Hugh Jackman (left) and Ryan Reynolds in “Deadpool & Wolverine.”
Jay Maidment/20th Century Studios/Marvel
[This story contains spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine.]
Naturally, much of the discussion surrounding Deadpool & Wolverine, both positive and negative, has centered on the so-called cameos in the film. Is it just fan service? Do we want to see those characters again? Are they the purpose of the film? Does it say something about our culture? The answers are naturally varied and have led to vast discussions, many of which are exhausting.
Deadpool & Wolverine has been used as a litmus test for a variety of things: art, commercialism, consumerism, whether or not we have the ability to have fun, etc. None of these tests are particularly interesting, and I'd argue they fall outside the scope of Deadpool & Wolverine's actual theme, which is: who gets to decide which stories matter?
Do you remember the first Marvel movie you saw? Perhaps it was Blade (1998), Spider-Man (2002), Iron Man (2008), The Avengers (2012), or any of the many comic book adaptations that have hit the big screen over the last 30 years. Maybe it was Mark Goldblatt's The Punisher (1989) or Albert Pyun's Captain America (1990). If so, I salute you. If it was Willard Huxley's Howard the Duck (1986), I bow my head and express my sympathy.
The first Marvel movie I saw was X-Men (2000). I was 10 years old and saw it with my dad. It was a great experience, especially for me, as I was an avid watcher of X-Men: The Animated Series and followed the cast and production of the movie in Wizard Magazine (RIP!). I have seen every Marvel movie since then. The ones I loved, the ones I didn't, and the ones I thought were just so-so all influenced me and influenced my perspective on the current era of MCU movies and Deadpool and Wolverine. All of these movies are important in some way, all are connected to different periods in my life and hold memories for the good times and the difficult times.
I watched Spider-Man 2 (2004) during a period of severe depression and anxiety. I watched Elektra (2005) with my mom on a day we were just hanging out. I watched The Incredible Hulk (2008) the night I first told my now-wife that I loved her. I missed seeing Marvel (2023) in the theater because I was recovering from a kidney transplant. What all of this is to say is that our relationship to this film, or any particular film, doesn’t have to be a shared experience. And as I’ve said before, I believe film criticism is not about trying to be an arbiter of quality, but about providing a window into a subjective perspective. So let me open my window and show you what I got out of Deadpool vs. Wolverine.
As the MCU has grown in popularity, so has fan rhetoric that directly or indirectly suggests that Marvel films and characters outside of the franchise are irrelevant. Of course, this sentiment isn't all-encompassing, but it's obvious enough to be hard to ignore. Like Deadpool and Wolverine's Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen), there's a desire for there to be just one franchise: a sacred timeline where everything fits neatly into one narrative arc overseen by one entity: TVA (in this case, Disney).
We see this every time a new film in Sony's Spider-Man universe is announced or released. The most common response is “sell the rights back to Marvel.” I'll never forget the joy that erupted from many fans at the news of the Disney-20th Century Fox merger. The joy consisted mainly of comments about finally getting the X-Men right and about Marvel Studios having access to all the characters. It ignores the fact that Fox's Marvel movies have quite a few films that rank among Marvel's best, especially Logan (2017), with Deadpool and Wolverine working on it. It also ignores that there were creators and actors who were eager to see this universe continue, or at least have an ending. And it ignores that there are still stories to be told, like Gambit, X-23, etc.
I think the idea that Marvel Studios alone can make good Marvel movies is very boring and cynical because Feige has experience with Marvel movies outside of Marvel Studios. Yes, he was involved with Elektra and The Dawn of the Silver Surfer (2007). Of course, 20th Century Fox has made its own interpretations, and Sony has made its own interpretations. But Marvel Studios has made a lot of interpretations, some of which have turned out great, and some of which have left me scratching my head or wishing for a different ending. This is consistent with any superhero comic book adaptation, and it's consistent across studios. But the idea that Marvel Studios is the best superhero movie is ridiculous, even in the context of Deadpool and Wolverine being a Marvel Studios production.
Surprisingly, Shawn Levy's film is not about putting Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) in the MCU, but about Deadpool preserving stories outside the MCU and continuing to assert that those characters with their own lives matter. And that is the true gift of the multiverse. It's not about satisfying fans' expectations of seeing Robert Downey Jr. return as the evil super Iron Man or Chris Evans play Cap of Hydra. It's not about seeing Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) get cozy with Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) or get into a fight with Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). The multiverse is a chance for creators to assert that stories outside the MCU matter by bringing back familiar faces from the past or bringing back the X-Men in X-Men 97.
Deadpool's search for purpose, which he believes can only be achieved by joining the Avengers, speaks directly to not only what Marvel Studios' initial expectations for a Deadpool movie would be, but also to Reynolds' relationship with Deadpool. On the press circuit for Deadpool & Wolverine, Reynolds had openly admitted that he wasn't sure if another Deadpool movie would be made after the merger with Fox, and that he struggled to find a story path that worked within the MCU and respected the character and relationship Deadpool had built through the previous two movies. A surprising call from Hugh Jackman wanting to retire from the role of Wolverine changed things, but still, questions remained about whether Deadpool & Wolverine would be able to fulfill his purpose after the end of Fox's X-Men franchise and the death of Wolverine in Logan, a franchise linchpin. And this idea of preserving the events of the past without changing the events of the Fox movies, while creating future possibilities with discarded characters and concepts, is what drives Deadpool & Wolverine.
Logan Ben Rothstein/Twentieth Century Fox/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
If you have seen the movie, you know that Elektra (Jennifer Garner), Gambit (Channing Tatum), Laura/X-23 (Dafne Keen), Johnny Storm (Chris Evans), and the man in black, Blade (Wesley Snipes), are in it. If you haven't seen it yet, why are you still reading this? I would say that these characters are not just cameos, but supporting characters who are very much involved in the story of the movie and the theme of purpose and preservation. It's funny to hear people clap and cheer in the theater when these characters appear. Some of these characters were mocked for the quality of the movies they appeared in, while others were set to star in movies that never got made.
And the same can be said about the actors, who have been the subject of persistent rumors of feuds and frequent requests for recasting over the years. Deadpool & Wolverine knows exactly how to entertain fans, but it's not afraid to poke them a little, reminding many of them that these are iterations of characters they turned down, actors they were told weren't right for the roles, and a franchise they enthusiastically welcomed to an end so they could have a World War II flashback sequence in which Wolverine battles Captain America (Chris Evans).
It's ironic that characters from the franchise Disney devoured, replaced, and now profited from are viewed with reverence here, especially Garner's Elektra, who was in the film but was the least popular with fans. But as much as these films are sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly, credited to the studio rather than the directors or writers, Deadpool & Wolverine feels like a voice of belief among filmmakers that the MCU is not the only part of Marvel cinematic history that's memorable or worth investing in. And despite the popularity of Reynolds' performance, Deadpool could have just as easily faded into the void as any of the others.
Reynolds certainly seems aware of this, given how Deadpool has been handled in the movies and his own relationship with Marvel, which began with the notorious Blade: Trinity (2004), the film where Reynolds first learned about Deadpool. After Deadpool 2 (2018), Deadpool could have been rebooted, the first two films removed from canon, and the supporting cast replaced. But neither he nor they were, and within the metanarrative of Deadpool & Wolverine, it feels significant that Deadpool not only survived and rescued others from the cosmic junk heap of the multiverse (or corporate merger), but also fought to protect the existence of Earth when fans expected it to be destroyed.
A consistent layer of empathy remains throughout the Deadpool film, and I applaud the insistence here of not discarding characters, worlds, experiences, or memories just because everything went wrong. I have no delusions about personifying the corporation or believing this is important to Disney as a business outside of the box office, but as the credits montage indicates, I think there is genuine intent behind the filmmakers allowing Deadpool and Wolverine to serve as a celebration of Marvel movies outside of the MCU, giving many characters the ending they deserved and perhaps a future that isn't dependent on their status as Avengers in the prime timeline.
I'm not ashamed to admit that nostalgia certainly plays a role in Deadpool's relationship with Wolverine, but what makes this film more than just a superhero movie is the meta-awareness that so much of our timeline is filled with the varied qualities of these fictional stories that we've experienced, entrusted our memories and emotions to, even if they're imperfect, and that they can serve some purpose, even if they're inconsistent. Given that these superhero stories were meant to reflect the best and worst of humanity, that awareness feels as fitting and right as Deadpool's costume before he went all out for a day.