The Deadpool And Wolverine Trailer Is More Closely Tied To The MCU Than We Expected

This post contains spoilers for "Loki" season 2.

"Deadpool 3" — or rather, "Deadpool & Wolverine" — dropped its first trailer during Super Bowl LVIII and confirmed that Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) will be journeying deep into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Specifically, on the ground first tread by the Disney+ series "Loki," which wrapped its second season last year. 

When Disney's acquisition of 20th Century Fox went through, the expectation (at least for most folks) was that the old "X-Men" films would be wiped away in a blank slate reboot. However, the MCU has since been pulling from those previously unconnected X-movies; clearly, Marvel Studios would prefer to bank on audience familiarity with Fox's X-Men. Patrick Stewart showed up in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" as Professor X and Kelsey Grammer cameoed as Beast in the post-credit scene of "The Marvels." Whether or not these were the original characters or unique variants is besides the point — what matters is that they were the actors and characters the audience recognized. 

Now, as you might've guessed, "Deadpool & Wolverine" teams up its red spandex-clad antihero with Hugh Jackman's Wolverine and brings them both into the MCU. Deadpool's comedy thrives on fourth wall breaks and "Deadpool 2" introduced time travel, so smoothing the series from one franchise into another is certainly doable. 

And the trailer suggests how this smoothing will be done while confirming what previous set images had teased.

In this trailer, Wade (wearing a wig) is having a birthday party with the supporting cast of his previous films: his girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), the steel-skinned X-Man Colossus (voiced by Stefan Kapičić), Wade's roommate Blind Al (Leslie Uggams), and more. However, the reunion is short-lived because agents from the Time Variance Authority (TVA) come knocking on Wade's door and abduct him.

 The TVA is an interdimensional organization that "prunes" deviations from the Sacred Timeline (aka the sequence of events shown in the MCU films). Hostile variants are thrown into the Void, a wasteland at the end of time, to be devoured by a malevolent storm called Alioth. The TVA was in truth founded by a variant of the villainous Kang (Jonathan Majors) called "He Who Remains," who wanted to prevent his other selves from traveling and warring across the multiverse.

"Loki" followed the titular God of Mischief (Tom Hiddleston) as he was recruited into the TVA. Specifically, this was the Loki from "Avengers: Endgame" who, thanks to some time travel, wound up escaping his arrest at the end of "The Avengers." The series ended with Loki sacrificially becoming the God of Stories, living in a void of solitude while harmoniously weaving together different timelines. Meanwhile, the TVA shifted its mission specifically to combat Kang.

No TVA agents from "Loki" appear in the trailer, not even hologram mascot Miss Minutes (Tara Strong). Instead, Wade meets the previously-unseen Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen), who tells Deadpool that he's "very important" — if this is a post "Loki" TVA, this might be part of their conflict with Kang, and a set-up for his clash with the Avengers. As Majors was dropped from the role due to his legal troubles, the specifics remain unknown (for the public anyway).

Paradox offers Deadpool the chance to be a "hero among heroes" and shows him screens playing scenes from past MCU movies, such as the splash page group shot in the "Avengers: Age of Ultron" cold open and Thor mastering his control of lightning in "Thor: Ragnarok." Deadpool, aware as ever that he's in a movie, declares "Your little cinematic universe is about to change forever" and calls himself "Marvel Jesus" in front of Paradox — who does a double take. Even the TVA can't see the fourth wall like Wade can.

Wade then suits up in a new Deadpool costume (which looks a lot like the old one) and what follows is a montage of him fighting in the Void. A TVA grunt gets scooped up by a mostly-unseen purple-cloud monster, to Deadpool's horror. Could this be Alioth?

You can also spot a shattered 20th Century Fox stone logo in the background during some shots of the trailer, a meta touch about the studio being absorbed into the Disney behemoth. Wolverine (with Jackman finally wearing the comic-accurate yellow and blue suit) only shows up briefly in the trailer, but it looks like he's in the Void too. Some speculation: maybe the Wolverine in this movie has been trapped there, a symbol of his native franchise being culled?

Interestingly, this trailer doesn't explain what the TVA is, thereby trusting the viewer has seen "Loki." The aforementioned "Multiverse of Madness" and "The Marvels" also tied into the Disney+ shows, with mixed results. Can Deadpool handle it better? We'll know soon.

"Deadpool & Wolverine" is scheduled to release in theaters on July 26, 2024.