Deadpool, one of Marvel’s zaniest anti-heroes, has made more box office money than any other R-rated hero ever before – but is he welcome in the MCU?
Although he does not directly tie into either the X-Men franchise or DC Extended Universe, he remains a beloved part of Marvel comics culture and fan favorite.
What is Deadpool?
Deadpool, a comic book character best known as an indefatigable mercenary by trade, has won over fans since his first appearance in the 1990s. A fourth wall-breaking parody on established superheroes with his trademark humor and discordant hip-hop beats, Deadpool has amassed an immense following since his introduction.
Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), an unemployed youngster, receives superhuman abilities through an experiment. At first, his powers are restricted to healing powers similar to Wolverine.
Unsatisfied with his new life, Deadpool decides to seek revenge against Ajax – an unsettling scientist who gave him his powers so they can perform cruel experiments on those with superhuman strength and endurance.
After Ajax’s experiments disfigure Wade, he turns into Deadpool as an act of revenge while hoping to impress Vanessa Carlyle who had once been his lover and teammate in the X-Men.
However, after his girlfriend is abducted by Ajax – who wanted a cure for his skin disfigurement – he must join the X-Men in order to save her and become one of their number. Along his journey he also takes down other bad guys while becoming more of an upstanding citizen himself.
Deadpool’s powers increase throughout the movie and his healing factor increases until he’s basically immortal; at one point he even managed to regrow his head after it had been decapitated!
Deadpool begins as an antihero but eventually grows into his rightful role as hero, even among his own X-Men colleagues. His signature humor makes him popular.
He’s made multiple appearances alongside Wolverine, including being given his healing factor injections. Furthermore, writer Daniel Way created him as a hallucinating multiple personality schizophrenic who can morph into different identities.
He has also appeared as an antagonist in other Marvel universes, such as Magneto’s antagonist in AXIS storyline or as part of Pale Riders in Age Of Apocalypse; even appearing as a boss character in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions!
What is Marvel?
Marvel Comics, established in 1939 and known worldwide for their comics since, remains one of the largest and most successful publishers today.
Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, Wolverine, the X-Men and Deadpool are among their most renowned characters that are widely recognized both on-screen and in comic form.
Marvel may not be as well known for their comics as DC, but their movies remain some of the most successful and iconic in history. Their superheroes have become blockbuster stars on the big screen while their villains have earned some of the most memorable roles ever seen onscreen.
Marvel experienced production problems in the 1970s and was often behind on its deadlines, yet in 1978 when Jim Shooter took over as editor-in-chief, these issues began to be addressed, leading them back towards producing quality comics again. This marked a crucial turning point in their industry.
The company began working more directly with comic creators rather than simply licensing stories, which became an important change that helped establish and give more depth to its publications. Over time, new writers took up Marvel characters in new ways never seen before – helping build upon and expand upon existing characters while adding their own twists to old favorites such as Captain America or Wolverine.
Matt Fraction, David Aja and Dan Slott were among those who helped develop an approachable yet mature style of writing for Marvel characters that more closely aligned with what was occurring within comics at that time.
Brian Michael Bendis joined Marvel as another writer, providing more mature and thoughtful depictions of characters such as Daredevil and The Avengers.
He introduced more diverse characters, like the X-Men. Now living on Krakoa – an island home to mutants – this story differs greatly from the original comic series featuring five white teens at a Westchester County high school.
What is DC?
DC Comics is a renowned comic book publisher that is best known for their wide variety of series featuring popular comic book heroes such as Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman.
Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson founded the company in 1934 to meet a growing pulp comic market, without setting out with lofty goals other than making money off it.
In 1935, DC Comics founder Jerry Siegel started publishing its inaugural comics magazine under National Allied Publications; after some time however, he changed it to DC Comics.
This change was intended to reflect the company’s new identity and help differentiate itself from Marvel, their main competitor.
However, this company continued to publish superhero stories that were popular during the 1940s and 1950s, in addition to numerous non-superhero titles.
DC successfully introduced several line-wide relaunches during this time, such as DC Universe Rebirth and Infinite Frontier, that helped drive both publicity and sales.
Both books featured several new characters such as Firestorm and Shade the Changing Man. Their stories were designed to compete with Marvel in the industry.
They were highly successful and inspired many other companies – Marvel included. Furthermore, they started reintroducing their lines annually in order to drive sales growth.
One of the most successful relaunches was Batgirl. A critically successful series, it introduced female superheroes to mainstream audiences for the first time ever.
DC Comics was also pleased with its success with this title; it became an essential source of inspiration for Marvel Studios’ cinematic universe and marked the first comic book featuring an active female superhero complete with full costume.
These relaunches were not without challenges, but ultimately proved DC could successfully launch new titles. Furthermore, it allowed DC to experiment with storytelling techniques and refocus their efforts on their core fans by giving new stories a try with editors allowing their editors to experiment on them and find what worked and didn’t. They didn’t always succeed, but it gave them the chance to learn from their errors and enhance their creative process.
What is Deadpool’s connection to the MCU?
As soon as Disney acquired 20th Century Fox in 2019, Marvel fans were excited to see characters like X-Men, Fantastic Four and Deadpool back on screen – though many still had concerns regarding his place within Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
Since his debut, Deadpool has become an essential member of Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige has made it clear that Deadpool will remain part of future films in this franchise; recently even outlining his plan for Deadpool 3!
One of the hallmarks of Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is that it showcases characters from multiple franchises, making the MCU unique among comic book series. This is particularly evident with regards to X-Men and Deadpool characters.
Reynolds stars as Wade Wilson, a mercenary who travels back in time to aid the original X-Men team against Ajax, an alien symbiote with special powers who attempts to cure Wilson of cancer by torturing him, which triggers mutant genes and results in disfigurement. At the same time, this version of Deadpool becomes the villainous one; his vendetta against Ajax drives this storyline forward.
Cable, the mutant introduced in X-Men Origins: Wolverine who battled alongside Deadpool is another character rumoured to make an appearance in the MCU and fans are excited to see if and how this affects its overall storyline.
Though we have heard from various sources that Cable will eventually appear in the MCU, he won’t be an integral part of it like Wolverine is. Instead, Cable only plays limited roles in Avengers: Endgame and Thor: Ragnarok.
Deadpool may have some direct ties to the Marvel Cinematic Universe that would make him suitable for inclusion, as he’s been seen traveling through time in Endgame – however this goes against its rules!