The first trailer for Deadpool 3—now titled Deadpool & Wolverine—dropped during last Sunday’s Super Bowl, and Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is making some lofty promises! Specifically, he’s announced that he’s Marvel Jesus!
The trailer shows Wade being picked up by the Time Variance Authority, where Agent Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen) offers him the chance to be a “hero among heroes.” After watching some footage of the Avengers doing their thing in another reality, Wade accepts. “Your little cinematic universe is about to change forever,” he says. “I am the messiah. I am … Marvel Jesus.”
Considering the rut Marvel is in right now, I really hope he’s not pulling our chains. (Or … jerking us around? Damn it, everything turns into a sex joke when I write about Deadpool.)
The MCU desperately needs a savior right now
Many of Marvel’s Phase 4 and 5 projects have been pretty underwhelming. Take Doctor Strange 2, for instance. The hype for that movie promised us a mind-bending romp through a chaotic multiverse. The trailer and an early clip showed Strange and America Chavez hurtling through realities filled with dinosaurs, animation, futuristic cities, and paint people. In the end, though, we got pizza balls and a bunch of cameos that were immediately killed off.
Other outings haven’t fared much better. The Marvels is a cluttered mess, and Quantumania was panned. Some projects, like Echo and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, are great in their own right, but don’t add any momentum to Marvel’s Multiverse Saga.
Overall, some of Marvel’s trailers have begun to feel like false advertising. Misdirection in trailers isn’t a new thing, and of course a trailer is going to hype up a film’s most exciting parts, but in recent years, it’s begun to feel like Marvel’s habit of splicing together dialogue, taking scenes wildly out of context, and implying storylines that aren’t actually in the movie has gotten out of control.
The Deadpool trailer seems to indicate that, after getting picked up by the TVA and landing in the Void (you can even see Alioth at 1:44!), Deadpool will break Marvel’s multiverse. There’s Wolverine’s alter ego, and the Secret Wars comic lying on the ground at the end. There are the rumors that Wade’s mission will be recruiting heroes from different realities. One shot at 1:18 even seems to show Wade sitting in Hulk’s bed from Thor: Ragnarok.
The messiah line could just be Wade nodding at the fact that, yeah, Marvel hasn’t been doing great lately, but it’s hard not to think about the Multiverse Saga when you hear it. Will we finally start seeing some real multiverse action? Cross-reality team-ups? Incursions? Loki pulling the strings from Yggdrasil? Will Secret Wars start feeling like a real thing that’s actually barreling down at the Avengers, instead of something that’s only ever hinted at in post-credits scenes?
Or, barring all that, could Deadpool & Wolverine at least just be a really good movie?
Please let Deadpool be Marvel Jesus. Don’t break my heart again.
(featured image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
