Deadpool & Wolverine Breaks MCU’s Time Travel Rules & X-Men’s Timeline

Deadpool & Wolverine is now in theaters, impressing hardcore Marvel fans across the globe. Ryan Reynolds, Shawn Levy, and co. went to great lengths to come up with a story that brings the whole X-Men timeline together while tying it to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Along with its great action, cameos, and character work, it introduces new aspects to the MCU’s multiverse following Loki.

However, there are a few glaring errors that the film doesn’t address while making Fox’s past Deadpool and X-Men movies canon to MCU’s expanding multiverse. Dive into our breakdown of the potential plot holes from Deadpool 2 and other X-Men movies that get carried into the MCU with Deadpool & Wolverine.

Deadpool & Wolverine creates time travel, multiverse, and X-Men timeline plotholes

1. Different time travel rules in separate universes?

Avengers: Endgame established that MCU’s time travel works in a different way than what movies such as Terminator and Back to the Future have suggested. Smart Hulk specifically mentioned that “changing the past doesn’t change the future.” Instead, it creates an alternate-branched reality originating from that timeline within the multiverse.

Following Endgame’s introduction of MCU’s time travel and multiverse rules, Loki added more context to them. But making the Deadpool and X-Men movies canon to the MCU’s multiverse breaks these aforementioned time travel rules by totally working against them.

Movies including Deadpool 2 and X-Men: Days of Future Past showed several instances of Deadpool and the X-Men changing the present/past to alter the future. In Days of Future Past, Logan’s consciousness was sent back in time to 1973 to stop the end of mutants in the present day. His past efforts led to the future war against mutated sentinels being erased entirely. In the end, Logan woke up in a different future within the same timeline.

Similarly, in Deadpool 2, Wade used Cable’s time travel device to alter past events and bring people like Vanessa and Peter back to life in his timeline. Before that, when Deadpool stopped Russell from becoming a killer, viewers saw the burnt ashes on Cable’s daughter’s bear clear up on screen. It indicated that the future had been altered, and Cable’s family survived. However, this phenomenon shouldn’t have occurred according to MCU’s time travel rules.

If the events of Deadpool 2 and X-Men: Days of Future Past are canon to MCU’s Multiverse, then they should have created new branched timelines instead of bringing changes to Fox’s Earth-10005 timeline.

Since that didn’t happen, it makes one wonder why time travel works differently on Earth-616 and Earth-10005 if they are in the same multiverse.

2. The X-Men & Deadpool timeline makes no sense

Logan’s efforts in 1973 altered the future and practically erased the events of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men, X2: X-Men United, & X-Men: The Last Stand. Earth-10005 was changed to incorporate newer stories, including X-Men: Apocalypse and X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which were set in 1983 and 1992, respectively. This changed reality featured James McAvoy’s Professor X, Nicholas Hoult’s Beast, and Tye Sheridan’s Cyclops, among other recast versions.

Deadpool 2 is also set in the same reality as it featured a cameo from the recast X-Men characters. Furthermore, McAvoy’s Professor X and Hoult’s Beast had barely aged from X-Men: First Class’ events, which happened in 1962, to Deadpool 2’s events in 2018.

Now, Deadpool & Wolverine takes place 6 years later in 2024. It also canonizes Logan to the same timeline of Earth-10005 and states that Wolverine had already sacrificed himself by this time. But it was previously established that Logan took place in 2029, which has seemingly been retconned in Deadpool & Wolverine.

Otherwise, things wouldn’t make sense as the main Logan would have still been alive on Earth-10005 in 2024, and the arrival of the “Worst Wolverine” variant to this Earth would have caused a potential incursion and become pointless overall.

3. Cable’s device can hop universes?

Deadpool & Wolverine shows Wade Wilson hopping into Earth-616 with Cable’s device, which prompts the following questions:

• Can Cable’s time device also be used for Multiversal travel?
• Does this device work similarly to Tony Stark’s time-space GPS device or the TVA’s temp-pads?
• How did Wade Wilson know about the multiverse and Earth-616 even before the TVA mentioned it to him?

Deadpool & Wolverine doesn’t answer these questions, leaving fans to speculate whether they were potential errors or have logical explanations. Perhaps this is where the audience has to contribute by not diving too deep into the inconsistencies of MCU and Fox-Marvel’s time travel and Multiverse rules.

Deadpool & Wolverine acts as a celebration of Fox’s Marvel movies while trying to stay as consistent with MCU’s pre-established rules as possible. So, it might be best for fans to deploy a bit of “suspension of disbelief,” forgo its plot holes, and enjoy Deadpool & Wolverine as an exhilarating piece of entertainment where anything and everything is possible.