Deadpool & Wolverine didn’t reveal whether or not Hugh Jackman will return to the MCU on a more permanent basis. But should he? Could this be the start of a whole new era for him as Logan? There’s a great case for him to put away his adamantium claws for good, but there’s an equally compelling case for him not to. So we’re making both. In this piece, Eric Diaz argues why Deadpool & Wolverine should be Jackman’s official return to playing the iconic character long term. Meanwhile, Michael Walsh made the case for why this should be Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine swan song.
Hugh Jackman’s return as Logan in Deadpool & Wolverine was a giant shock when they announced it. Mainly thanks to his very public retirement from the role after Logan, in which his iconic character nobly sacrificed himself to save his daughter Laura. Well, cut to seven years later, and Jackman is more excited than ever to pop his claws into some bad guys’ heads in Deadpool & Wolverine, which has now made over a billion dollars at the box office. And although the film works as a final swan song, we think he’s back in the saddle for the long term for him. And maybe that’s a good idea.
When Jackman retired from playing the character in Logan, he had played the part in nine films over seventeen years. He had starring roles in the original X-Men trilogy, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Wolverine, and X-Men: Days of Future Past, a Weapon X cameo in Apocalypse, and one colorful f-bomb laden cameo in X-Men: First Class. It’s a lot of times at bat, so we totally get why Hugh wanted to hang up the claws for good. But then, a few things happened that we think slowly changed his mind permanently. One of those was getting the chance to act against other Marvel heroes, something Jackman has always publicly wanted to do.
Since the days of 2013’s The Wolverine press tour, Jackman has talked about how he wished to join the Avengers. At the time, that all seemed impossible. But even then, Jackman seemed confident that one day, the powers that be would allow for the Fox Marvel characters and the Marvel Studios characters to play in the same sandbox. That prediction showed Jackman was a bit of prophet, because Disney bought Fox in 2018. One year after he retired from playing Wolverine. We bet he regrets the timing of that decision.
It should be noted that Jackman takes pride in the fact no one else has played Wolverine in live-action. (Well, except for a young future pop star Troye Sivan in X-Men Origins. But we don’t really count that one) From the time he first “snikt” his claws, we’ve had three Spider-Mans, three Hulks, three Supermans, and three Batmans. Soon we’ll even have three sets of the Fantastic Four. Through all of this, Hugh has remained the one and only Wolverine, synonymous with the role. Now that he’s back, we think he wants to take the record for actor with the longest tenure as one superhero. Honestly, who can do it better than him? At this point, we can’t think of many.
Getting older is usually a hindrance to playing a superhero for more than a few years. Yet given the gruffness and general “grumpy old man” nature of Wolverine, Jackman getting on in years might actually make him more Logan-like. His best performance as the character is still in James Mangold’s Logan, where they aged him up a bit. So we know a grizzlier, older Wolverine works great on screen already. Jackman, age 55, could easily pull the character off in this manner for another decade. Even if he might finally have to relax a bit on getting so shredded.
We are fairly confident that Jackman (and Ryan Reynolds) will both be in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. But what about after? Marvel has officially announced an X-Men reboot as coming in the next few years. One assumes this would be all-new actors in the roles of Xavier’s students. We think Jackman could very well carry over into the role into the MCU proper. But how would that even work? Well, the team dynamics would have to change, for starters. If it’s a younger Cyclops and Jean Grey, having Logan in a love triangle with them would be creepy. He also wouldn’t be contemporaries with the likes of Storm and Beast.
Kevin Feige might just do what he does best—look to the comics for inspiration. In the 2013 series Wolverine and the X-Men, after the deaths of Xavier and Jean Grey, Logan takes over as Headmaster of the School for Gifted Youngsters. The “Doesn’t play well with others” guy now had to become a father figure to a new generation of mutants. This could work in the MCU. Imagine if Logan arrives at the Sacred Timeline just as mutants are coming into their own. As a way of making up for his failure in his world, he dedicates himself to shepherding the 616’s emerging mutants. Some of which might be familiar to him from a previous life.
We genuinely think that Hugh Jackman was sincere when he chose to retire from playing Wolverine back in 2017. But now that he’s chosen to come back, he feels very “all in” for the foreseeable future. And that includes going past Deadpool & Wolverine, and even past Avengers: Secret Wars, into the X-Men’s future in the MCU. In the comics, Logan’s favorite saying is “I’m the best there is and what I do. And what I do ain’t pretty.” Well, time has proven that Jackman is the best there is at what he does, which is play Logan. At this juncture, who could do it better? We have a very strong feeling Hugh Jackman is going to be the one and only Wolverine for some time to come.