Deadpool And Wolverine is the next entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s long and increasingly complicated saga. And things are getting even more complicated, thanks to some business deals that have gone down in our universe. 

Let’s try to explain. Disney owns Marvel Studios, which owned many – but not all – of the characters from Marvel Comics. That’s because before Marvel Studios was established, Marvel Comics licensed different characters to different companies. Disney/Marvel had the bulk of the characters: Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Vision, Black Panther, Dr. Strange, and the Guardians of the Galaxy. Sony, however, had the rights to the Hulk and Spider-Man (and a few lawyers probably got nice bonuses and raises for negotiating deals between the companies to get those characters into the MCU). 

20th Century Fox, however, owned two of Marvel’s most cherished properties: the Fantastic Four and the X-Men (Wolverine and Deadpool are both part of the X-Men line of characters). Even if the Fantastic Four and the X-Men teamed up with Avengers in the comic books (or in cartoons), that wasn’t going to happen on the big screen. However, in 2019, Disney acquired Fox, leading to all sorts of possibilities. (The first Fantastic Four film in the MCU is due in theaters in the summer of 2025.

It wasn’t until May of 2022’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness that we saw some of the results of this business deal. In that film, Patrick Stewart reprised his role as X-Men founder Professor Charles Xavier after saying goodbye to the character in 2017’s Logan. We also saw John Krasinski playing the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards (aka Mr. Fantastic) in a bit of fan service (online fans had long lobbied for Krasinski and wife Emily Blunt to play the FF couple Reed and Sue Richards in the film). Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby are playing those characters in the upcoming Fantastic Four movie. 

In June of 2022, Marvel introduced the Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel character in the Disney+ series Ms. Marvel; towards the end of the series, we learned that she was a mutant. This revelation got a lot of attention, as the X-Men are all mutants (and the term “mutant” is the intellectual property of whoever owns the X-Men; Marvel would not have been able to make her a mutant if they hadn’t acquired Fox). And in the post-credit scenes in 2023’s The Marvels, we saw Monica Rambeau’s character transported to another universe, where she met a variant of her mother (who died in her universe), but also Dr. Hank McCoy, aka Beast of the X-Men (played by Kelsey Grammer, reprising the role from 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand and 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past). 

Deadpool & Wolverine is the first film centered on X-Men that takes place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This may be exciting to many, but it also may be confusing. To help you out, here’s a list of films and shows that you might want to check out before heading back to theaters.  And we’re also noting some of the flicks that you should skip; the quality of the X-films varies wildly. (Note: There will also be other cameos from the different Marvel films, but you probably don’t need to know too much about them to follow the story.)  

• X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009): SKIP

  The X-Men franchise, which started in 2000, was so successful that there were plans to do origin movies of the most popular characters. It didn’t work out, maybe because this film was a bit weak. In some ways, Wolverine works best without an origin story. Like Anton Chigurh in the non-Marvel film No Country For Old Men, it may have been cooler to leave his origin a mystery. This film isn’t great, and it probably isn’t canon. But it is the beginning of Ryan Reynolds’ journey as Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool. But this is a very different Wade than we saw in the Deadpool films. Frankly, Reynolds’ role was kind of forgettable, but it wasn’t to him: he later lobbied to be able to make a “real” Deadpool movie, and Fox and Marvel should thank him for his tenacity. And as great as Hugh Jackman was as Logan/Wolverine, it took producers a while to figure out how to make a movie about him without the other X-Men. So even though the story begins here, we’re recommending that you skip this one.

• X-Men (2000): WATCH

  The release of the first X-Men film was a major moment for Marvel Comics fans. This was two years before the first Spider-Man film, and eight years before the real launch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with 2008’s Iron Man. (To be fair, Marvel’s Blade predated X-Men by two years, but Blade wasn’t as well known of a character and was more of an anti-hero than a superhero). But it was exciting to see that this was a film being taken somewhat seriously. There were respected actors and movie stars involved: Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier, Ian McKellan as Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto, Halle Berry as Ororo Munroe/Storm. It also made Hugh Jackman (Logan/Wolverine) into a star, and considerably raised the profiles of James Marsden (Scott Summers/Cyclops) and Anna Paquin (Rogue). The special effects may look a bit dated now. But at the time, they felt cutting edge and cool. And while the movie was fun, it also had the gravity that the X-Men had in comic books: their story has always been one about combatting racism and intolerance. In the film, McKellan’s Lehnsherr (as a 14 year old boy) is separated from his family as they are entering the Auschwitz concentration camp, so it does get dark. This isn’t a kitchy take on a comic book. 

• X2 (2003): WATCH

  This one might even be better than the first; it adds some favorite X-Men characters including Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) and Peter Rasputin/Colossus (Daniel Cudmore, who was replaced by Stefan Kapicic in the Deadpool films). McKellan’s Magneto was again the X-Men’s nemesis in the film, which also serves as a metaphor for prejudice and intolerance.

• X-Men: The Last Stand (2006): SKIP

  There were some good elements here: the introduction of Kitty Pryde (played by Ellen Page) and Hank McCoy/The Beast (Kelsey Grammer). It combines more of the humanity vs. Magneto’s mutants vs. Professor Xavier’s mutants conflict. It adds the classic Jean Grey/Dark Phoenix (played by Fanke Janssen) storyline. Spoiler alert: Cyclops, Jean and Professor X die, but the movie is so weak that you kind of don’t care. This movie should have served as a warning to both Marvel and DC: just because a franchise starts out great, doesn’t mean that it will stay that way. You need a long term plan to map out storylines that can play out over years.

• The Wolverine (2013): SKIP

  Tormented by the death of Jean Grey in The Last Stand, Logan has also lost his healing powers. He travels to Japan, where he meets an old acquaintance and he battles samurai. Based on a 1982 solo Wolverine series written by comic book legend Frank Miller (Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City) the film went through changes of directors and writers and it just doesn’t work.

• X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) WATCH

  In 2011, there was an X-Men prequel of sorts, X-Men: First Class, where we met young versions of Charles Xavier (played by James McAvoy) and Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbander) in the early 1960s. Hugh Jackman actually makes a cameo as Logan in the film. But in Days of Future Past, a future Xavier (played by Stewart; he is still alive even though he seemed to die in The Last Stand, there have been a few explanations for this, which aren’t really important, just deal with it) and Magneto (McKellan) send Logan back to the 1970s to meet their earlier selves, played by McAvoy and and Fassbender. It can be a bit confusing but it’s a good story, and it’s good preparation for the multiple timelines and universes that the Marvel Cinematic Universe expects you to be able to digest. It’s fun if you don’t think about it too much.

  This was the last team film that was worth watching, we won’t even waste your time discussing 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse, 2019’s Dark Phoenix and 2020’s The New Mutants.

• Deadpool (2016) DEFINITELY WATCH

  Before getting into this movie, we should say that we want to see a doc on how Ryan Reynolds got the film made. Reynolds got obsessed with the comic book character Deadpool – one of the few comic book characters that frequently breaks the fourth wall and talks to the audience (She-Hulk did it first in the comic books, by the way). Reynolds and his co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick wrote a script in 2009, which got turned down by Fox. But a few years later, after a test reel that Reynolds shot as Deadpool “leaked” online, there was a huge social media push from fans to get the movie made. It was greenlit in 2014.

  As for the film itself, it was a breath of fresh air to the superhero genre, with a great (albeit R-rated) sense of humor. It had a lot of self-awareness about the genre and how confusing the superhero movies could be. It even made fun of Reynolds’ role as the DC character Green Lantern ( one of the worst superhero movies ever). But it was a raunchy, violent, fun and funny film.

• Logan (2017) - DEFINITELY WATCH

  Adapted from the “Old Man Logan” comics, which takes place in an alternate universe. The film probably does as well; we’re not sure. It doesn’t matter, though, because it’s a great story. It’s a future where no mutants have been born in 25 years, and Logan is getting older and is losing his healing ability. An elder Xavier is losing control of his powers; a seizure killed most of the remaining X-Men. Like Deadpool, Logan had an R-rating but it’s a very different film; it’s not self-aware and it’s not funny. It’s dark and desolate and in some ways, feels more “real” than most superhero films. It is a hard look at mortality. It’s also worth mentioning that it stands alone more effectively than the other X-films. Anything that you need to know is pretty much explained in the movie, it doesn’t require a lot of prior knowledge.

  And it served as a great final goodbye to Hugh Jackman’s Logan and Patrick Stewart’s Xavier. Indeed, it was such a good sendoff that Stewart agreed to return to his other iconic role, Star Trek’s Jean-Luc Picard, after doing this film, seeing the value of giving these characters great final stories.

  Of course, money talks: as mentioned, Stewart reprised his Xavier role in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, and Jackman was convinced to return as Logan. Stewart’s return was likely a one-off, but there’s a good chance that Jackman’s Logan may be a major player in the future of the MCU.

• Deadpool 2 (2018) - DEFINITELY WATCH

  We actually shared the trailer for Once Upon A Deadpool – the PG-13 version of the film, in which the only “F-word” is “Fred Savage.” It’s a funny version of the film: but really, if you’re of age, watch the uncensored version. There are genuinely moving moments in it, in addition to the usual gore and hilarity. And it also primes you for confusing time travel and alternate timeline stuff. In the film, Josh Brolin plays Cable, a time-traveling character (who in the comics, is the son of Scott Summers). Deadpool, still breaking the fourth wall, refers to Cable as “Thanos” at one point, a reference to the fact that Brolin played the “big bad” in the MCU films. In one of the post-credit scenes, younger X-Men Negasonic and Yukio fix Cable’s time traveling device and give it to Deadpool, who begins to right some wrongs. This was before Disney’s acquisition of Fox, but it works out nicely. Deadpool now has a tool to help him travel to alternate universes, which plays right into Marvel’s current multiverse storyline.

• Loki season 1 (2021) - SHOULD WATCH

  From the Deadpool & Wolverine trailers, we can see that some elements that were introduced in the first season of Loki will factor into this film, notably the TVA (the Time Variance Authority). OK, it gets very complicated, and parts of Loki might be hard to understand if you haven’t seen a bunch of Avengers and Thor movies. But Loki messed with the timeline in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame and we see the consequences of this in Loki season one when the TVA tracks him down and arrests him.

  Some of the Deadpool & Wolverine trailers look like they take place at the Void at the end of time, which we first saw in Loki. Some trailers appear to show the cloud-like creature Alioth, which destroys everything in the Void, and which also appeared in season one. This stuff will probably be explained – they know that not everyone has seen the Loki series. But it’s one of Marvel’s best TV shows and is worth your time.

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