Deadpool & WolverineSave

Cold open. A desolate desert grave in the Pacific Northwest. The same grave site at the end of Logan (2017) where Laura Kinney buried James "Logan" Howlett seven years ago. Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), in a black tactical jumpsuit, digs up the grave with a shovel. The bones — Logan's actual adamantium-laced skeleton, the only part of him that didn't decay — are intact at the bottom. Wade reaches into the grave and pulls them out. He then proceeds to dance through the cemetery to NSYNC's "Bye Bye Bye" while using Logan's adamantium claws and bones as a kind of brutal puppet to fight twenty TVA Time Variance Authority strike-team agents who arrive to stop him. The opening title sequence — three minutes of nonstop slapstick gore intercut with Wade lip-syncing to a 1999 boy band hit while wielding Logan's femur as a club — establishes the film's tone. The audience laughs and gasps simultaneously. Title card: "From the studio that brought you everything: ALL JOKES, NO LIMITS."

Six years post-Deadpool 2. Wade Wilson has retired. He has been working as a used-car salesman at a Tony's Honda dealership in Queens, New York. He has been growing his hair out. He has been wearing a small Wade-and-Vanessa portrait on his desk. He's been quietly miserable. He has a small group of human friends who don't know he was ever Deadpool — Peter (Rob Delaney), an extra from the second film who has been quietly impressed Wade isn't dead. Wade has been having a quiet life. He misses Vanessa, who has separated from him during the off-screen events between films. He has been planning to propose to her again at her birthday party that evening. He puts on his best red-and-black formal suit. He's about to leave for the party.

TVA abduction. As Wade is heading out the door, a TVA strike team (the same TVA from Loki (2021)) materializes in his apartment and zip-cuffs him. Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen), a mid-level TVA bureaucrat in a smug British accent, has been assigned to handle Wade's case. Paradox brings Wade to the TVA's headquarters and explains: Wade Wilson's universe — Earth-10005, the Fox-era X-Men universe — has been deemed by the TVA to be a "branching reality" that needs to be pruned. The TVA has built a Time Ripper, a cosmic-scale weapon that will erase Earth-10005 from existence completely within forty-eight hours. The reason: the universe's "anchor" — its central narrative gravitational figure — has died. The anchor of Earth-10005 is Wolverine. Logan died in Logan in 2017 and has not been replaced. Without an anchor, the universe is destabilizing. The TVA's Time Ripper will be merciful — quick, painless erasure of the entire universe and its billions of inhabitants.

Wade's mission. Wade refuses to allow Earth-10005 to be erased. He has Vanessa, his friends, his identity, everything in this universe. Paradox offers him a single deal: travel the multiverse to find a replacement Wolverine variant who can serve as Earth-10005's new anchor, and the TVA will spare the universe. Wade accepts. He steals Paradox's dimensional-jump TemPad device and begins multiverse-traveling.

Multiverse Wolverine search. The next twelve minutes of the film are a montage of Wade Wilson visiting two dozen Wolverine variants across the multiverse — including a cowboy Wolverine in 1872, a vampire Wolverine in a goth-noir reality, a Patch-era Wolverine from the comics' Madripoor era, a young 1980s-Lloyd-Dobler-style Wolverine, an Old Man Logan from a post-apocalyptic 2050 dystopia, a Lego Wolverine, and a literal cartoon-Wolverine from a Saturday-morning cartoon. None of them are willing to leave their reality. None of them are heroic enough or angry enough. Wade is despairing.

The worst Wolverine. Wade finally finds a Wolverine on a small Earth-10010 desert planet — a Logan variant who is the worst Wolverine the multiverse has ever produced. This Logan (Hugh Jackman) is a broken, drunk, retired hermit. He has been wearing his comic-book-yellow-and-blue Wolverine costume for the first time in his career. He's a Logan who survived the Logan film's premise — Laura died as a child, the X-Men were never reformed, and Logan has spent twenty years alone in a desert ranch. He has been failing as a hero his entire life. He's the universe's least-deserving Wolverine. He's exactly the kind of broken anti-hero Wade thinks he can convince to relocate. Wade convinces this Logan (whom he calls Worst Logan) to come back with him to Earth-10005. Logan agrees because his own life is empty.

The Void. As Wade and Logan exit the multiverse-jump portal, the TVA detects the unauthorized passage and ejects them into the Void — a dimensional-graveyard wasteland populated by characters that have been deleted from the multiverse, pruned variants, abandoned spinoffs, and superhero characters whose films were canceled before release. The Void is a wasteland of crashed Helicarriers, Statue of Liberty wreckage, and dust-blown roads. The Void is ruled by Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), the telepathic mutant younger sister of Charles Xavier from Logan (2017)'s timeline. Cassandra is the most-powerful telepath in the multiverse and rules the Void as its tyrannical queen. She has been keeping the pruned variants as her court of damned souls.

Variants. Wade and Logan are captured by Cassandra. In her throne room, they meet some of the dozens of pruned MCU characters: a Lady Deadpool (Blake Lively, in a brief cameo as Reynolds's real-life wife), Headpool (a literal severed head Deadpool floating in a fish bowl), Kidpool (an eight-year-old Deadpool from a previously-unaired animated series), Dogpool (the cutest possible animal-form Deadpool — a small Yorkshire-terrier mix), and most-significantly, X-23 / Laura Kinney (Dafne Keen, reprising her Logan role) — the canon X-23 from the Logan film, who has been waiting in the Void since her death scene. Pyro (Aaron Stanford reprising his X-Men: The Last Stand role) is here. Toad (Ray Park reprising his X-Men 2000 role) is here. A handful of obscure Marvel characters from canceled spinoffs.

The Resistance. Wade and Logan eventually meet the Resistance — a small group of variants who have been opposing Cassandra Nova's rule. The Resistance is led by Blade (Wesley Snipes, reprising his Blade Trilogy role for the first time in seventeen years), Gambit (Channing Tatum, in his MCU debut after his planned solo Gambit film was canceled in 2019), Elektra (Jennifer Garner, reprising her Daredevil/Elektra role for the first time in twenty years), and X-23 (Laura Kinney). The Resistance team members enter — "Welcome to the rebellion, motherfuckers" — to thunderous audience applause. The team — Deadpool, Logan, Blade, Gambit, Elektra, X-23 — agrees to coordinate a strike against Cassandra Nova.

The Time Ripper escalation. Cassandra Nova has been quietly working with Mr. Paradox at the TVA. They've decided to use the Time Ripper not just on Earth-10005 but on the entire MCU multiverse — Cassandra plans to absorb every variant's power into herself and become the most-powerful being in the multiverse. The team needs to stop the Time Ripper at all costs.

Chris Evans Johnny Storm cameo. Wade has been gathering allies. He recruits Chris Evans's Johnny Storm — the Fantastic Four (2005) version of the Human Torch, last seen in the 2007 sequel. Johnny Storm arrives in flames. He goes on a four-minute monologue insulting Cassandra Nova. Wade and the audience are loving it. Then Cassandra Nova, having heard her offended, kills Johnny Storm with a flash of telekinetic energy. Johnny dies onscreen via spontaneous combustion. The audience gasps and laughs simultaneously. Chris Evans was setting up for an MCU return that's never going to happen.

The final battle. The Resistance plus Logan plus Wade infiltrate Cassandra Nova's throne. Logan and Wade fight Cassandra in a brutal extended action sequence — the first time Wolverine and Deadpool have fought together on screen. Blade fights pruned-vampire variants. Gambit throws explosive playing cards. Elektra fights with her trademark sai. X-23 fights alongside her father. Cassandra Nova is killed by the Resistance team via a combined assault — Logan claws her, Wade Venom-Strikes her, Blade decapitates her. Mr. Paradox is captured. The Time Ripper is destroyed by Logan and Wade together — they grab the cosmic-energy core simultaneously and reroute the energy back into the Time Ripper, destroying it from inside. They each absorb a portion of the energy backlash, which would normally kill them, but their healing factors keep them barely alive.

Aftermath. Wade and Logan return to Earth-10005 in Wade's apartment. Logan, for the first time in twenty years, has a family. He moves in with Wade. He starts attending Vanessa's birthday parties as a guest. Wade and Vanessa reconcile. The MCU has formally absorbed the Fox-era X-Men universe via Logan as a permanent crossover.

Coda. The film closes with a montage of new MCU Phase 6 setups. Logan is in costume — the iconic yellow-and-blue Wolverine comics outfit — and standing alongside Wade Wilson at the Avengers Compound's gate. Captain America's shield is on a stand inside. The Marvel Studios logo appears with both Fox X-Men music and Marvel Studios musical sting blended together. The MCU has officially absorbed every previous live-action Marvel film into a single continuity. Cut to credits.

End credits. The film's mid-credits scene is not a setup for a new film but a montage of behind-the-scenes footage of Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds, and the entire cast — including Wesley Snipes signing autographs at Comic-Con, Channing Tatum's failed Gambit-pitch reaction in 2017, Jennifer Garner finally getting to do an Elektra fight scene in 2024 after twenty years. Reynolds has said in interviews this Honda-Odyssey-style montage was his deliberate love letter to the Fox-era X-Men cast who had been quietly working in the background for decades before getting their final moment.