Deadpool and Wolverine Have a Brutal, Badass History in Marvel Comics

Deadpool & Wolverine is the movie on everyone’s minds this summer, expected to rejuvenate both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the box office. While a lot of speculation about the film has focused on what other superheroes and pop culture figures could cameo in it and how it will set up future MCU projects like the upcoming Avengers sequels, ultimately the main appeal of the film is seeing Ryan Reynolds‘ Wade Wilson/Deadpool and Hugh Jackman‘s Wolverine back on the big screen and interacting with one another.

They both appeared in Jackman’s first Marvel spin-off film, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, fifteen years ago, but their actual shared screen time was incredibly brief and, as viewers of Reynolds’ subsequent Deadpool movies know, that film is infamous for many reasons, chief among them being the drastic alterations made to Wade’s character. The MCU, on the other hand, has had success altering the dynamics between comic characters, but all of the promotional material released for Deadpool & Wolverine so far suggests that Reynolds and Jackman are staying relatively faithful to the source material this time, with their onscreen dynamic seeming to closely replicate the amusingly dysfunctional, but sometimes endearing relationship the characters have in the comics.

Deadpool and Wolverine’s First Comic Meeting Was an Intense Fight

When looking back on Logan and Wade’s comics history, it’s important to remember that Wade, who was originally used as a parody of other mercenary characters (like DC Comics’ similarly named, previously existing, Slade Wilson/Deathstroke), was an even more morally ambiguous figure than he has been in recent years or than Reynolds’ film version has ever been shown to be. This influenced the nature of his first encounter with Logan. While it’s a tradition that superheroes fight when they meet for the first time, this is usually due to misunderstandings and ends with them making amends and quickly going on to work together. However, the first comic in which Deadpool and Wolverine encounter one another features Wade acting as a straightforward villain.

In 1994’s Wolverine #88 by Larry Hama, Adam Kubert, and Fabio Laguna, Logan is looking to check on Garrison Kane, a fellow victim of the Weapon X program’s experimentation, at the request of their mutual friend James Hudson. Wade, on the other hand, is planning to hunt and kill Kane because he believes he “stole” his ex-girlfriend, the mutant Vanessa Carlysle/Copycat, even though in truth she was willingly in a relationship with Kane. Logan helps Vanessa and Kane defend themselves and gets in a few brutal fights with Wade, who ultimately escapes by tossing a grenade without ever repenting for his actions.

Deadpool and Wolverine Are Typically Reluctant Allies

The characters’ first more traditional team-up came in Wolverine Annual #1 in 1995. The second story in that special issue, written by Chris Golden with art by Ben Herrera, sees Logan and Wade’s mutual ally, Maverick, enlisting the former to help him rescue the latter from a paramilitary group led by mad scientist Doctor Westergaard. Westergaard hopes that Wade’s superhuman healing factor (which is derived from Logan’s own healing abilities) could be used to cure the Legacy Virus plaguing the mutant community, although Maverick suspects that her group plans to selectively sell such a remedy for profit. Logan is initially reluctant to help given Wade’s own past crimes, but Maverick convinces him that they shouldn’t knowingly allow someone else to suffer torture similar to what they were put through by Weapon X. While the trio fight their way out of Westergaard’s facility, Wade and Logan trade mocking wisecracks. After they do so, Wade shows some of his humanity by providing Hank McCoy’s Beast with a sample of his genetic material in the hopes that it can cure at least Maverick of the Legacy Virus.

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Since then, the pair’s dynamic has most often been shown as a similarly uneasy alliance, with Logan usually being annoyed by Wade’s crude and immature humor, although he occasionally retaliates with some biting jibes of his own. However, as Wade’s abilities to break the fourth wall and make other self-aware comments about the comics he appears in have become more heavily used, their dynamic has shifted somewhat. Much like Reynolds’ version of the character, the modern comics incarnation is aware of Logan’s greater fame and wider audience appeal, and he consequently gets very excited to work with him and witness some of his more traditional superhero feats. But, he also continues to make fun of him to varying degrees.

Despite this consistent tension and even more recent instances of them standing on opposite sides, they usually have strong senses of loyalty, and even maybe some affection towards one another, though they’d probably never admit it. This is often most obvious when they interact in darker X-Men comics like X-Force. The pair have often served together on the mutant black ops team, which takes on especially dangerous, often morally questionable missions, and the fact that they trust each other in such intense matters shows that their beliefs and goals are generally aligned and that they share the impulse to shoulder the burden of using ethically questionable tactics so that the other heroes don’t have to.

Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds Are Perfectly Cast

Again, most of the publicly released footage from Deadpool & Wolverine, and the hilarious fake feud Jackman and Reynolds have publicly maintained between the films, suggest the dynamic between the characters will be fairly similar. In the early portion of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, when the pair worked together on Team X, Logan was shown being annoyed by Wade’s incessant quipping, but after William Stryker (Danny Huston) turned the latter into the mind-controlled, silent assassin Weapon XI, Logan was more compassionate, trying to appeal to Wade’s individual personality and get him to defy Stryker before beginning to fight him.

The trailers for Deadpool & Wolverine play up Logan’s annoyance with Wade, but also emphasize how excited Deadpool is to work with Wolverine. If there’s a major difference between their film interactions and ones in the comics, it’ll likely be the frequent inclusion of meta jokes from Reynolds’ Wade about the actors themselves. Deadpool comics occasionally feature jokes at Reynolds’ expense (with one particularly famous example even predating his association with the role) but the films reference both his and Jackman’s real lives, careers, and public images much more frequently, and one would assume that the new film will take these jokes to the extreme.

Deadpool & Wolverine is in theaters July 26 in the U.S.

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