Full spoilers follow for Deadpool 2. Potential Deadpool 3 spoilers are also discussed.
It's finally here, ladies and gentlemen. The first trailer for Deadpool 3, the only Marvel movie releasing in theaters this year, has arrived – and, for the most part, it's everything we expected from a teaser for the Merc with a Mouth's long-awaited Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) debut.
Officially called Deadpool and Wolverine, the two-minute trailer teases enough about the highly anticipated Marvel Phase 5 movie's plot without giving too much away. Still, while we suspect that there will be a ton of cameos and other secrets hidden within the final film, there are a few Easter eggs and other notable snippets of information you probably missed during your first – or 12th – watch.
Below, we've picked out 10 moments you might have overlooked (or skipped over entirely) in the forthcoming MCU flick's first teaser. And no, we're not just talking about the two brief glimpses we get of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, aka everyone's favorite adamantium clawed mutant, in its first-look footage. Here, then, are the biggest things you missed in Deadpool 3's inaugural trailer.
Friends reunited
Deadpool 3's first teaser opens on the titular character – real name Wade Wilson – celebrating a birthday with his girlfriend Vanessa (Monica Baccarin) and a whole host of familiar faces from the first two Deadpool films.
Among that contingent are Deadpool's psychopathic taxi driver buddy Dopinder (Karan Soni), Rob Delaney's scene-stealing Peter from Deadpool 2, and fellow superpowered individuals Shatterstar (Lewis Tan), Teenage Negasonic Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), Colossus (Stefan Kapičić), and Yukio (Shioli Kutsana). Blind Al (Leslie Uggams), Wade's former landlady, is also present.
Wait, hang on – some of these characters died in Deadpool 2, so how are they alive? To sum up: at the end of Deadpool 2, Wade is given a repaired time-travel device (it previously belonged to time-traveling mutant Cable), which he uses to go on his own mini-multiversal adventure. Along the way, he saves Vanessa and Peter from death, and kills the alternate version of himself from 2009's maligned X-Men: Origins – Wolverine movie. It's not a stretch, then, to believe Wade also rescued Shatterstar from being bumped off, too.
A Loki flex for the TVA
Wade's multiverse-spanning hijinks, though, have come back to haunt him. As he makes a wish while blowing out the single candle (classic Deadpool) on his birthday cake, the festivities are interrupted by an ominous knock at the door.
Who's rocked up to cut the celebrations short? The Time Variance Authority (TVA), who appeared in Loki seasons 1 and 2 on Disney Plus. Unfortunately for Wade, it isn't Owen Wilson's Mobius who greets him, but a bunch of less-than-enthused TVA soldiers who kidnap him and take him back to their headquarters.
Interestingly, the squad of TVA hunters are wearing different uniforms to the ones we've seen in Loki. Indeed, their brand-new attire raises a big question: has this group been sent here from the benevolent TVA post-Loki season 2, which wants to rectify multiversal issues with a nicer approach? Or, because time works differently at the TVA, are they actually from a past, more authoritarian version of the organization? Based on how they treat Wade, it seems to be the former.
Time Paradox
In the next clip, we meet a new TVA agent – played by Succession's Matthew Macfayden – who appears to hold a similar rank to Mobius. We thought Marvel would try to keep his identity under wraps until Deadpool and Wolverine lands in theaters, but the Disney subsidiary does actually reveal who this character is: Paradox.
How do we know this? By using the subtitles/closed captions feature on the YouTube version of the trailer. Simply click on the icon to bring said subtitles up around the 0:45 mark, and you'll see that Macfayden's character is named Paradox.
Avengers! Assemble
Wait, the Avengers are in Deadpool 3!? Not exactly. In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment when Paradox tells Wade he has the chance to be a "hero among heroes", you can catch brief glimpses of Iron Man, the Avengers, and Thor on some TVA monitors. The footage is taken from 2008's Iron Man, 2014's Avengers: Age of Ultron, and 2017's Thor: Ragnarok, for those wondering.
The next shot shows other members of the Avengers, too, including different clips of Captain America from 2014's The Winter Soldier. If Tony Stark and Thor were here, we doubt they'd be too happy about being usurped by their shield-bearing contemporary on the footage front.
The arrival of Nova
Before anyone gets too excited about fan-favorite superhero Nova (real name Richard Rider) appearing in Deadpool and Wolverine, we're talking about a different Nova here. Be warned, though, as we're about to dive into potentially big spoiler territory in the very next sentence.
At the 1:16 mark, we catch a very brief glimpse at Deadpool 3's likely main villain: Cassandra Nova. This superpowered individual is reportedly being played by The Crown's Emma Corrin, who is already confirmed to play a significant role in the film.
It's unclear if this is Corrin's Nova, but there's one big giveaway that suggests this is the case. In Marvel comics, Nova is linked to legendary X-Men founder Professor X (Charles Xavier), which means Nova sports a bald-head look like Xavier. Put two and two together, and this fleeting shot all but confirms that this is our very first look at Corrin's Nova.
Patch this cameo in
The Deadpool 3 cameo rumor mill was already in overdrive ahead of the movie's first trailer dropping, and things are only set to escalate further now that it's out.
Based on the teaser, it appears we have confirmation of one character who'll make a delightfully surprising appearance in 2024's only Marvel flick. At the 1:20 mark, we see what seems to be a white-suited Wolverine – you can instantly recognize him from his signature seagull winged-style hairdo – and you'd be right in thinking it's him.
Well, it's actually Patch, one of Wolverine's aliases. In recent comic book lore, Wolverine starts sporting a white tuxedo and eyepatch, and takes up residence on the island of Madripoor, a safe haven for mutants. Madripoor has been mentioned (and seen) in various MCU projects since Marvel Phase 4 began in 2021, including Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Moon Knight, and Echo. This will be the first time we see Madripoor in a Marvel movie, though, if Deadpool ends up visiting the seedy islet to set up a meeting with Patch for as-yet-unknown reasons. If nothing else, it'll be fun to see Jackman play a different version of Wolverine before we meet his iconic X-Men character properly in this movie.
That's all, Fox
It wouldn't be a Deadpool film without fourth-wall-breaking antics and hilarious metatextual comedy, and it seems this movie is going to rip 20th Century Fox's defunct X-Men universe to shreds.
Well, what's left of it. At the 1:38 mark, we catch Deadpool reloading his dual pistols in ridiculously cool fashion – but he does so with a destroyed version of 20th Century Fox's iconic logo nestled in the background of a barren landscape. It appears that Marvel isn't going to hold back on poking fun at Fox's former cinematic universe.
Alioth returns
It looks like the TVA isn't the only Loki season 2 call-back in Deadpool and Wolverine. Indeed, Alioth – the trash-temporal entity we saw in both seasons of Loki, aka one of the best Disney Plus shows ever made, will also show up.
At the 1:44 mark, we see a handcuffed TVA agent plead for his life before a purple cloud of smoke forebodingly carries him off into the air as Deadpool – complete with an expletive-laden comment – watches on. It seems the pair (and other characters in the shot) are stuck in the Void, a place at the end of time that multiverse rejects are sent to and devoured by Alioth. If this is the location where Deadpool and company end up, Alioth is sure to make a cameo.
Pyro party
As we've mentioned, there are plenty of X-Men references in the first teaser for Deadpool's threequel, but Marvel might have saved the best for last (well, outside of our first glimpse of Jackman's actual Wolverine, who shows up in the final few seconds).
30 seconds shy of the trailer's end, we see the return of an unexpected X-Men character in the form of Pyro (the trailer's closed captions feature gives this reveal away again). The fire-wielding mutant, who showed up in X2: X-Men United and X-Men: The Last Stand (read our X-Men movies in order guide for more details on how and where to stream them) is seen saying "God, I love this part" at the 1:52 mark. Oh, and he's being played by Aaron Stanford – the same actor who portrayed Pyro in the aforementioned films. What a wonderful surprise!
A Secret Wars tease – and a Fantastic Four reference
With the trailer closing out with the tease of a fight between the movie's co-leads, we suspect your eyes were drawn to the duo preparing to duke it out. In doing so, though, it takes your attention away from one of the teaser's biggest Easter eggs.
Pause the trailer at the 2:01 mark and you'll see a comic book lying a couple of feet away from a prone Deadpool's right-hand side. Zooming-in the video at this point (thanks to Reddit for the screenshot), the issue in question is none other than a Secret Wars comic. Redditors have suggested it's Secret Wars #5 – from the 2015 comic issue run, not its 1989 namesake – and, if that's true, its front cover might somehow be teasing the unexpected arrival of the Fantastic Four's most iconic villain in Doctor Doom.
With Marvel firing Kang actor Jonathan Majors in late 2022 after he was found guilty of domestic abuse charges, there have been murmurings that the studio might replace the Multiverse Saga's overarching villain with Doom, who plays a huge role in Secret Wars literature. And, considering that Marvel Phase 6 is set to end with Avengers: Secret Wars, a live-action film adaptation of this comic series that'll also close out said Multiverse Saga, it's hard not to view this as a potentially huge tease of what Marvel Studios has got in the pipeline. Time will tell if this proves to be the case.
