We got a brand new trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine today, teasing yet again the foul-mouthed crossover’s intentions to course-correct the MCU by any means necessary. Among the finest tidbits this time around were a Doctor Strange portal, a swath of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos that we didn’t see in the first trailer, and a decaying 20th Century Fox logo buried in an apocalyptic desert. Without question, Deadpool & Wolverine has come to play.
It also, however, made quite a show of putting a deceased Ant-Man front and center, with Scott Lang’s iconic, giant-sized costume — complete with an equally titanic skeleton — seemingly serving as a sort of headquarters for the film’s posse of Fox characters (among them Lady Deathstrike, Toad, and Pyro).
Now, the implications here are pretty out-of-control, seeing as Marvel almost certainly wouldn’t kill off Ant-Man so unceremoniously, and yet here we are, staring at his enormous corpse in all its dusty glory. We’ll save those questions for the end of July, but for now let’s hop on a different train of thought; specifically, have Kevin Feige and company been galaxy-braining their approach to the Multiverse Saga this whole time?
Is Ant-Man’s skull the most unprecedented wink to the audience in Marvel history?
Hear us out; in no way, shape, form, or fashion should anyone be lost on the creative difficulties that the mainline MCU canon has had over the last year and change by now. Since the wet fart of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania back in February 2023, the MCU has been prone to disappointing more than succeeding, with the highs of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, What If…? season two, and Loki season two being pretty severely overshadowed by the likes of The Marvels, Secret Invasion, Echo, and the previously mentioned Quantumania.
Indeed, if Phase Four was only a slight decline, then the beginning of Phase Five has been an especially burdensome one, and more disappointing than Marvel’s failures on that front have been the snail’s pace at which they’ve allegedly been readjusting their priorities. But what if they had their priorities straight all along?
It’s well and truly difficult to imagine that the studio responsible for the Infinity Saga has also been responsible for the creative misfires we’ve seen in Phase Five especially; never measuring up to the old days is easily forgivable, but a nosedive of this magnitude is unthinkable. Is it possible, then, that Marvel Studios has dropped all the balls it has specifically to set up Deadpool & Wolverine—specifically its tomato-shaded protagonist — with the “Marvel Jesus” narrative, at once declaring/marketing Deadpool as the savior to a franchise they knowingly gutted in the first place? Why else would you call back to the protagonist of Phase Five’s foulest offender in this way if not to suggest that Marvel Studios was in on its failings right from the get-go?
Make no mistake; if by some turn of fate this was always the intent (and the journey Agatha has taken proves we shouldn’t rule it out), it was perhaps the single most profoundly stupid approach possible, and Marvel Studios should hang its head in shame for squandering what could have been great movies and shows if they weren’t sacrificed for some needless gimmick.
Still, that’s all in the past now, and if Deadpool & Wolverine proves to be the homerun it hopes to be and gets followed up by a swath of additional victories, I think we’ll all be able to find it in ours hearts to forgive the studio for their nonsense.
Deadpool & Wolverine slices and dices into theaters on July 26.
