Since his involvement was announced, there’s been a fair amount of secrecy surrounding and speculation regarding who, exactly, Julian Dennison, star of Hunt for the Wilderpeople, will be playing in the upcoming Deadpool 2.
Fan theories have the young New Zealander portraying a variation of Hope Summers, Kid Apocalypse or Firefist, on account of his pyrokinetic abilities. Now, however, thanks to a brand new trailer denoting that advance tickets for the pic will go on sale this Thursday, there’s been a significant break in the case.
At one moment in the teaser, Wade Wilson, the titular foul-mouthed mercenary portrayed by Ryan Reynolds, refers to Dennison’s character as Russell. Now, assuming that the film will take characters directly from the comic books, which they’ve been doing for a majority of the roles thus far, the Russell in question is…drumroll please, Firefist, AKA Russell Collins.
For those unfamiliar with him, Bob Layton and Jackson Guice created the fire-generating mutant who first appeared in 1986’s X-Factor #1 under the name Russell “Rusty” Jones. Since his inception, Firefist has jumped between several supergroups, including the New Mutants, the Mutant Liberation Front, and Acolytes, until his death in the 1995 comic, X-Men #42.
Unfortunately, we won’t know if Dennison is indeed portraying Firefist in Deadpool 2 until the film hits theaters, which is roughly a month away, as it’s currently slated for a May 18th release. Unless, of course, Marvel confirms the identity beforehand, but that’s highly unlikely given the comic book juggernaut’s secretive nature. Either way, this is certainly interesting to ponder and you can, as always, give us your own thoughts in the comments section down below.
