After the bombshell announcement a few months ago that Hugh Jackman would once again return as Wolverine in Deadpool 3, making an appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, fans have been clamouring for details on what will be the greatest cinematic Canadian superhero team-up of all time. Recently, Jackman gave fans what they wanted, offering brief but illuminating insight into the dynamic between the two popular characters, and just as anyone even vaguely familiar with the characters, or their source material, could have guessed, they can’t stand each other.
Of course, this is hardly the first relationship that has gotten off to a rocky start for Wade Wilson, AKA The Merc with a Mouth, as Deadpool 2 saw him go toe-to-toe with Josh Brolin’s Cable, though they would eventually see past their differences and unite for a final battle with Juggernaut. While Deadpool 3 will, in all likelihood, see Wolverine and Deadpool find a common ground at some point and bring their regenerative, blade-wielding selves together to fight a big-bad, going by what Hugh Jackman has recently said, their disdain for one another is quite palpable.
While Cable did eventually warm to Deadpool by the end of the film, even at their most contentious Wade was more of a major annoyance to Cable than a source of pure hatred, as he had the moral high ground – a rare feat for Deadpool – in trying to save a child who had not yet committed the atrocities of Cable’s future. According to Jackman in a recent interview on The Empire Film Podcast, if he were to categorize Wolverine’s relationship with Deadpool on a scale of one to ten, “we’re zero, we’re opposites, [they] hate each other”, elaborating that Logan “wants to be a million miles away from him or wants to punch him in the head.” As mentioned, the two share some notably similar traits, from being Canadian to their powerful healing factors and penchant for razor-edged weapons, yet the two personalities could not be more different, and this will undoubtedly be the source of dramatic tension and comedy for much of Deadpool 3.
While Jackman’s Logan, and indeed the character of the comics, is a no-nonsense military veteran who is emotionally scarred not just from the many wars in which he has fought over his nearly two hundred years of living (he was born in 1832, according to X-Men Origins: Wolverine), but also the experiments conducted on him by William Striker in the Weapon X program, which gave Logan his adamantium skeleton. Deadpool, meanwhile, though not without his own baggage, is a wise-cracking mercenary-for-hire that hides behind humour and breaking the fourth wall, while showing an almost gleeful penchant for killing. Although Logan is himself a killing machine, he takes no pride in his more animalistic side, which will no doubt add to his utter contempt for Reynolds’ Deadpool.
Though, admittedly, this has hardly shed much light on the overall story or even the villainous lead of Deadpool 3, it is still a welcome development in what is already shaping up to be another solid entry in the Deadpool franchise. It’s the only one to survive Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox, and for good reason, as these movies have become wish-fulfilment vehicles more than anything else, and the box office reflects as much.