When the Marvel Cinematic Universe – along with a whole slew of other cinematic projects both in and outside of Disney – was slammed with unprecedented delays earlier this year, just one film emerged from the reshuffled woodwork with an earlier release date than before. Fittingly enough, that was Deadpool 3.
Indeed, there’s nothing quite as poetic as one of Marvel’s most obnoxiously cheeky heroes drawing the long straw while its fellow Multiverse Saga projects fell further into the future; you can almost hear the sarcastic taunts erupting from Deadpool’s throat in the distant folds of the multiverse.
Of course, if only one movie could have gotten moved up, we’re glad it’s this one; Deadpool 3 is set to give us not only one of the most highly-anticipated casts – including Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, Jennifer Garner’s Elektra, and countless characters from Fox’s Deadpool duology – out there, but also looks to be the lynchpin in roping the many Fox universes of Marvel titles into the MCU fold, uniting the multiverse under the ever-elusive fist of Kevin Feige.
But according to one tinfoil hat owner on r/FanTheories, Deadpool 3 won’t stop at just linking up the live-action universes.
One user rather boldly suggested that the Wolverine we’ve seen from all those set photos could be the Wolverine set to appear in X-Men ’97, the incoming Disney Plus animated series last scheduled to be released in late 2023, and which came under quite a bit of fire back in May after actor Gui Agustini’s voice casting as Roberto Da Costa (aka Sunspot), drew accusations of whitewashing.
It’s a long shot no matter how you swing it; as the show is a continuation of X-Men: The Animated Series with another season in development, it would be a hard sell to connect it to the MCU in a way that feels either meaningful or worthwhile, although showrunner Beau DeMayo’s comments in the past suggest that some sort of relationship exists between the two canons.
As for what that relationship is, we’ll just have to wait for X-Men ’97 finds its way onto Disney Plus – in what will hopefully be the not-so-distant future – to find out.