Deadpool & Wolverine Isn’t Really About the MCU — And That’s Okay
What did you expect?
Deadpool is coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which means everything is about to change. Or is it? The great promise of bringing Ryan Reynolds’ fourth wall-breaking Merc with a Mouth to the MCU is mostly fulfilled in Deadpool & Wolverine, the third Deadpool film and the first under the Marvel Studios banner. But this movie is less about bringing Deadpool and Wolverine into the same world as the Avengers than it is about saying goodbye to the 20th Century Fox era of superhero movies with all its superb highs and embarrassing lows. And that’s not a totally bad thing.
We can’t really say much more on the topic without getting into some serious spoilers... so let’s talk about the ending of Deadpool & Wolverine and what it means for the MCU — or rather, what it doesn’t.
Spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine follow!
Deadpool & Wolverine’s Ending, Explained
Cassandra Nova aims to destroy all of existence with the TVA’s Time Ripper.
Most of Deadpool & Wolverine find the titular mutants (played by Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman) trapped in the Void, the location at the end of time where everyone pruned by the Time Variance Authority is sent. First introduced in Loki, it’s becomes a kind of Island of Misfit Toys for forgotten Marvel characters (ie every superhero or supervillain from the 20th Century Fox era).
Deadpool and Wolverine meet characters from the Fox X-Men movies and other pre-MCU projects. They even encounter superheroes that never got their big-screen debut. The latter includes the movie’s Big Bad, Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), Charles Xavier’s evil twin who tried to strangle him in the womb, before she was banished to the Void by the TVA as a baby. She soon becomes the tyrannical ruler of the Void, gathering a following of fellow banished baddies like Pyro, Sabretooth, and Juggernaut. But after Pyro (Aaron Stanford) betrays her at the behest of rogue TVA agent Mr. Paradox (Matthew MacFadyen), Cassandra sets her eyes beyond the Void. She travels to Deadpool’s world, Earth-10005, to take control of Mr. Paradox’s Time Ripper, a machine that has the capability to immediately destroy an entire timeline. In her hands, it will destroy all of existence, except for the Void. Deadpool and Wolverine, who had been desperately trying to stop Mr. Paradox from using the Time Ripper to destroy Earth-10005, must fight through an army of psychotic Deadpool variants to stop Cassandra, before making the ultimate sacrifice to destroy the machine.
Mr. Paradox accidentally unleashes Deadpool on the multiverse by bringing him to the TVA with the offer to take him to the Avengers’ world, at the cost of destroying his own timeline.
Their dual efforts work to destroy the machine, and Cassandra, seemingly at the cost of their own lives. But through the power of friendship (and their redoubled regenerative abilities), Deadpool and Wolverine manage to survive, just as the TVA arrives to put a stop to Mr. Paradox’s scheme. From then on, it’s happy ever after: this Wolverine variant opts to stay in Earth-10005 with Deadpool, and Deadpool persuades the TVA to let him bring Laura, aka X-23, back from the Void (though apparently none of his other Void teammates). But we never did find out why Thor was crying over Deadpool...
Deadpool x Thor Forever
The MCU cameos aren’t as bountiful as fans hoped.
One of the handful of teases that Deadpool & Wolverine offers for future MCU crossovers is the glimpse that Mr. Paradox shows of Deadpool being cradled by a crying Thor (Chris Hemsworth). Will Deadpool somehow be mortally wounded in a future battle? Will he fight in Secret Wars, the big Avengers crossover event set to end the Multiverse Saga? It’s too early to tell, though this brief scene clearly suggests as much.
And with the film’s introduction of anchor beings, which are the people whose existence keeps their timeline from falling apart, Deadpool & Wolverine is already setting the stage for the beginning of Secret Wars. But thankfully, this kind of Marvel lore-building is fairly minimal and limited to the first 40 minutes of the film. What matters is the rest of it, and how it bids goodbye to a formative, if tumultuous, era of superhero movies.
The Goodbye to Fox We Needed (Feat. a Very Deadpool Credits Scene)
Deadpool & Wolverine bids goodbye to the Fox X-Men movies via cameos, but also a nostalgic credits roll set to Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).”
Deadpool & Wolverine dedicates most of its runtime (and cameos) to paying homage to the pre-MCU era of Marvel movies with a particular focus on 20th Century Fox, which acquired the rights to both the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. To that end, we see characters from films like Blade, Daredevil, Elektra, Fantastic Four, the X-Men movies, and of course, Logan. While the latter gets a questionable homage via an opening scene that literally uses Logan’s skeleton to bash in the heads of TVA agents, the rest of the homages range from loving to tongue-in-cheek — the Sabretooth and Logan face-off is given appropriate hype, while Blade (Wesley Snipes) and Elektra (Jennifer Garner) get to show off how badass they still are. And the very meta appearance of Chris Evans as Johnny Storm — which gets expanded in a foul-mouthed post-credits scene — is the biggest sign that this is a film about looking back, not looking forward.
It’s all cemented during the credits roll, when Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” plays over scenes and behind-the-scenes footage from all the Fox movies, good and bad (good for them, trying to make X-Men: Apocalypse appear decent). It’s Marvel’s own In Memoriam for the 20th Century chapter, a sweet and loving gesture to a series of films that did so much to launch the modern superhero era and create the foundation upon which the MCU stands today. We had the time of our lives.
