Deadpool & Wolverine continues its terrific run at the box office, having topped $1 billion after three weekends. In the past few weeks, we’ve unpacked almost everything from the Deadpool 3 plot, including the brilliant Avengers link, the big Spider-Man confusion, and the plot holes that Marvel needs to fix.
However, there was one big Fantastic Four detail in the movie that didn’t have a clear explanation when I first watched the film. Or the second time around. It’s not a plot hole, just a great Easter egg that Marvel probably planted in the script to help integrate both Deadpool & Wolverine and The Fantastic Four in the Multiverse Saga.
Something important has happened since Deadpool & Wolverine premiered. Disney hosted its big D23 2024 event, where Marvel made several MCU announcements. Among other things, Marvel played trailers for upcoming attractions, including The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
It so happens that the leaked trailer offers more context for the big Fantastic Four Easter egg in Deadpool & Wolverine. As you might expect, some big spoilers will follow below, so make sure you watch Deadpool 3 before going forward with this text.
The key Deadpool & Wolverine cameo
There’s no question that one of the best executed cameos of Deadpool & Wolverine is Chris Evans’s Johnny Storm. Everybody in the audience thinks it’s a Captain America variant that ended up in the Void. And the way Storm is dressed also fools Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds). We soon learn this is the Human Torch variant from Fox’s first try at making a Fantastic Four movie.
A few short fight scenes later, Deadpool, Johnny, and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) are all captured. En route to Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), Johnny tells them they’re in the Void. We first met the Void and Allioth in Loki season 1. This is where pruned individuals and universes that the TVA used to kill die. The remnants of those universes have to avoid Alioth and Cassandra to stay alive.
This Johnny Storm’s Fantastic Four are no longer in the picture. That much is clear. But this is where Johnny stuns the audience, revealing that Reed was aware of the multiverse and the Void. “Reed called it a metaphysical junkyard where anything useless goes before it gets annihilated forever,” the not-so-young Storm says. “And where the TVA sends people that don’t play nice with the rest of the multiverse.”
Knowledge of the multiverse
How did Fox’s Reed Richards (loan Gruffudd) know of the multiverse? At first, I thought this was a connection to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Remember that Earth-838’s Mr. Fantastic (John Krasinski) wasn’t just aware of the multiverse. He knew that worlds could collide and potentially destroy each other.
It makes sense that the other Reed variants from alternate realities would discover the multiverse. Plenty of other characters come to that conclusion. We know from Loki that variants of Kang went to war after finding out about the multiverse, looking to obtain dominion over other realities.
Then, What If…? tells us that at least one Ultron variant figured out the multiverse independently. On top of that, there’s Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), whose variants are also aware of the multiverse. The same goes for Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen).
Meanwhile, the Avengers in the main reality the MCU follows discovered the multiverse during the events of Infinity War and Endgame. That is, they didn’t know there was a multiverse. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) initially thought he invented time travel. In reality, the Avengers were visiting alternate realities to obtain copies of the Infinity Stones.
The Fantastic Four trailer
That’s what was going through my mind about this Johnny Storm line before I saw the leaked Fantastic Four trailer. Marvel was just injecting more multiverse exposition into Deadpool & Wolverine, a movie that needed to be part of the multiverse. That’s how we’ll get Deadpool (and Wolverine?) in Secret Wars.
But then, The Fantastic Four trailer gave us another Reed Richards from a different reality who is aware of the multiverse. This one is Pedro Pascal’s variant, who has just started theorizing the existence of alternate universes. I speculated that the MCU’s Fantastic Four will actually explore the multiverse in their voyage rather than space.
Johnny’s mention in Deadpool & Wolverine of Reed’s Multiverse Saga theories hits differently now. It establishes that most Reed variants are smart enough to figure out the multiverse exists and eventually do something about it. This can happen in any alternate reality at different points on the timeline.
Pascal’s Reed is only starting to figure out the multiverse, whereas Krasinski’s Reed had a much better grasp on alternate universes.
Also, the leaked Fantastic Four trailer confirms that the reboot takes place in the ’60s in a different reality. However, the movie will tell the story of the MCU’s Fantastic Four team.
These heroes will eventually meet Earth-616’s Avengers. They’ll be part of the team that fights Doctor Doom (RDJ) or a different villain in Secret Wars. They’ll become the MCU’s main Fantastic Four team. And their knowledge and experience with the multiverse might be key to the success of the Avengers.
