Deadpool And Wolverine: Every Variant Of Logan Explained

Contains spoilers for "Deadpool and Wolverine"

Another Marvel movie, another 1,000 cameos from across the multiverse for fans to scratch their heads at and/or cheer for (depending on how exhausted your theater is that night). Without question, "Deadpool and Wolverine" has positioned itself from the beginning to be an event movie on the level of other massive Marvel Cinematic Universe entries like "Avengers: Endgame" and "Spider-Man: No Way Home." While Deadpool's much-awaited MCU debut may not be the juggernaut we hoped for, it certainly swings for the fences in terms of surprise appearances and blasts from the past. 

But we're here because of a sequence that takes place fairly early in the movie, before all the really big, spoilery cameos. After learning that his universe is set to implode without its "anchor being" Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Deadpool (Wade Wilson) steals a Time Variance Authority TemPad and ventures around the multiverse, where he meets all manner of Wolverines all equally unhappy to see him. It isn't until after this montage that Wade finally makes contact with the version of Logan we've seen in the trailers — though he isn't quite exactly who he appears to be at first.

But even aside from the Wolverines that hold major story implications, there are more that harken back to very specific comic books and/or eras for the character. As they dispatch the Merc with a Mouth several times over, fans might struggle to clock even half of what they see on screen. Luckily, Looper has you covered no matter what universe you're in.

"Deadpool and Wolverine" opens up with somewhat of a bait-and-switch, as Wade's narration implies that he'll be bringing Logan into his universe by digging him up from his X-marked grave — which we last saw at the end of "Logan." Though Wade is under the impression that a healing factor should have kept Logan alive even six feet under, all that remains of this version of Wolverine is an adamantium skeleton (which he then dismembers and uses to kill an entire squad of TVA agents).

This scene confirms for everyone what fans have been wondering since Hugh Jackman was first announced to be returning to his most iconic role. No, the Wolverine featured in the majority of "Deadpool and Wolverine" is not the same one audiences said goodbye to all the way back in 2017. That version, who (give or take a few continuity errors in the "X-Men" timeline) we followed all the way from 2000's "X-Men" and "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" through "X-Men: Days of Future Past" and "Logan," is definitively gone.

It's revealed in "Logan" that the adamantium metal the Weapon X program used to coat his skeleton is poisoning his body, gradually weakening his healing factor as he gets older (just one of the tragic side effects of his powers). This is how the "younger" clone is able to kill Logan — and, given she's from the same universe, it's possible that Dafne Keen's Laura is destined for a similar fate as she grows older.

With his Wolverine truly dead, Wade is forced to use the TemPad to find another Wolverine with which to anchor his universe. He starts by teleporting himself where one would expect to find most self-respecting Wolverine variants — a dive bar. (This feels like a nod to "X-Men: First Class," in which James McAvoy's Charles Xavier and Michael Fassbender's Erik Lensherr approach Wolverine in a seedy watering hole). When Wade marches in with all his bravado, however, he's slightly surprised — and absolutely delighted — to find a comic book accurate, "short king" variant of Wolverine. Though there's no tape measure on screen, this version doesn't seem to be much taller than five feet.

Something fans of the "X-Men" and "Deadpool" movies might not know is that, in the comics, Wolverine is actually supposed to be very short. Often he appears to be about 5 feet, 8 inches, but Marvel databases have historically listed him as canonically 5 feet, 3 inches — making him an entire foot shorter than Hugh Jackman, who is generally believed to be around six feet, 3 inches. Over the years, comic book fans (as well as those who watched the '90s "X-Men" cartoon) have argued that Jackman's height dramatically altered the character, and there's certainly credibility to the argument that this helped turn him into a traditional action hero rather than the beloved but scrappy supporting character he was in older "X-Men" stories. Fans have been asking for a short Wolverine to make a comeback when he's recast in the MCU.

Next up, we see a version of Wolverine somehow even edgier than those we're normally accustomed to. Encountered by Wade in a city that's clearly in complete chaos, this version of the character sports a more severe haircut and only one hand. This Wolverine is undoubtedly pulled from the 1995 Marvel Comics "X-Men" crossover event "Age of Apocalypse," one of the many alternate dystopias afforded to the children of the atom.

In this timeline, Charles Xavier's son David Haller — aka Legion, the character played by Dan Stevens in the underrated, now defunct FX superhero sci-fi drama of the same name — travels back in time and accidentally kills his own father in a bid to stop Magneto. The butterfly effect of this mistake ultimately leads to Apocalypse — the character played by Oscar Isaac in the 2016 "X-Men" sequel — taking over North America. Logan, now instead known as "Weapon X" rather than Wolverine, works against Apocalypse as an agent of the Human High Council, a governing body of non-mutants from surviving countries. This timeline also sees Logan and Jean Grey finally in some kind of long-term relationship, though it becomes strained once Logan supports the council's plan to bomb the U.S. with nuclear weapons.

Marvel has revisited this timeline in a few titles since, both in "What If...?" stories and multiversal crossover events like 2015's "Secret Wars." There was also briefly an ongoing series set in this world called "Age of Apocalypse," which ended in 2013.

Unlike most others on this list, this Wolverine isn't normally an alternate universe version of the character, but an alter-ego he adopts under specific circumstances in the mainstream Marvel Comics universe. Dubbed "Patch," this Wolverine is seen participating in a (likely illicit) game of cards, wearing a stark white suit and an eye-patch. In a recent press conference, Hugh Jackman shared that this variant of Wolverine was actually his favorite one to portray. "[My favorite] of the variants? I loved ['Age of Apocalypse'], but I have to say, I think Patch," he said. "There's something about Patch that ticked a little internal James Bond."

Indeed, Patch is something akin to a spy persona Wolverine dons whenever he ventures into the criminal underworld of Madripoor. The fictional Marvel island nation (located in Southeast Asia, vaguely near Indonesia and Singapore) has already made an appearance in the MCU, via the Disney+ series "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier." Though it isn't explicitly stated that the Patch we meet in "Deadpool and Wolverine" is in his universe's version of Madripoor, contextually it wouldn't make sense for him to be anywhere else. Hopefully this is a sign we'll get to see more of this fascinating locale in the future.

As Deadpool himself notes on-screen, the version of Wolverine seen wearing a yellow and brown costume is an homage to the iconic redesign that John Byrne introduced in "X-Men" issue #139, which hit comic book shelves in 1980. The legendary comic book artist was excited when he first got the chance to draw for an "X-Men" series, primarily because he disliked the classic blue-and-yellow costume for Wolverine and thought he could give it an update. 

Unfortunately, Marvel bosses weren't keen on overhauling the look for one of their most popular characters so soon after Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum had given him the "Fang" costume (so named for the enemy he had stolen it from as a trophy). "I was told then that I could not design a new one, so it was Fang's or back into the blue and yellow — so into the blue and yellow he went," he said in a 2005 post on the Byrne Robotics forum. 

Byrne said he continued to pursue the idea of getting away from the blue and yellow look — which was inspired by the uniform of college football's Michigan Wolverines — and coming up with "something more 'wolverine-ish.'" He added, "Finally [Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter] relented and said yes, and I sat down in the bullpen and doodled up what I had in mind." Byrne also once drew a fight between Wolverine and The Hulk, one of Logan's frequent rivals, whose own book served as Wolverine's original debut back in 1974.

Of all the Wolverines Deadpool encounters throughout the multiverse, arguably none are quite as visually striking and disturbing as the Logan variant being crucified on a giant "X." This moment, with its hill of skulls and borderline neon lighting, is a visual reference and potentially a moment directly pulled from the Chris Claremont era of the "X-Men" comic book series. The scene is copied directly from the cover of "Uncanny X-Men" #251 (titled "Fever Dream"), which was written by Claremont and featured art by Marc Silvestri (pencils) and Dan Green (inks). 

In the issue, Wolverine is captured by Donald Pierce (the bionic manhunter played by Boyd Holbrook in "Logan") and the Reavers, who torture him by leaving him to twist in eternal pain while trapped on the cross. "X-Men" historian Matthew Perpetua wrote about what makes Logan's predicament in this issue one of the most memorable moments from Claremont's run. "Wolverine is, at the core of things, a hyper-masculine martyr fantasy," he wrote in a 2019 commentary piece for House of X, noting that his unkillable physiology and self-sacrificing nature (to the point of being self-destructive) ultimately allows Claremont and Wolverine's villains to "deliberately [mock] his martyr shtick."

In "Deadpool and Wolverine," this cruel joke on Logan is taken even further by Deadpool awkwardly refusing to get him down. Then again, he probably just thought Wade was another of his pain-induced hallucinations anyway.

Not all the Wolverine variants are as easy to place as those from "Age of Apocalypse" and the "Logan" universes. One in particular, dressed like a Wild West gunslinger, might just be the design team having fun with different, unique-looking worlds and scenarios in which they could place the character. But it seems plausible that this version of Wolverine could also be a nod, at least tonally, to one of the most famous alternate universe Wolverines of all time — Old Man Logan.

Though it inspired the James Mangold sequel "Logan," the "Old Man Logan" series takes place in a universe unlike anything we've ever seen on screen, not least of all because of the access it had to the wider Marvel Universe of characters. The dystopia of this universe came to be when the world's supervillains — from Magneto to the Red Skull — successfully managed to take over the world. Even the Hulk is a major antagonist of this story, having been driven mad in his old age and turning himself and his grotesque brood into a monstrous crime family.

Like "Logan," this story also centers on the titular character's survivor's guilt and attempts to die in peace, though here the story is even more tragic. This Logan actually committed a mutant massacre while under the influence of Mysterio, brutally killing most of his friends and students. It's possible that "Deadpool and Wolverine" didn't want to get too specific with this Wolverine variant to avoid confusing movie audiences already used to their own Old Man Logan from "Logan."

Even harder to place than the Western-inspired Old Man Logan is one with wild, long hair who's only on-screen for a split second. Again, it's possible that designers just wanted to try a few starkly different looks for Hugh Jackman and the character, but if it has to be attributed to one specific era or design, the general consensus among fans seems to be that this one was inspired by the character design seen on the cover of "Wolverine" #1 from 1998. This Wolverine (who could also be called "Hot Mess Wolverine") wears a tattered black tanktop and sports long, unkempt hair like the variant seen in "Deadpool and Wolverine."

Ironically, that particular issue kicks off a story arc for the character that has him delving into Madripoor as his alter-ego Patch. This time he's combatting the Cult of the Black Blade, a group of fanatics on the hunt for the Murasama Blade (a supposedly cursed blade with power capabilities). As moviegoers might remember from "The Wolverine," the character has an intimate connection with the country of Japan, an idea that was explored in this series as he seeks to honor a dying samurai and eventually comes to blows with the Silver Samurai himself.

The most surprising Wolverine variant to crop up in "Deadpool and Wolverine" is the so-called "Cavillrine" — a variant of the character portrayed by none other than Superman himself, Henry Cavill. The British actor has a rabid fanbase among geeky subcultures thanks in large part to his starring roles in Netflix's "The Witcher" and Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel" and "Justice League" films. 

This fact — combined with his affinity for painting "Warhammer" figurines and playing "World of Warcraft" — has earned him a certain "one of us" quality. As such, comic book fans upset over his ousting from the DC Cinematic Universe following James Gunn's hiring have eagerly been trying to fancast him in the MCU, pitching him as a wide range of characters from Superman-analogs Hyperion and the Sentry to his personal favorite, Captain Britain.

So when rumors began swirling several months ago that Cavill had been cast in "Deadpool 3" (before the "and Wolverine" was even added), we barely batted an eye at what may as well have been just another example of fancasting — especially since Wolverine is usually the target of such wishful thinking, with fans again throwing out names like "The Bear" star Jeremy Allen White and Taron Egerton via stunning fan art. Well, to all those wishers, Marvel has delivered another John Krasinski-level moment of fan service just for you. And to Cavill's credit, he's pretty darn convincing in the role — which has yet to be cast in the MCU's main timeline.

Last and certainly least, we have "the worst" Wolverine — the one that Deadpool is stuck with throughout the remainder of "Deadpool and Wolverine," who makes his debut in this film. At the end of his multiversal hunt for any Wolverine willing to come back with him to his universe, Wade finally finds the right dive bar, where a drunk Logan is pounding back shots of whisky and clearly trying to drink his sorrows away.

From the get-go, it's apparent that this version of the character is for some unknown reason a pariah in his own universe, bearing the requisite existential guilt that most Wolverines are forced to shoulder. It is eventually revealed that he failed to save the X-Men of his world from being killed by a band of hateful humans, then retaliated by going on a terrible killing spree that destroyed his friends' legacy forever.

For all intents and purposes, this version of Wolverine seems to be the de facto MCU variant for now, even though neither he nor Deadpool exist currently in the same Earth-616 universe as the Avengers ... yet. Assuming Phases 5 and 6 are still angling toward "Secret Wars" (sans Jonathan Majors' Kang), they might get tossed into the main timeline — though it's hard to imagine Hugh Jackman has plans to spend another decade of playing the same character in a different universe. Then again, he surprised everyone by returning at all, so perhaps he's still got some fight left in him yet.