Warning! This article contains spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine.
Summary
Deadpool & Wolverinejust proved my point about Wolverine’s death inLoganwith Deadpool’s typical irreverence in hisMCUdebut. As expected,Deadpool & Wolverinedid not revive Hugh Jackman’sWolverine from Fox’s X-Men franchiseand instead starred Jackman as a Wolverine variant from another reality. This version of the character was distinctly more surly than his Fox-based counterpart after having “failed” his universe’s X-Men by being willfully absent as they were massacred. It was certainly a gritty take on the character - but still not quite as gritty as Logan in his final days.
Loganwas released in 2017 and broughtWolverine’s movie timelineto a tearful end as he helped ensure the survival of mutant-kind and his young female clone, X-23.Loganends with Wolverine dyingat the hands of an adult clone, being impaled on a log before finally succumbing to his mortality and being buried by his adoptive daughter. The problem is that Wolverine famously has a powerful healing factor, and no amount of explaining away through appealing to age is going to make this make any less sense.
Every Cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine Explained
Deadpool & Wolverine is packed to the brim with cameos from across the entire run of Marvel films, combining the numerous timelines together.
Wolverine’s Failing Healing Factor Never Made Sense To Me In Logan
Logan Shouldn’t Be Dying That Easily
Loganis lavished with praise as one ofthe greatest superhero movies ever made. The gritty realism made for a perfect stage on which to showcase Wolverine’s animalistic brutality and finally bring his iconic cinematic legacy to an end (beforeDeadpool & Wolverinewould contradict this). There is no doubt that this was compounded bythe heightened stakes delivered by the fact that Wolverine could, in fact, diewhereas his previous outings made him functionally immortal thanks to his healing factor.
Wolverine is steadily dying inLoganwithout being impaled as his body is finally starting to succumb to adamantium poisoning as his healing factor deteriorates.
Yet this heel-turn with Wolverine’s mortality is also one of the movie’s biggest pitfalls.Rationalizing Logan’s newfound ability to die by ascribing it to old age or general deterioration also doesn’t make much sense, especially considering he seemed to age pretty rapidly betweenThe WolverineandLogandespite nearly 200 years of appearing to be in his 30s. The movie may be next to flawless, but this plot device feels too convenient to ignore - and thankfully, Deadpool refused to.
Deadpool & Wolverine Calls Out Wolverine’s Death In Logan
Even Wade Was Surprised About How Easily Wolverine Died In Logan
Deadpool & Wolverinecommences with a typically hyper-violent fight sequence in whichWade kills several TVA agents with the exhumed adamantium skeleton of Logan.This is followed by a flashback detailing how he got here, in which it is revealed thatDeadpool and Logan’s shared timelinehas started to decay after Logan’s death, as he is that universe’s anchor being. Deadpool is rightfully incredulous at the notion that Wolverine, whose healing factor allowed him to survive an atomic blast, could up and die out of nowhere.
Deadpool’s retrieval of Logan’s corpse adds further confusion to the X-Men franchise timeline, as Logan died in 2029 whereasDeadpool & Wolverinetakes place in 2024.
As Deadpool begins digging up Wolverine’s corpse,Wade notes how Paradox seems to be “forgetting” the fact that Wolverine has this healing factor. Nevertheless, Deadpool is shocked to find that Wolverine has died and left nothing but his skeleton behind, making sure to state how it doesn’t make sense. Setting aside the baffling fact that Logan’s death would have always been a part of the timeline, his subpar healing factor is also highlighted by the presence of the variant Wolverine star ofDeadpool & Wolverine.
Deadpool & Wolverine Further Makes Logan’s Death Completely Baffling
After discovering that Logan is dead and gone,Deadpool sets out to replace him with a Wolverine variant from another timeline.This eventually brings him to a variant whose team of X-Men were murdered by humans, turning him to drink. This Wolverine evidently does not take care of himself, and yet can heal from being atomized and also reveals that he is over 200 years old. This makes him older thanLogan’s Logan, whose deteriorating healing factor was ostensibly due to age (and who looked much older besides).
This worsens the baffling circumstances of Logan’s death, givenWolverine variants are far less prone to growing old and dying. Comic book precedents also depict Logan as surviving hundreds of years into the future, such as in the “Old Man Logan” run of Marvel Comics, whereas Logan succumbs to age in 2029. While I won’t go so far as to say that this ruinsLogan– it actually raises the stakes for the film – at leastDeadpool & Wolverinehave validated this gripe.
Deadpool & Wolverine
Cast
A follow-up to the highly successful Deadpool and Deadpool 2 films starring Ryan Reynolds as the Merc with a Mouth. The third film will be the first in the franchise to be developed under the Marvel Studios banner following Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox.
