Who is Azazel in ‘Deadpool 3’?

The latest trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine revealed exciting plot details and surprising cameos, teasing its fourth-wall-breaking extravaganza. Among the characters returning for the third Deadpool movie is Azazel, a teleporting mutant.

Created by Chuck Austen and Sean Phillips, Azazel made his comic book debut in 2003. Despite being a relatively new character, the supervillain became quite popular thanks to his impressive powers, which include teleportation, shapeshifting, and even spellcasting. Until 2023, Azazel was also believed to be the father of Nightcrawler, a prominent member of the X-Men who’s the son of the famous member of the Brotherhood of Mutants, Mystique.

Outside comic books, Azazel was one of the mutants used by Fox to build their X-Men cinematic universe. Now that Disney absorbed Fox, the mutants are jumping into the MCU. It’s a slow process, but the trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine already spoiled Azazel as one of the characters crossing the multiverse barrier that separates big studios and franchises.

Azazel was part of X-Men: First Class

Azazel first appeared in X-Men: First Class, one of the most successful movies in the Fox X-Men franchise. Played by Jason Flemyng, this version of the villain worked for the Hellfire Club, a terrorist organization willing to destroy all humans and assure mutants would rule the planet. In the Fox continuity, the Hellfire Club was even behind the Cuban Missile Crisis, trying to kick off a nuclear war that would wipe out humanity.

Contrary to his comic book counterpart, the film version of Azazel only had teleportation powers. In addition, while in the comic books, Azazel is considered a lover to Mystique, the movie changed their relationship; in X-Men: First Class, it is implied that Azazel is related to her, a fact that writer Simon Kinberg confirmed. So, with the MCU refurbishing Fox’s characters and plotlines, we might see Mystique and Azazel forming a father-daughter relationship further down the line.

At the end of X-Men: First Class, Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) take the Hellfire Club down. Unfortunately, Magneto betrays the X-Men and forges his team, the Brotherhood of Mutants. Azazel is one of the Mutants who swear allegiance to Magneto. That’s the last we’ve seen of Azazel in Fox’s X-Men universe. However, a file on the character emerges in X-Men: Days of Future Past, revealing he has been captured, experimented on, and killed by Dr. Bolivar Trask, a major X-Men villain dedicated to destroying all Mutants.

How is Azazel returning for Deadpool & Wolverine?

Given Azazel’s grim fate in Fox’s X-Men franchise, it’s surprising to learn that the villain will return for Deadpool & Wolverine. The Azazel variant we see in the trailer is that played by Flemyng, indicating the upcoming MCU movie is connected to X-Men: First Class. That is not exactly shocking, as Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool was also part of Fox’s cinematic universe.

While Marvel Studios will keep some surprises for the movie theater, we already know a lot about the plot of Deadpool & Wolverine and how it will tie the Fox franchise with the MCU. For starters, in the trailer, Deadpool fights agents of the TVA, the interdimensional entity responsible for watching over the timeline. Loki introduced the TVA into the MCU, and their presence in Deadpool & Wolverine confirms that Marvel Studios is using different timelines as an excuse to bring all Marvel projects under the same banner.

To give you a concrete example of how things should unfold with Azazel and other mutants, Spider-Man: No Way Home already brought multiple iterations of Peter Parker into the MCU, explaining how the multiverse is the ultimate excuse Disney executives need to profit from nostalgia. Deadpool & Wolverine will reuse this strategy by bringing Hugh Jackman back as the clawed Mutant, a part he literally buried in 2017’s Logan.

As the trailer teases, Deadpool & Wolverine will partly take place in the Void, the end of times where all variants go after being pruned by the TVA. There, the titular heroes will face Emma Corrin’s terrifying Cassandra Nova. The Azazel variant in the trailer seems to be working for Cassandra, together with mutants such as Toad and Lady Deathstrike. So, while we can’t say when this Azazel variant was plucked from the timeline and sent into the Void, he will likely be an antagonist to Deadpool and Wolverine during the multiversal journey.

Deadpool & Wolverine comes to theaters on July 26, 2024.