Deadpool 4 Should Be Based on This Marvel Comic (It Connects to Secret Wars)

Deadpool 4 has the perfect comic book storyline to adapt in Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars. After two highly successful big-screen hits, The Merc with a Mouth finally jumped into the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Deadpool & Wolverine, teaming up Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson with Hugh Jackman’s returning Wolverine. With the MCU moving full steam ahead into the Multiverse Saga with Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, how Deadpool (and, for that matter, Wolverine) could play into their shared story has been one of the MCU’s biggest unanswered questions.

Secret Wars will adapt the 2015 Marvel Comics story, in which disparate realities across the Marvel multiverse are consolidated in the Battleworld. The choice of Secret Wars as Marvel’s culminating event of the Multiverse Saga could also provide the perfect basis for Deadpool 4 with Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars, and a comedic capstone to Marvel’s plans.

What Is The Plot Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars?

Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars is set during Marvel’s original Secret Wars storyline of the 1980s, in which the heroes of Earth are brought to the Battleworld, this time with The Merc with a Mouth joining the fray (Deadpool debuted in Marvel Comics in 1991, seven years after the original Secret Wars storyline). Deadpool fights alongside Marvel’s heroes against the villains of the Battleworld, and naturally, his role in the story puts a much more comedic spin on Secret Wars, with Deadpool’s penchant for jokes and breaking the fourth wall.

Deadpool also somewhat rewrites the Secret Wars story with his involvement in a number of key events. Arguably, the most significant is Deadpool bonding with the Venom symbiote before Spider-Man does, with Wade putting his own hilarious take on several other events in the Secret Wars story. Deadpool, of course, is the exact kind of character whose very nature it is to add irreverent levity to any team story he’s a part of, which makes Secret Secret Wars all the more perfect as the source material for Deadpool 4.

[Related: Did Deadpool & Wolverine Just Confirm the Deadpool Corps?]

How Deadpool 4 Could Adapt Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars & Tie Into The MCU’s Secret Wars

While Avengers: Secret Wars will adapt the 2015 Secret Wars storyline rather than the original 1980s one, that doesn’t mean that the MCU can’t have some fun with Deadpool’s fourth movie in a similar way. Essentially, all Marvel really needs to do is adapt the general template of Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars into Deadpool 4 as a follow-up to Secret Wars. With that, Marvel retroactively places Deadpool into the center of the fray of the main version of Secret Wars, showcasing him as an active participant in event he isn’t initially part of.

In some ways, Deadpool 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine have already set up Avengers: Secret Wars. Deadpool 2 concluded with Wade using a time travel device to go back into the past and undo numerous events, including the botched version of Wade seen in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Reynolds accepting the title role in 2011’s Green Lantern. Deadpool & Wolverine showcases Wade using TVA tech to travel the Multiverse in search of a version of Wolverine to help him save his universe.

Deadpool 4 could use Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars to go one step further, showing Wade on a clandestine side mission from Earth’s Mightiest Heroes that acts as a kind of planned retcon for Avengers: Secret Wars, showing Wade as a key player in the story after the fact — and in an obviously much more comedic (and R-rated) angle.

Will Deadpool 4 Happen?

The biggest question for any adaptation of Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars is whether or not there will be a Deadpool 4 at all. After Deadpool & Wolverine‘s strong reception and colossal box office success of over $1 billion worldwide, it would seem that a sequel would be a forgone conclusion. However, Reynolds himself has expressed some degree of doubt about returning to headline another Deadpool movie. Recently speaking to Variety‘s Actors on Actors with Andrew Garfield, he stated that he sees Deadpool most likely appearing in another character’s movie, saying, “Channing Tatum [Gambit] … I would happily be a fifth banana in his movie or anyone else’s.”

While this might seem to cast doubt on Deadpool 4, it could simply be a matter of Reynolds wishing to give Wade a sabbatical from being in the spotlight, along with Reynolds’ own stated desire to take a sabbatical from the time-consuming commitments of being the face of the Deadpool franchise. The actor also stated in the same interview, “My feeling is that that character works very well in two ways: scarcity and surprise.” Fortunately, something like an adaptation of Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars could do exactly that, with Wade taking a break for a few years, and the Multiverse-threatening scope of Avengers: Secret Wars leading him to jump into action again the same way that the lack of an anchor being in his universe spurred him on in Deadpool & Wolverine.

There’s also the built-in advantage of Deadpool & Wolverine‘s as-yet unexplained tease of Chris Hemsworth’s Thor mourning Wade’s apparent death at some point in the future. This could help form the basis of Deadpool 4 adapting Deadpool’s Secret Wars, with Wade and his allies on a mission to change the future, with Wade’s survival being necessary for the long-term sake of the Multiverse. In any event, Deadpool himself has never truly adapted any specific comic book storyline outside of his own origin story, and Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars could provide the perfect source material for Wade to do exactly that whenever he returns to the MCU.