Fred and Loathing on The Internet

I Wonder If Logan Prefers Labatt or Molson

2024-Nov-22

I’m reviewing a contemporary movie! A blockbuster smash who’s success I am told proves that the audience does not in fact have ‘superhero movie fatigue’. However big of a ticket selling smash this movie proved to be with the domestic and international movie-going audience, I do have superhero movie fatigue. Well… namely Marvel movie fatigue.

This movie did not abate that. If anything, it has evoked a bitterness in me that poisons the idea of enjoying another MCU film. Thinking about the fiscal nuts and bolts of what these Marvel movies represent hurts me in so many places. This distress easily overwhelms the visceral thrills I could get from seeing an on-screen Wolverine fight with comic accurate claws, with accompanying ‘snkt’ noise. This movie in particular, ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’, brought these ideas to the forefront of my thought. The movie's strengths are what lead me to discovering why I have Marvel movie fatigue.

The script uses meta hints about the real world to frame the conventional three-act story of super heroics that moves the story from scene to scene. The inner story of the movie is Deadpool and Wolverine are costumed superpowered humans dealing with their own ‘universe’ perishing, at the expense of ‘the main timeline’ that will absorb the acceptable remnants of these lesser universes. There is talk of an ‘anchor being’ to explain just how Deadpool and Wolverine will save the day somehow. I did not make too much effort to follow along with the logic of the inner story. Although by the end of the film I had been brought to almost seething anger, I can appreciate a well executed cinematic production that was built on a clever script.

This clever extended metaphor is the outer story about the behind-the-scenes deal made in boardrooms that allowed this movie to happen. A movie that allowed Ryan Reynolds to make so many insider jokes about the MCU’s production, is just that: clever. Enough so that all I could think about while watching the end of this movie (and possibly ironic montage during the credits of the actor’s bloopers in their first portrayals of their superhero role) was that we, the audience, are ultimately rooting for the owners of the Marvel properties will continue to make money from their ownership of these intellectual properties.

I very much enjoyed the first two Deadpool movies. (Had I been a little younger, I’m sure I would have pretentiously lauded them as one of the greatest of Hollywood). Those movies were each clever send-ups of superhero movie production. Not only that, there were references to the comic book themselves! Or how the ideas or designs from the books do not always translate well on screen. It reached out past the pedestrian Marvel movie fan and pleased the actual comic book nerds.

Ryan Reynolds’ slick and fast delivery fit the mold of what I remember about Deadpool in the 90’s comics. The first two also had that meta-narrative of speaking to the audience about the absurdity of how superhero movies were made. At the time I thought it was splendid to see a spot-on Deadpool in a -relatively- big budget movie, crack jokes about X-Men movies themselves, or their legal separation from other Marvel films.

It is plain even to me that I am lambasting this movie for the crimes that most MCU movies ultimately commit. However, the earlier Marvel and Deadpool movies had the advantage (or disadvantage) of being more ‘Hollywood’ productions rather than ones put together by fans who know how it looked in the comics.

What makes this one stick out is the ‘we know we’re making a corporate product, but let’s have fun with it!’ humor was mixed with visuals made to please the comic book readers seeking movie reproductions of shots that made Wolverine look so damn cool on the page. It was something I probably asked for. They wanted the yellow costume. The mask. The speedball express. Once I saw all of this come to cinematic fruition, I was moved in a direction I did not expect.

What makes this third iteration of the meta-joker that is Deadpool different from the prior two Deapool movies is that the official owner of the movie rights to Deadpool and Wolverine are now Disney, rather than 20th Century Fox (which I guess was liquidated and does not exist anymore?). The prior Deadpool movies were made when the bulk of Marvel’s stable of movie stars could not appear in the same film as him because of a complicated movie rights deal. The two prior movies outright often mentioned this legal nicety and its impact on the plot.

Had you not known ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ was now an official MCU movie, I think the movie would fill in those blanks for you. This third Deadpool movie puts Ryan Reynold’s potty-mouthed effervescence pointed at the outer story of the Hollywood deals needed to get the owners of these lucrative IPs to play nice and make millions together. He gets to make bromantic remarks about Hugh Jackman the actor being shackled to Wolverine because of the unique profitability of him onscreen as Wolverine. He talks fast around all the pre-MCU cinematic attempts living as refugees in a no man’s land. He’ll interject with 2nd person tidbits about what Marvel movie or TV show first mentioned one of the movie’s plot points.

On paper, this sounds exactly what the Marvel fans wanted, and I count myself among them. The fans wanted a rather artistically faithful rendering of Wolverine and Deadpool fighting around the Marvel Cinematic universe, with the two protagonists leaning into the R rating by either Jackman swearing in a gruff voice or Reynolds making a playful remark about homosexual intercourse. I’m not saying I didn’t like it. What I am saying is that it jabbed me in a way most Marvel fans do not consider. It hurt me to think of every artist that had their hand in making the characters that is the genesis of this movie.

Although, I am always thinking of them. What his movie did though was to try to harness those sentiments and place them on the well paid actors who were attached to multi-million dollar Marvel movie productions that failed to build a long lasting franchise. When we see the cavalcade of actors of less than mega-successful comic book movie franchises, we are to think that the buck stops here as far as seeking creators getting the shaft by the actions of Marvel’s corporate owners. Once again, I could see the humor in this, but I’m more of a fan of the comics themselves, not Marvel properties as they exist in any medium. It is an effort that is not too late, but it is definitely too little for me.

Had this movie been not put together visually so well, I would not have noticed just how much the artists who made the Wolverine and Deadpool comics of the 80/90s are responsible for what was being shown on screen. What makes these two characters different from any other comic book to movie adaptation, or even other Marvel films, is how much accuracy is defined by the visuals rather than plot. Wolverine, and Deadpool before writers found more use for his 4th wall breaking, were all about the artwork.

Iron Man, the first of the MCU films, really did not have any comic books industry defining artwork until after his movie success. Wolverine had at least two dozen by 1990. Whole comic book penciller careers were made on just how cool you could render this character. Wolverine and Deadpool are the products of when comic books started to get ‘extreme’ in the 90s. Wolverine was a precursor as the cool antihero among square normal heroes in the 80s. They are both characters where their backstory is almost unnecessary to make a good comic book using them. The 90s was a time where comic books built on just how cool one penciller could make somebody with claws, swords, or guns could look.

The Deadpool movies were great action movies, but there were not shot for shot recreations of pages from his comics. They had forgettable stories with characters made just for the movies. Once the Hollywood Deadpool formula officially got to play in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they wanted to please the now adult fans who read the comics in the 80s and 90s and now they could.

I suppose they did. I saw the Wolverine like Marc Silvestri had him on the crucifixion cover. Or in a white tuxedo and eye patch when he was working with the gray hulk. They showed that one cover by Todd McFarlane where you can see the hulk in the reflection of Wolverine’s claws. It was so accurate I thought of those creators. Well… I think I recall they mentioned John Byrne’s name when the orange/brown costume got some screen time. One cornerstone Wolverine artist got some credit. Doubt he got a check after this movie.

The descriptor of ‘Marvel fan’ to me now sounds like being the cheerleader of the current owners of a sports team. Are people really worshiping the Marvel universe without considering the people who made the damn thing?

That more or less was how I thought about the name ‘Marvel’ when I was a kid. That these characters are ethereal but yet somewhat real characters that needed to be respected. Marvel, or the Marvel company, was their guardian. Characters divorced from their creators, but not their publisher. Marvel was a brand and that was what had a hold of me when I was younger, not the creators. I was a kid that saw only characters that could sell merchandise that I would have gladly consumed. I had no considerations for just how these X-Men comics or cartoons are made. I just knew Wolverine was cool and would read anything with him involved.

I wanted to mimic those really really cool Wolverine pictures with my own hand, so I copied so many. Eventually the names and quirks of all the artists who did Wolverine became something I watched out for. I avoided Madureira, Pacheco, Bachalo or any of that anime inspired stuff in the mid 90s. Didn’t care for it. I wanted the ludicrously over-detailed early 90s stuff.

This movie successfully evoked all those times I read those books. I applaud it for that. I can’t expect the producers to somehow fix the wrongs of Marvel’s history with creator rights. It’s a fine movie, but I would rather read the comics some more than watch another ‘love letter’ movie for comic book fans.