Warning: spoilers from the movie Deadpool and Wolverine
What do we do when the right hero is the wrong person? What if the only person to save the universe was someone who is a joke to the majority? Or even labeled a loser and coward? That was a question I took away from the movie Deadpool and Wolverine. The reason is that is a primary theme of the movie.
In the X-Men/Deadpool Marvel Universe, Deadpool holds a rather minor place in the comics, but the movies have catapulted the wise cracking and disrespectful character to the forefront. Thus, the bridge between the main Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Fox properties becomes Deadpool and his frenemy, Wolverine. This was very unlikely several years ago because of rights ownership, but Disney has been working to combine the Marvel properties into a single place. But let’s get back to Deadpool.
We learn that Deadpool (Wade Wilson), who is never admitted to the X-Men desires to join the Avengers but it rebuffed. Dejected, Wade feels that his life does not matter and slowly loses much of who he was by becoming a car salesman. As we join a birthday party for Wade, we learn that his girlfriend whom he went into the past to save at the end of Deadpool Two is no longer with him romantically but is still a friend. How low he seems. Then things get interesting.
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Time Variance Authority* personnel show up to abduct Wade. He is whisked away to the TVA and presented with an opportunity. Wade’s timeline is dying and the agent he is talking with wants to speed up the dying. Wade asks why the timeline is dying so we learn that each timeline has an anchor being. Wade’s timeline was anchored by Wolverine, who dies at the end of the movie Logan. The famous breaking of the “fourth wall” extends to the mythos of the universes. Deadpool, as always, decides to take another tactic than that offered by the TVA. He steals a time portal and jumps to Wolverine’s grave hoping to dig up the hero whom he believes to always regenerate. Only Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton is found and we are setup for Deadpool’s romp across the multiverse with an opening musical number backed by N’Sync as Deadpool battles TVA soldiers.
Deadpool goes in search for a Wolverine to bring to his timeline so his friends will live. Rebuffed at every turn, Deadpool finally comes across a Wolverine who is drinking and seems lost himself. In fact, this Wolverine refuses to fight as he mentions deserving to be defeated. Of all the Wolverines Deadpool could find, he has found the one who has lost meaning by hiding when the X-Men are massacred by those fearful of mutants. Their journey back to Wade’s timeline is fraught with nostalgia, danger, and smart aleck comments and I will leave that for those who wish to see the film and not spoil that fun. But definitely stop here if you don’t want to know the ending of the movie.
To save the timeline, and the larger universe, Deadpool must sacrifice himself and he chooses this path. Wolverine wants to do this as well, but Deadpool believes that he must sacrifice alone to restore the timeline. He thinks that requires a martyr. Wolverine desire redemption, but we get something very different. When the villain is destroyed, we assume Deadpool and Wolverine are both dead because it required both to form a bridge of power. But we get the big reveal instead.
It was a fact that if one hero destroyed the villain they would die. But the sacrificial act of two changed the outcome. Deadpool and Wolverine, working together saved the timeline and one another. What is the lesson, if any? That we cannot do great things by being isolated or truly alone. Instead, great things take working together in actions that lead to resurrection of a sort.
I will admit that this next part is incredibly poor in metaphor, but I think worth it. You see, I believe we have something similar in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. God is relational and in relation to Godself through the First Person, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The great saving act of creation is accomplished in the incarnation, the cross, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. But Jesus is never alone, even in those moments that he feels isolated, Jesus is still the Trinitarian God. All of God experiences the crucifixion and all of God defeats the power of sin and death.
The Church is not always part of the via Iesu or Way of Jesus, but the Way is always a part of the Church in terms of that group of people who follow the crucified God. The relationship is disciples following Jesus even if the Church does not always follow Jesus. The Way recognizes the God who is in solidarity with the hurting, discarded, and others who are left by the wayside and even the Church. In that togetherness, we work with God to usher in New Creation. We cannot do it alone, and while it may not be done in the institution known as the Church, those who follow the Way, the Truth, and the Life are in relationship and can do those things Jesus promised his followers. I pray that the Church catholic lives into the via Iesu but know that it will not always for fear, want of control, or even just apathy. Maybe we can be like Deadpool and Wolverine who found a way to exist in relationship and were willing to die to save others.