Ryan Reynolds Gets Pegged by the MCU in Deadpool & Wolverine

The Marvel Cinematic Universe, in its latter-day phases (we are currently midway through the fifth), sometimes seems less like an entertainment franchise and more like a sociological experiment conducted by Harvard University to see how many times a fictional world can fold in on itself, like a multibillion-dollar cootie-catcher. By extension, Deadpool catches mad MCU cooties in the hyper-self-referential new teaser trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine as he gets recruited textually and metatextually into Disney’s superhero empire. As enforcers from Loki’s Time Variance Authority bust Wade Wilson’s (Ryan Reynolds) birthday shindig, he looks at their time sticks and says, “Pegging isn’t new to me, friendo. But it is for Disney,” in a classic fourth-wall break. This is a Deadpool movie first and an MCU movie, um, also first, and those two simultaneous and clashing truths are going to lead to some scintillating, peglike friction.

Deadpool’s propensity for reality-hopping metahumor perfectly suits the situation he finds himself in here, as TVA agent Paradox (Matthew MacFadyen) plays footage of past Marvel films, including The Avengers, to catch Deadpool up to speed. “Your little cinematic universe is about to change forever,” he says. “I am the Messiah. I am … Marvel Jesus.” Following the box-office underperformance of The Marvels and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the mixed dividends of their Disney+ original series, and the whole Kang conundrum, Deadpool might just be as good a Lord and Savior as any.

The previous two Deadpool films came out under 20th Century Fox prior to Disney fully acquiring the studio in 2019, so they existed alongside the mainline X-Men films as Marvel adaptations in a separate Marvel-based cinematic universe. There, the character was allowed to be his foulmouthed, irreverent self and to commit hard-R violence, giving the movies a shaggier, edgier tone than the films of the MCU machine. Deadpool & Wolverine will be Disney’s and MCU’s first R-rated film, as Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine (who went full R-level, realistic violence in 2017’s Logan) is also ported over to the new CU. He’s only teased in this teaser; we see the back of his head in a boardroom and his distinctive shadow looming over Deadpool as he lies prone in the desert. We don’t know much about what their team-up will look like, but I pray to Marvel Jesus that a musical number will be involved. Deadpool & Wolverine comes out on July 26.