What to Watch Before ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Hits Theaters

Summer is coming and Deadpool & Wolverine will be here before you know it — ! This movie is a major deal to everyone who’s ever enjoyed the Marvel movies, because this one features Deadpool doing a big ol’ bellyflop into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yup, it’s time for the merc with a mouth to make his way to the MCU — and he’s bringing a gruff buddy along for the ride. That buddy is, duh, Wolverine, in all of his hirsute glory!

But Deadpool & Wolverine is more than just an excuse to get Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman together on the big screen. It also looks like a sweeping, epic adventure that promises to close the book on over two decades of Marvel movies. Fox’s Marvel movies — specifically the X-Men movies — are getting the sendoff they’ve been denied for years, and who better to turn off the lights on this series than the franchise’s two biggest stars? And since Magneto and Professor X were unavailable, we’re getting Deadpool and Wolverine! #YaBurnt

Considering that Deadpool & Wolverine is playing with not one but two highly convoluted and confusing film franchises, there’s a bit of homework you may want to do before heading to the theater. No one ever said that the unification of Fox and Marvel Studios’ superhero franchises was going to be simple! But don’t worry: we’ve narrowed down the must-watch list to just five entries — and two of them are TV episodes! Consider the rest of the X-movies X-tra credit.

1. Come on — where else would you start? The vibe around Deadpool & Wolverine seems to be one of finality and celebration: finality because those ruins of a giant 20th Century Fox logo seen in the trailers imply that this is truly the end for all of these characters, and a celebration because it looks like everyone from a Fox/Marvel movie has been invited. You should go all the way back to the beginning and rewatch the very first X-Men, which is also Hugh Jackman’s debut as Wolverine. This will give you a refresher on Wolverine’s backstory and what he means to the X-Men, and it includes a few characters that might pop up in Deadpool & Wolverine (namely Toad and Sabretooth).

   I know it probably seems weird to not go back and watch 2017’s Oscar-nominated Logan, which was intended to be Jackman’s final outing as Wolverine. While you absolutely should watch that movie, it doesn’t slot in here because Deadpool & Wolverine takes place before Logan. And honestly, considering all the hints dropped in the trailers, it’s even more likely that the Wolverine we’re getting in this movie is a variant from another universe, one we’ve never seen before (more on what the hell variants are below). But since we know this possibly-new Wolverine was an X-Man, 2000’s X-Men — wherein Wolverine begins superhero-ing — feels like the best choice.

   where to watch x-men

3. Okay, okay, okay — you should watch Deadpool 1 and 2. It’s a solid double feature. But if you want to get an overview of Wade Wilson’s whole thing and you want to really get to the goods, then Deadpool 2 is the way to go. That’s because our boy DP was a loner in the first Deadpool. Deadpool 2 is where his supporting cast really expands and he forms genuine emotional connections… connections that are at risk of being violently severed in Deadpool & Wolverine. You want to know the emotional stakes going into this new movie? This movie’s got yer stakes right here!

   where to watch deadpool 2

4. Loki Season 1 Episode 1, “Glorious Purpose” (2021)

   And now we’re venturing into more esoteric territory — but it’s territory you need to tread before Deadpool vs. Wolverine. The Loki Disney+ series really introduced not only the concept of the Marvel multiverse, but it also established how all of the multiverse is maintained. This is a big part of Deadpool vs. Wolverine. This movie finds Deadpool teaming up with a Wolverine to try to stop the destruction of the Fox movie-verse. This adventure will pit Deadpool against the TVA — the Time Variance Authority — from Loki Seasons 1-2, as they’re the organization tasked with maintaining order in the multiverse and “pruning” all deviant realities. This is a wild concept for sure, but the series premiere of Loki does a solid job of explaining who the TVA is and how the multiverse works.

   watch loki “glorious purpose” on disney+

5. Loki Season 1 Episode 5, “Journey Into Mystery” (2021)

   And then there’s The Void, the literal dumping ground for all multiversal detritus located at the very end of time. As Loki finds out, everything that the TVA prunes ends up here. Alternate reality versions of everything and everyone from everywhere and everywhen — whatever the TVA deems as a fluke or deviation ends up dumped in one place.

   The Deadpool vs. Wolverine trailers feature plenty of scenes of a Mad Max-esque expanse of desolated land, where castaways from past Fox movies roam (like Pyro, Lady Deathstrike, Sabretooth, etc.) and one supervillain (Emma Corrin’s Cassandra Nova) seems to live in the giant skull of an Ant-Man. These sequences are giving off big Void energy, so it makes sense for you to watch that locale’s debut appearance. And there’s one more thing that connects the Void to Deadpool & Wolverine (see below)…

   Watch loki “Journey into mystery” on disney+

6. where to watch spider-man: no way home

   You can’t write an explainer about Marvel’s multiversal madness without bringing up Spider-Man: No Way Home. You thought I was going to say Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, didn’t you? You thought wrong, because there are a few surprising things connection No Way Home to DP&W! Okay, No Way Home has nothing to do with Logan or Wade, but there is one shot from the latest Deadpool & Wolverine that immediately makes No Way Home one to watch. That shot?

   It’s Deadpool and Wolverine jumping into a portal. But that’s not just any portal. That is specifically the kind of portal that pops up only in Marvel Studios productions. It’s the kind of portal through space and time that the Sorcerer Supreme (or I guess anyone) creates using a mystical Sling Ring. Does this mean that we’re gonna see Wong or Dr. Strange in this movie? Maybe. I think the better question to ask is where are Wolverine and Deadpool leaping into.

   Also that purple cloud beyond the portal? Sure does look like Alioth, the purple cloud monster that’s seen in the Loki episode “Journey Into Mystery.”

   But there’s another, more meta reason to watch Spider-Man: No Way Home. Similar to how Deadpool & Wolverine is being marketed, the third MCU Spider-Man film was a kind of final goodbye to Sony’s Spider-Man films. Now it looks like Marvel’s Fox characters are getting a similar kind of dimension-hopping reunion and farewell. It is kinda wild how huge deals between movie studios in real life ultimately lead to movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home and (presumably) Deadpool & Wolverine. It’s, uh, a weird new sub-genre of superhero movie, ain’t it?