Upon being introduced to the franchise, Deadpool & Wolverine unsurprisingly levels a few jokes at the MCU’s expense and kicks the franchise while it’s down. Despite being Marvel-owned characters, the movie distribution rights to Deadpool, Wolverine, and all of Marvel’s mutant characters were owned by 20th Century Fox until 2019, when Marvel parent company Disney acquired Fox. This allowed the MCU to finally use the term “mutant,” whereas beforehand traditionally mutant characters like Wanda and Pietro Maximoff were retconned into receiving powers from external sources like the Mind Stone.
Since the X-Men moved back to Marvel ownership, Deadpool’s fourth-wall-breaking comments on the situation were inevitable. As expected, Deadpool & Wolverine is rife with Deadpool’s signature irreverence regarding the MCU and the death of Fox, with Deadpool’s self-ascribed “Marvel Jesus” designation being central to the movie’s overarching narrative. With Marvel Studios itself experiencing a significant bump in an otherwise smooth road so recently, it is no surprise that Deadpool weighed in on the matter and rubbed salt in the wound.
Deadpool & Wolverine Addresses MCU Discourse With Jokes At The Franchise’s Expense
Deadpool joked about Marvel’s recent woes twice during Deadpool & Wolverine. The first came as he brought Hugh Jackman’s yellow-clad Wolverine variant to the TVA, lampooning a popularly cited MCU trope with a “He’s standing right behind me, isn’t he?” joke as Wolverine recovers from his drunken stupor. He follows this by welcoming Wolverine to the MCU, and stating that he is joining at a “low point,” referencing how the Multiverse Saga has been a decidedly mixed bag critically and financially, especially when compared to the Infinity Saga’s Phases 2 and 3.
The second joke came during the movie’s final fight sequence as Deadpool and Wolverine face off against an army of 100 Deadpool variants. Before the brawl, Deadpool comments on the number of variants and lambastes the Multiverse Saga for comprising “miss after miss,” before championing The Wizard of Oz as the first and only movie that got the multiverse concept right. While his assigning of TheWizard of Oz as a multiverse movie is questionable, his observations about the MCU’s multiverse movies are at least somewhat accurate and twist the knife currently embedded in Marvel’s cinematic franchise.
Deadpool & Wolverine Really Is Joining The MCU At Its Lowest Point
As painful as it may be to admit, the MCU truly is at its lowest point, with 2023 housing a particularly prominent string of stumbles. The year was bookended by the MCU’s lowest-rated movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and its biggest box office flop, The Marvels. Secret Invasion, meanwhile, which was released in early summer, remains the MCU’s lowest-rated show, uniting audiences in their dissatisfaction more than any other MCU offering.
| Lowest-Rated MCU Productions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Movie/Show | Rotten Tomatoes Score | Global Box Office |
| Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania | 46% | $464 million |
| Eternals | 47% | $402 million |
| Secret Invasion | 52% | N/A |
| The Marvels | 62% | $200 million |
| Thor: Love and Thunder | 63% | $761 million |
With that in mind, there is no denying the veracity of Deadpool’s “low point” comments. Yet it isn’t as if the MCU hasn’t been here before, with MCU Phase 2 playing host to some of the MCU’s other lowest-rated movies, including Thor: The Dark World, Iron Man 2, and Avengers: Age of Ultron. Given MCU Phase 5 is the halfway point of the Multiverse Saga, as MCU Phase 2 was for the Infinity Saga, a certain measure of franchise fatigue seems par for the course around this time.
Are Deadpool & Wolverine’s Jokes About The MCU Really Fair?
The comments feel particularly unfair when considering MCU Phase 5’s successes. The critical failures of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Secret Invasion risk overshadowing two of the MCU’s most acclaimed releases in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Loki season 2. Moreover, Deadpool’s comments about the multiverse shtick being an overall failure feel a little out of left field, especially considering Loki’s laser focus on the concept and the fact that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was criticized for not leaning into the titular theme enough.
