Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine are officially joining the MCU in Deadpool & Wolverine, but their X-Men continuity and canon status aren’t as straightforward as they seem. Deadpool and Wolverine are the two latest non-MCU characters to enter MCU canon, following Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, Kelsey Grammer’s Beast, Anson Mount’s Black Bolt, Charlie Cox’s Daredevil, and Jon Bernthal’s the Punisher, as well as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Men and their respective villains. Deadpool & Wolverine‘s titular heroes will also bring with them a bunch of characters from the X-Men movies, if not into the MCU’s main timeline, then at least into the Void.

Shawn Levy’s Deadpool & Wolverine will officially connect Fox’s X-Men movie franchise with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the X-Men‘s two most popular heroes will be the ones to headline such a landmark event. But as popular as they are, the Deadpool and Wolverine who star in the MCU’s Deadpool & Wolverine aren’t exactly the same characters fans have seen in every previous X-Men movie. Thanks to Fox’s complicated X-Men movie timeline, some of the events Deadpool and Wolverine experienced in previous films don’t fit within the background of Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds’ heroes.

How Deadpool & Wolverine Connects To The First 2 Deadpool Movies

The X-Men Franchise’s Second Deadpool Variant Has Vague Connections To Other Movies

Within Fox’s franchise, Deadpool’s X-Men movie continuity is much easier to understand than Wolverine’s. Yet, there are a few complicated details that stand out. Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson was first introduced in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, where assassin-for-hire Wade is killed by Victor Creed and his corpse is transformed into a mindless, mute killing machine by William Stryker. Although X-Men Origins: Wolverine‘s post-credits scene teased a rematch between this version of Deadpool and Wolverine, 2016’s Deadpool completely disregarded Deadpool’s first movie appearance and opted for a more comic-accurate adaptation in a different timeline.

Deadpool and Deadpool 2 are set in the X-Men movie universe, but their connections to the rest of the X-Men timeline are left ambiguous. Colossus isn’t the same version of the character seen in the first X-Men trilogy and X-Men: Days of Future Past, and X-Men Apocalypse‘s 1980s X-Men team makes a cameo in Deadpool despite Deadpool‘s modern-day setting. Taking place shortly after Deadpool, Deadpool 2 introduces time travel through Cable, whose time-traveling device is stolen by Wade. In Deadpool 2‘s post-credits scene, Deadpool travels to different points in time, seemingly altering various events in different timelines.

Is Logan Canon To Deadpool & Wolverine?

Deadpool & Wolverine’s Wolverine Variant Is A Brand-New Version Of The Character

Unlike Deadpool, Wolverine’s X-Men movie timeline is complex and often self-contradicting. The X-Men movies featured at least three different Wolverine variants. The Wolverine introduced in the original X-Men trilogy is the same character who travels back in time to the 1970s in X-Men: Days of Future Past. However, various inconsistencies between X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the rest of the franchise suggest that the 2009 prequel’s Wolverine is a different variant altogether. Meanwhile, James Mangold has stated that Logan takes place in its own timeline, and Deadpool & Wolverine‘s trailers have reveal that Hugh Jackman is playing a new version of Wolverine.

Fan theories posit that Deadpool & Wolverine will deal with a Wolverine variant who experienced similar events to Logan‘s older Wolverine, but that in his case, he overcame the adamantium poisoning and continued to work as a mutant hero. While the Deadpool & Wolverine trailers have revealed that Hugh Jackman’s new Wolverine “let down his entire world” similarly to Logan‘s variant, his comic-accurate suit and younger appearance confirm that there’s no connection between them. Wolverine’s powers seem to be waning in Deadpool & Wolverine, but he appears to have had a much different backstory.

How Deadpool & Wolverine Connects To Fox’s X-Men Movies

Deadpool & Wolverine Will Likely Affect The X-Men’s Complicated Timelines

Not only will Deadpool & Wolverine‘s multiversal plot integrate the titular heroes into the MCU proper, but it will also acknowledge several timelines presented by previous X-Men films and other non-MCU Marvel movies like Elektra. Characters from every point in the X-Men timelines can appear regardless of their connection to Deadpool or Wolverine’s previous appearances. For instance, the villains from the original X-Men trilogy Pyro, Lady Deathstrike, Toad, and Sabretooth will appear in the Void, probably as pruned variants who join forces to escape from Alioth.

Deadpool & Wolverine may also go one step further and make definitive changes to Fox’s X-Men timelines. The 20th Century Fox sign spotted in the Void suggests that the X-Men movie universe (or universes) will all meet a tragic fate in what would be an in-story metaphor for Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox and the definitive end of Fox’s X-Men movie franchise. By the end of Deadpool & Wolverine, Cassandra Nova, the TVA, or Deadpool himself could doom every X-Men timeline and force a few survivors to take refuge in an MCU timeline such as the Avengers’ Earth-616.

Is Deadpool & Wolverine MCU Canon?

Deadpool & Wolverine Is The First Proper MCU X-Men Movie

From a multiversal point of view, every Marvel movie is part of the MCU. However, only a few timelines and character variants are directly acknowledged by MCU movies and shows. The Deadpool and Wolverine variants featured in Shawn Levy’s Deadpool & Wolverine fall in the latter category, being the first versions of both characters to star in a Marvel Studios project. Similarly to Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s multiversal Spider-Men, these Deadpool and Wolverine variants aren’t the only ones in the multiverse, but they will likely be the only ones who will be able to appear in future MCU projects such as Avengers 5 and Avengers: Secret Wars.

A large part, if not most of, Deadpool & Wolverine‘s plot takes place outside the MCU ‘s main timeline. The story begins in Deadpool’s home universe and quickly moves to the TVA headquarters, previously seen in Loki seasons 1 and 2. The TVA headquarters are located outside all space and time, and they overlook Loki’s new Sacred Timeline. Deadpool & Wolverine‘s main conflict will likely take place in the Void, and both heroes may end up traveling to the MCU’s Earth-616 — or a neighboring universe, like Beast’s timeline from The Marvels‘ post-credits scene or the Illuminati’s timeline from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.