In September 2022, Ryan Reynolds posted a tweet that sent the Marvel fandom, and quite honestly the internet at large, into what was perhaps its biggest fit since the year-long gap between Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame. He nonchalantly revealed the unthinkable – he’d convinced Hugh Jackman to reprise his role as Wolverine for Deadpool 3.
For every round of raucous applause surrounding the announcement, however, there was also a raised eyebrow. While just about everything on the internet ages like milk nowadays, phenomenal superhero movies like 2017’s Logan are not so easily forgotten. It was Wolverine’s beautiful, emotional, and brutal send-off. It was the end of an era. So, what gives? How could he possibly be back? Let’s dig into what we know.
Is Logan canon in the MCU?
As of writing, it certainly seems that way. We won’t definitively know how Logan ties into Deadpool 3 (or the broader MCU for that matter) until it releases some time in 2024. However, we do have a few breadcrumbs to work with so we can try and understand how all of the dots will be connected. First and foremost, Deadpool 3 director Shawn Levy outright confirmed that Logan is canon to the story of the hotly anticipated threequel (via BroBible).
Secondly, we can cast our minds back to a follow-up post by Reynolds and Jackman that ‘explained’ how Logan’s return was possible. The long and short of it is, Logan takes place in 2029. For now, we can safely presume Deadpool 3 will take place earlier than that. “Logan died in Logan, not touching that,” Reynolds summed up, before the pair dove into “spoiler” territory while hilariously being drowned out by Wham!’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go.”
Now, whether or not this means that Logan will take on a job as a limousine driver at the conclusion of Deadpool 3, leading into Logan’s opening, remains unclear. It’s worth remembering that we’re in the MCU’s multiverse saga – so there’s still a possibility the Logan we see in Deadpool 3 isn’t the same mutant that suffers the tragic fate we know so well in 2029. Patrick Stewart’s Professor Xavier did show up in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (however briefly), after all.
However, Levy’s outright confirmation of Logan’s canonicity may lean us more towards the former possibility. If this is indeed the case, it’ll be interesting to see how Deadpool’s textbook tongue-in-cheekiness will bridge Wolverine’s character arc to the events of Logan, without tainting the beauty of that film.