Was ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ an excuse for Marvel to cover up its Disney+ flops?

Marvel’s recent performance and mixed overall success on Disney+ have left much to be desired. Though a few series, including WandaVision and Loki, were well-received by critics and viewers, other series had been lackluster at best. Could Deadpool & Wolverine be the duct tape solution for these flops?

Marvel and Disney+

Marvel has had some runaway hits on Disney+, including The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision, and Tom Hiddleston-starring Loki, arguably the best (and perhaps most important) series of the bunch. But other series have been met with aggressively mixed reviews and low audience engagement. Some critics even argued that the rapid, seemingly untamed expansion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe had led to a decrease in general quality. In other words, it had spread itself too thin in all directions.

Secret Invasion was particularly problematic. While Samuel L. Jackson’s performance as Nick Fury was well-suited for the occasion, the plotting was slow, and even the twists (James “Rhodey” Rhodes/War Machine as a Skrull, for example) didn’t work. The other issue was the character retcon of Nick Fury, which felt unnecessary and rushed as a concept. Even the action sequences looked cheap and less-than-Marvel quality. Ali Selim, the series director, acknowledged that the episodes had been cobbled together in editing as they dropped.

However, with this being said, the shows that needed to work shined, and even Secret Invasion set up other shows and films in its lackluster delivery.

Ant-Man and the Quantum Problem

What Deadpool & Wolverine actually provides cover for was the events following the aggressively average Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which introduced Jonathan Majors as the supervillain Kang the Conqueror. We’ve covered the actor’s legal issues at some length, but the fundamental problem at present is that Kang will no longer appear in the MCU. This suggests a significant pivot out of a direction they had hoped to ride the talented Majors through—at least to the next existential baddie.

Resetting the MCU

Deadpool & Wolverine even acknowledges the Quantumania misstep to some extent, with an enlarged Ant-Man suit being used as a base in the Void, essentially the land of castaway Marvel characters. But even more than that, it (along with the upcoming Avengers/Doctor Doom film) sets the MCU on a refreshed but grounded path forward. An interesting positive about WandaVision and Secret Invasion was the shows’ darker, more adult themes. While the latter didn’t always work within the show’s concept, it allowed an R-rated Marvel film, like Deadpool & Wolverine, to come through without issue. The film’s success sets forth all kinds of content possibilities for Marvel’s immediate and long-range future—for children up to adults.

It does not appear that Kevin Fiege issued Deadpool & Wolverine as a mea culpa, but its success gives MCU fans hope that the path forward will be exciting and—more importantly than that—stable.