Yes, an alien crystal boosted the healing factor. That's how Wolvie grew back in a matter of seconds, with all his memories still intact. I can't fathom how the adamantium got back, though!

Ah, the joys of comic-book science! It's an ever-stimulating exercise!

But why would the Logan from 2023 be returned to 2017?

That was my feeling as well, that the things that went wrong  came to a head "now" which resulted in that bleak future, so when Wolverine helped to mend that wrong he went back to flashpoint. It isn't incredibly logical but it fits with the time we saw him go back to, that looked like it could have taken place right after an X2 that didn't end with Jean's death rather than years in the future.  

It's a toss-up. With the X-Men we can blame inconsistencies on alternate realities, and with Conan on inaccurate chroniclers. Those Nemedians were drunk half the time, don't you know! 

Deadpool (2016)



Directed by Tim Miller
Produced by Simon Kinberg, Ryan Reynolds, and Lauren Shuler Donner
Written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick
Budget: $58 million
Box office: $783.1 million

It's an interesting contrast that, in an age in which comic book characters are grossing more money than ever at the box offices, the majority of kids aren't actually reading comics. As a high school teacher, I regularly see female students wearing classic heroes on their shirts and bags for the geeky cool look, and I'll occasionally see a male student wearing an Avengers or Batman shirt, but, generally speaking, there isn't that much of an interest


...with the exception of Deadpool.


Long before any announcement was ever made about this film or before any test footage had been leaked, Deadpool was on more teen shirts than Tap-Out, and virtually any student who ever tried to connect with me over my love of comics inevitably went to Deadpool first.

Me? I stopped caring about modern Big Two comics back when Deadpool was still an empty shell of a Spidey rip-off costume in the pages of X-Force, so I had no idea what was going on with the character and (once the film was announced) no interest in seeing him on the screen.

Then I heard the soundtrack. Angel of the Morning? Wham!? I was already laughing. So I reluctantly went to see the film, and I definitely wasn't disappointed.


It's an odd film and definitely an unexpected success. Stuck in production hell for over a decade, bounced between companies, and finally only made on a shoe-string $58 million budget because there was overwhelming response to leaked test footage, this is a film that beat the odds in even getting made, and yet it proved to be Fox's most profitable Marvel film ever and (I suspect) will have long lasting ramifications for the industry as a whole.

The approach this film takes is what makes it special. It isn't trying to fit the mold. Fox has always struggled with how to do superheroes, often playing it too conservatively real-life, sometimes going too far in the opposite direction, and generally seeming fearful of the genre. Deadpool, in contrast, doesn't even try. It marches to its own tune much like the character, and finds success in offering what the Marvel films won't, instead of attempting to replicate what they do. I firmly believe it's why Logan (also an R rated film) got made and was given the leeway it was given. Whether or not the X-Men film franchise ever finds firm ground again, I've no doubt Fox will continue to find success with these offbeat un-Marvel comic films.


As for how this ties into the X-Men franchise, there's a definite temptation to say it doesn't. Simon Kinberg and Lauren Shuler Donner aside (and, from all accounts I read, they were neither particularly involved in this film nor betting on its success), no one involved in the making of Deadpool was involved in the making of any of the X-films. It feels very much like its own entity.

And yet we're given Colossus and Negatonic Teenage Warhead (WHO??? I'd never heard of this character before), shown the X-mansion twice (although it actually looked like two different X-mansions???) and repeatedly hear Colossus inviting Deadpool to join the X-Men. It's forced, it's shameless, and it will be out of continuity in no time, but that does firmly establish Deadpool as being within the X-Men Universe, though as Mr. Pool says while being dragged away by Colossus in the beginning:

"McAvoy or Stewart? These timelines get so confusing."

That's definitely the weirdest part about having a film that shows the X-Mansion but never shows any X-Men. While Deadpool quips that it's because they couldn't afford to hire any, the larger question in my head while watching this film was "Who the hell lives in that mansion?" After all, we have the old X-Men film continuity at least partially wiped away at this point, and the new X-Men continuity still stuck in the 1970s. We had (and have) no idea what the present day X-men of the revised timeline actually looks like. That made this tie-in exceptionally awkward from my standpoint.


In terms of the story itself, it's laugh-out-loud brilliant and also packs more heart and substance than any Marvel film (with the possible exception of Guardians of the Galaxy), and yet it has its share of problems. After the first scene is over (which, to be fair, takes nearly half of the film as we jump back and forth between flashbacks and fourth wall breaks), I'm not all that invested in the plot. Francis makes for an extremely generic villain, and nothing about the minor obstacles Deadpool faces in pursuing him are all that interesting. The climactic battle (once AGAIN sacrificing everything else to give attention to a unique setting -- is it Shuler Donner inflicting this upon all of these films?) holds no particular excitement beyond our wondering how Deadpool will explain all of this to his girlfriend.

And his girlfriend -- the emotional core of this film -- actually really annoys me. It's the worst kind of playing to fanboys. Here's this super hot stripper everyone wants who will go home to only you and love you no matter what happens to your health or your appearance, having no other particular interests, relationships, nor convictions in her life, your entire relationship made up of wild sex and her keeping up with your pop culture references. Geez. If that's what love is, we're all screwed.

And please...I just have to put it out there -- how does throwing her from the top of the aircraft carrier somehow get her to the ground more safely than falling off of the aircraft carrier on her own? I need a little help with this climactic moment in the film.

...and, like, couldn't he have just gone to a plastic surgeon instead of pinning all his hopes on Francis? Or gotten help via some crazy far out X-Men technology?


So it had flaws, but it was charming, it was different, it had heart, and it opened up a whole new path forward for Fox.



Continuity Issues:

Well this clearly isn't the same Deadpool from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, even going so far as to show the Deadpool action figure from that film while he monologues about worst wrong turns in your life. Besides, that Deadpool was at least two decades older than this one, fighting on Team X in the 1970s. Still, much as I hated what they did with the character in the second half of XO:W, I enjoyed Wade Wilson's wise cracks there nearly as much as I did here.


Adaptation Issues:

I have never read a comic starring a post-Liefeld Deadpool, and I know even less about Negasonic Teenage Warhead.




Grade: A-

The opening credits were definitely the film's finest moment, and it sustained that level of awesomeness for at least the first half. Then they tried to introduce a plot, and that worked, but not as well.