‘Deadpool & Wolverine’s most underrated cameo means it has the chance to finally right an 8-year wrong

Well, folks, we’re in the home stretch now; Deadpool & Wolverine will be descending upon theaters in a matter of weeks, meaning we’ll soon know once and for all if the Feigeverse will be injected with the second wind that Wade Wilson and company have all but promised us.

One thing we know for sure is that the film will be the cameofest to end all cameofests. From Deadpool alumni such as Blind Al, Dopinder, and Colossus, to legacy character from the Fox X-Men franchises like Pyro and Sabretooth, all the way to out-of-left-field manifestations like Jennifer Garner’s Elektra (yes, from the Daredevil and Elektra films from the early 2000s), Deadpool & Wolverine will be out of control on the character front. Whether they can match that with good storytelling remains to be seen.

But let’s worry about that when we have to. For now, let’s address the possibilities in play for a character who has yet to reach their full potential in this particular canon despite having been one of, if not the most, prominent character in Deadpool’s story.

Could Deadpool & Wolverine finally see Vanessa become Copycat?

Morena Baccarin is set to reprise her role in Deadpool & Wolverine as Vanessa Carlysle, who film fans know as Wade Wilson’s former bride-to-be, but who comic fans know as Copycat, a mutant with the ability to shapeshift into any living being down to the cellular level (and also Deadpool’s ex-wife).

Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who penned Deadpool, Deadpool 2, and now Deadpool & Wolverine, elected to make Vanessa a regular human for the films, but stated in a 2016 interview with CinemaBlend that they weren’t against exploring the possibility of her becoming a mutant in a future sequel. Deadpool & Wolverine, of course, absolutely counts as such a sequel.

Moreover, we know from Baccarin herself that Vanessa’s relationship with Wade in this film is going to be much different than what we expect, and it doesn’t sound like that reinvention is going to be a small detail in the film, either. Could it be that Vanessa ends up stepping into the combat zone as Copycat, if not in Deadpool & Wolverine, then in a future film, perhaps as part of a new X-Force team?

In any case, even if Copycat is on the table for Vanessa, it’s admittedly hard to imagine that development fitting into the upcoming film in a big way. In the comics, Copycat tends to cause more headaches for Deadpool than cure, and while the MCU could very easily pivot the character away from that antagonization and instead just line her up with Deadpool as an ally from the get-go, that feels a bit too cut and dry with respect to Baccarin’s tease. We’re thinking a post-credits scene—and perhaps an X-Force movie or television series—might be the ticket to more Copycat in the MCU, assuming that’s the direction this character is heading in at all.

Deadpool & Wolverine slices and dices into theaters on July 26.