Deadpool’s First Appearance In The MCU After Deadpool & Wolverine Means He Needs To Be In Avengers: Doomsday Or Avengers: Secret Wars More Than Ever

ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool’s first MCU appearance after ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine makes it seem all the more important that the Marvel antihero appear in either of both of the franchise’s next two Avengers movies. The MCU timeline has been without many notable Marvel names for several years, with figures like the X-Men and Fantastic Four only starting to appear in the franchise in recent history. This is also true for ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool, with the Merc With A Mouth only now trekking over to the MCU via multiversal shenanigans in ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine.

However, this is not the last time we’ve seen ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool in an MCU release, with the character making one other surprise cameo in another Marvel instalment not all that long after. However, the nature of this appearance only underlines further why ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool ideally needs a more major appearance in the MCU’s Multiverse Saga, especially since his story in ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine itself naturally ties into the idea of him and Marvel’s new Wolverine variant appearing in the upcoming Avengers movies.

ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine Made ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool A Part Of The MCU Multiverse

While the previous two ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool movies were placed within the Fox X-Men movie timeline – even if they didn’t feature a wealth of X-Men characters – and Ryan Reynolds’ ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool debut as another iteration of the antihero came directly in X-Men Origins: Wolverine itself, this didn’t prevent ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine from bringing its тιтular heroes into the MCU. That said, this was via the wider multiverse, with the Fox X-Men universe being established as part of the MCU’s multiverse – and as a surviving part of it, given the movie’s heroes are shown as successful in their efforts to save it.

Interestingly, though ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool doesn’t meet up with any of the MCU’s main heroes in ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine, he does get one major scene in the main universe. In it, Wade Wilson is shown talking to none other than Happy Hogan about the antihero trying to join Earth-616’s Avengers – which ends with him being rejected from the group. This helps to reinforce the idea that ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool is a part of the wider MCU landscape early on in the film, with this idea being reinforced in one unexpected but relatively logical place not all that long after.

ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool’s What If…? Tease Would Make Him Not Showing Up In Avengers: Doomsday Or Secret Wars Feel Weirder

ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool cameos in What If..._ season 3 finale montage

As a show that focuses around alternate universes and theoretical alternate scenarios for the MCU galore, it’s not strictly surprising that ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool appears in What If…? not long after making his MCU debut of sorts in ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine itself. What is more surprising is the nature of the cameo, which is surprisingly reserved given both the character it centers on and given that What If…? tends to be a place where Marvel takes some larger-than-life storylines that couldn’t exist anywhere else and explores them for a full episode.

The What If…? season 3 finale closes with a series of short glimpses at other exciting story concepts and characters that the show didn’t get a chance to look at previously, including figures like an evil Maestro-esque version of the Hulk, and a version of Thanos with Wolverine’s claws. In between these, we get a look at a version of ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool loaded up with a surreal number of weapons, in a look that seems as though it is in reference to either the weapons and pouch-laden designs of his comic past, or an allusion to the ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool Kills The Marvel Universe storyline.

Referencing ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool Kills The Marvel Universe would make particular sense for What If…?, since the comic is one of Marvel’s more popular alternate universe storylines.

With this glance being a blink-and-you-miss it affair, it would feel somewhat jarring for this to be ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool’s only other appearance in the MCU either for several years or the rest of the Multiverse Saga. Not having him in the next Avengers movies would feel like a bigger waste with the knowledge that the other main opportunity to use the character in MCU projects provided basically just a lone static sH๏τ of ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool, whereas having this allusion to the Merc With A Mouth and then giving him another time to shine in the MCU’s big crossovers would make more sense.

Why ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool Is Perfect For The Cast Or Either Or Both Of Avengers: Doomsday Or Avengers: Secret Wars

First and foremost, the setup for the story of the two upcoming Avengers movies seems to naturally align with the idea of both Reynolds’ ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool and Hugh Jackman’s new Wolverine variant returning once more. ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine ended with the pair being on good terms with the TVA and having rescued the Fox X-Men universe from universal erosion, suggesting any multiversal mayhem would see them either summoned or simply going of their own volition to try and fix things once more.

Similarly, a multiversal conflict would no doubt see the duo step up to the plate to try and ensure their universe isn’t actually destroyed this time – which is important to note given that Avengers: Secret Wars draws from comic storylines that involve Incursions which collide different universes, and their catastrophic aftermath. With that said, though, ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool’s experience with saving seemingly doomed universes may help a better end result happen in the MCU for both Earth-616 and Fox’s Earth-10005.

On another crucial level, ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool is the central character of one of the biggest recent MCU movies in the franchise’s current history. ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine managed to net itself considerable critical and box office success, with its worldwide box office of $1.3 billion (as per The Numbers) being the sixth-highest box office result in the entire MCU thus far. Combine this with it being a movie that manages to bring the concept of the multiverse into the forefront of the franchise once more, and there’s plenty of reason to think ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool’s prospective place in the Avengers movies has already been justified.

This is doubly true given we already know a series of Fox X-Men characters are set to appear in the cast of Avengers: Doomsday, and are thus likely to also play a prospective role in Avengers: Secret Wars depending on how things unfold. With ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool and Wolverine having just saved the Fox X-Men universe, this would logistically seem to warrant their appearance in the upcoming MCU movies, if only to nod to why and how these characters appear to have survived until now in the first place.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Created by: Kevin Feige
First Film: Iron Man
Upcoming Films: ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine, Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, Blade (2025), The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Avengers: Doomsday (2026), Avengers: Secret Wars
First TV Show: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Upcoming TV Shows: Agatha: Coven of Chaos, Ironheart, Daredevil: Born Again, Wakanda, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Marvel Zombies, Wonder Man, Vision Quest
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Renner, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Edward Norton, Paul Rudd, Tom Holland, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders, Brie Larson, Chadwick Boseman, Sebastian Stan, Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Pom Klementieff, Josh Brolin, Karen Gillan, Clark Gregg, Paul Bettany, Don Cheadle, Benedict Cumberbatch, Evangeline Lilly, Simu Liu, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Angelina Jolie, Kit Harington, Salma Hayek, Richard Madden, Barry Keoghan, Gemma Chan, Ma Dong-seok, Brian Tyree Henry, Kumail Nanjiani, Lauren Ridloff, Lia McHugh, Jonathan Majors