A new body paint cosplay brings to life Shiklah; Marvel’s former Queen of Monsters and the one-time wife of Deadpool. While Shiklah’s love for Wade Wilson was based on his impulsive style and outsider status, she later turned against him when he worked against her attempts to conquer New York.

First introduced in Deadpool: The Gauntlet #3, and created by Brian Posehn, Gerry Duggan, and Reilly Brown, Shiklah is the generational ruler of Marvel’s monsters, holding dominion over those unusual creatures who need protecting from humanity’s bigotry and hatred. Shiklah’s family eventually found themselves at war with Dracula and his vampires, and the undead lord hired Deadpool to kidnap her so he could force her into marriage and unite the monsters of the world. Thankfully, Shiklah and Deadpool actually hit it off when they met, and the two later got married.

SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY

Shiklah adopts both a humanoid and monstrous form in the comics, but it’s the former that appears in a new body paint cosplay from artist Melissa Croft, recently shared on Twitter. Croft is an artist who depicts a wide range of TV, movie, videogame, and comic characters through cosplay, from household icons like Fantastic Four’s Invisible Woman, to obscure heroes like X-Men’s Rasputin IV. In a photo shoot and VFX video, Croft brings Shiklah to life as the Queen of Monsters.

Despite despising humanity, Shiklah is a principled antihero committed to her own people. Her attack on New York was motivated by the murder of one of her subjects, and she eventually stepped down as queen after realizing the position enforced a form of tyranny over Marvel’s monsters. While the two are now divorced, her relationship with Deadpool was partly left open, though a bonus image from Croft depicts Shiklah as irritated to be receiving a call from Wade. Sadly, one potential future sees Shiklah fully turn against humanity. She is defeated by Deadpool and the Avengers, and then shrunk down and put into stasis within Wade’s heart – a move which puts him into conflict with their secret daughter, Warda Wilson.

It’s this connection that makes Shiklah such an excellent villain for Deadpool. For a character who feigns a comical disdain for everything around him, Wade went all-in on his relationship with Shiklah, and their wedding was a major event in his life and in comic history, setting the Guinness World Record for the most characters on a comic cover. Sadly, the two brought out the worst in each other, since Shiklah was more than Deadpool’s match in both blood-soaked violence and sneering disregard for humanity.

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Ultimately, Shiklah strives to be a hero to her own people, even though that may mean a future in which she decides to totally wipe out humanity, and Croft’s body paint cosplay captures that exact menacing spirit. A genuine wildcard and someone who effortlessly broke through Deadpool‘s feigned indifference, Shiklah was a smart, surprising addition to the Marvel Universe, as likely to be the funniest character in a scene as to turn into a huge monster and start tearing people to pieces, and could return at any time to reclaim her former throne.

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Robert Wood
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Robert Wood is a comics editor for Screen Rant and the author of ‘The False Elephant (and 99 Other Unreasonably Short Stories).’ He received his Master’s in English Literature from Lancaster University, and now happily spends his days applying it to Daredevil and the Hulk.

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