New Deadpool and Wolverine Trailer Kills Off Another Part of the Worst X-Men Movie

Deadpool isn’t just another superhero. He’s also one of the biggest nerds in the world, a guy who knows nearly everything about the Marvel Universe on page, screen, and beyond. How else could he keep making these snide remarks to the camera and his countless readers? Still, in the latest teaser for Deadpool & Wolverine, the Merc With a Mouth seems to have forgotten about an important detail.

The new quasi-trailer finds the titular duo of Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) and Logan (Hugh Jackman) deep within the Void: a wasteland last seen in Loki‘s first season. This Mad Max-ian hellscape has also been teased in previous Deadpool & Wolverine trailers. It is here that Wolverine, deep caught up in a berserker frenzy, shouts “who’s next?” And answering the call is Sabertooth… a villain who is at last played again by Tyler Mane—a feat that actor hasn’t done since 2000’s X-Men.

To the surprise of no one, Deadpool geeks out, hyping up Logan by saying, “People have waited decades for this fight!” But that’s not 100 percent true.

Sure, Sabertooth (aka Victor Creed) is traditionally Wolverine’s arch-enemy. That’s been true ever since the two first clashed in 1986’s Uncanny X-Men #212. For decades, writers kept the connection between the two bestial mutants just as secret as the rest of Wolverine’s past, eventually revealing that the pair grew up together in Canada (a real comedown from initial hints that Sabertooth was Logan’s father).

The first X-Men movie never really delved into the rivalry between Victor and Logan, and, in fact, the two only had a few minor dust-ups on-screen. Instead, James Marsden’s Cyclops, with an assist from Wolverine and Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) was the one to take Vic out of the movie with an optic blast to the face that sent him plunging from the top of the Statue of Liberty.

However, that doesn’t mean Logan and Victor never fought again in live-action. They clashed several times in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. But X-Men Origins does almost nothing right, including debuting Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool. It was good casting but he’s made almost immediately unrecognizable when his mouth is sewed up during the third act of the film.

That said, Liev Schreiber does make for a pretty menacing Sabertooth, who is revealed onscreen to indeed be the half brother of Logan (or Jimmy, as he was originally named). The best part of the movie occurs in the opening credits, which follows Sabertooth and Wolverine’s participation in various wars across the centuries. Schreiber uses his ability to play stillness to emphasize the potential threat always posed by Victor, only breaking into a full rage when Sabertooth and Wolverine fight. These fights look terrible (made worse by the strange animal-running that Sabertooth does), but it did actually happen.

So why does Deadpool pretend that Wolverine and Sabertooth haven’t fought onscreen yet? The man is nuts, sure, but he certainly wouldn’t just forget. And while we haven’t seen Jackman’s Wolverine fight this version of Sabertooth to the death in 20 years, that doesn’t seem like the type of quibble that would concern Deadpool.

Maybe, just maybe, Wade changed the timeline when he used Cable’s device and killed the Origins version of himself in the post-credit scene of Deadpool 2. Maybe, Origins doesn’t exist at all! Maybe that’s why Wade doesn’t acknowledge Wolverine and Sabertooth’s other fights! And maybe that’s why Kevin Durand has been putting in such good work lately, in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and Abigail, because he doesn’t get those sweet residual checks for playing the Blob in Origins!

Or maybe it’s just a funny line and I’m reading too much into it. Anyway, Wolverine fights Sabertooth. Looks cool.

Deadpool & Wolverine snikts into theaters on July 26, 2024.