated rejection from the X-Men's mutant-centric nation of Krakoa has been a difficult pill to swallow.
Fortunately, Wolverine #20 also reunites Deadpool with one of his oldest allies, Blind Al. In her first reappearance since 2014's Deadpool #27's "The Wedding of Deadpool" (by, Brian Posehn, Gerry Duggan, Mike Hawthorne, Jordie Bellaire, and VC's Joe Sabino), Blind Al provides Deadpool with a chance to finally gain the X-Men's acceptance, reaffirming both her surprising history with the international intelligence community and her mutually-affectionate supportive with the Merc with a Mouth
Introduced in Deadpool #1 (by Joe Kelly, Ed McGuinness, Nathan Massengill, Normal Lee, Chris Lichtner, Richard Starkings, Comicraft, Dave Lanphear) as Deadpool's unassuming (and unwilling) roommate, Blind Al, whose real name is Althea, has a surprisingly storied history. While the exact details of her background are unknown, she served as a British Intelligence agent in World War II and struck up a friendship with Captain America that lasted until the Sentinel of Liberty was frozen in ice. Decades later, Wade Wilson was hired to assassinate Blind Al by an unknown employer but ultimately chose to spare her life, setting the stage for their future friendship.
Shortly after he escaped from the Weapon X Program, Deadpool tracked Blind Al down and forcibly brought her to his run-down apartment to serve as his housekeeper. While she was technically Deadpool's prisoner and was often subjected to pranks that took advantage of her blindness, Blind Al was more than capable of matching wits with Deadpool, performing pranks of her own and deflecting his insults back at him. Over time, Deadpool and Blind Al's repartee would evolve into a genuine friendship, with Deadpool regularly showing his rarely-seen softer side around Blind Al. In turn, Blind Al lent the Merc with a Mouth a sympathetic ear and shoulder to cry on in the rare moments that something genuinely upset him.
In Wolverine #20, Deadpool is shown to have reunited with Blind Al sometime after he lost his title as King of Monsters, with them moving back into their old apartment together. After several failed attempts to sneak onto Krakoa, a despondent Deadpool vented his frustrations to Blind Al, who told Deadpool that he'd have to make himself an asset to Krakoa if he wanted to become a citizen of the mutant nation. To help him out (and get him out of her hair), Blind Al gave Deadpool a dossier that revealed that the X-Men's ally-turned-enemy Danger and the C.I.A's X-Desk were working together to carry out some sort of anti-mutant conspiracy involving robotic duplicates of the X-Men and Wolverine's severed hand, giving the Merc with the Mouth the perfect opportunity to prove his worth to Krakoa.
Although Blind Al's history as a spy has been well-established beforehand, uncovering the X-Desk's upcoming plot against Krakoa before X-Force is a truly astonishing feat. Since it became Krakoa's primary intelligence agency, X-Force has maintained an effective espionage campaign against other nations, allowing them to discover and sabotage many potential threats to Krakoa before they could endanger the lives of the nation's mutant citizens. However, the X-Desk's plot against Krakoa appears to have gone unnoticed by X-Force, who are unaware of both the scope of the organization's operation and Danger's role in it. In contrast, Blind Al has somehow managed to uncover every detail of the conspiracy, proving that Deadpool's roommate is a better information gatherer than a team made up of some of Marvel's most intelligent mutants.
While Blind Al's information is a major boon to Deadpool's bid to join the mutant community, her primary contribution is the simple moral support she's always provided him. Although he discussed it in his usual joking manner, the X-Men's decision to ban Deadpool from Krakoa despite his many years of dedicated service to mutant-kind genuinely upset him, sending him spiraling into an uncharacteristic depression. Having gained a deep understanding of Deadpool, Blind Al was able to him with the stern-yet-sincere encouragement he needed to pull himself out of his funk and prove himself to his former teammates.
During his interaction with Blind Al, Deadpool openly referred to her as his surrogate mother figure, and that's an accurate summation of her role in his life. Although they may not always get along, Blind Al was the first person to believe that Deadpool could become the hero he always wanted to be, and she's still helping him be that hero.
