SPOILER WARNING: This story discusses all kinds of major plot details, including the post-credits scenes, in Marvel Studios’ “Deadpool & Wolverine,” currently playing in theaters. Throughout “Deadpool & Wolverine,” Ryan Reynolds’ titular Merc with a Mouth exposes the Marvel Cinematic Universe to many things it’d never experienced before: rampant blood and gore, incandescent vulgarity, gleeful references to drug use and effusive descriptions of sexual practices between two men. Perhaps most surprising, Deadpool’s self-aware snark is never sharper than when it’s slicing through the MCU.
It may be the best thing that could’ve happened to Marvel at this moment in its history. After Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) welcomes Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to the MCU, he adds that it’s happening at a “low point” for Marvel, a piercing reference to the studio’s misbegotten 2023 . Later, Deadpool groans about the multiverse and how underwhelming it’s been as a narrative engine for the post-“Endgame” MCU.
The film even finds time to fit in a joke about how impossible it’s been for Marvel to bring “Blade” back to movie theaters, courtesy of one of the best surprise cameos in “Deadpool & Wolverine”: In his return to the iconic role, Wesley Snipes declares not only that there’s only ever been one Blade, but there will only ever be one Blade. Part of what has made the MCU so endearing is how often its movies will goof on themselves, from Doctor Strange liste.