Is Hugh Jackman’s Logan a Variant in Deadpool & Wolverine?

He’s (not) the best there is at what he does. Marvel Studios released the new Deadpool & Wolverine trailer on Monday, and it shows Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) coming out of superhero retirement to recruit a weary Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) on a mission into the multiverse. When we meet him, the shorter-haired Logan is trying to get drunk at a bar in Canada, mirroring the mutant’s introduction in 2000’s X-Men. Logan has trouble popping his adamantium metal claws — “It’s quite common in Wolverines over 40,” Wade quips of the former X-Man’s dysfunction — and presses his head against Wade’s gun, suggesting that this Wolverine still has his mutant healing factor… or a death wish.

“I’m about to lose everything that I’ve ever cared about,” Wade tells Logan over footage of his friends, including ex-fiancée Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), Yukio (Shioli Kutsuna), Blind Al (Leslie Uggams), Peter (Rob Delaney), and Dopinder (Karan Soni). When the costume-clad Wolverine growls that’s “not my f—ing problem,” Wade shoots back: “Is that what you said when your world went to sh-t?”

“This Wolverine let down his entire world,” TVA Agent Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen) explains at the Time Variance Authority, the watchdog organization tasked with defending the Sacred Timeline of the prime Marvel Cinematic Universe (as seen on the Disney+ series Loki). “Want to talk about what’s haunting you,” Wade asks Logan, “or should we wait for a third act flashback?” (Logan’s response: “Go f— yourself.”) This Wolverine couldn’t save his world, but Wade hopes he can help save his. “You were an X-Man,” he says. “You were the X-Man.”

But is this the same Wolverine from the Fox X-Men movies, or an alternate-universe variant? The answer may be both. Ahead of the new trailer reveal, Reynolds released a teaser that incorporated footage from 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, 2013’s The Wolverine, and 2017’s Logan. The X-Men timeline is in need of TVA pruning, but 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past altered timelines or even erased entire movies — or at least made them happen differently — when Wolverine time-traveled to 1973 and prevented the dystopian future of 2023.

Days of Future Past ended with Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) and Cyclops (James Marsden) — who both died in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand — back among the living, meaning Logan couldn’t have mourned Jean in The Wolverine (although that movie did delete a scene teasing Wolverine’s yellow costume). In 2018’s Deadpool 2, Wade used Cable’s (Josh Brolin) time-travel device to rewrite the events of that movie before “cleaning up” the timelines, including going decades into the past to kill the muted Wade Wilson known as “Weapon XI” from Origins.

Logan was set in 2029 and depicted a future where the mutant population was all but extinct, one where Wolverine was suffering from adamantium poisoning and a slowed healing factor. It was implied that the telepath Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), having lost control of his powers from a degenerative brain disease, inadvertently killed the X-Men, although that Wolverine died a hero after he succumbed to injuries sustained while saving his daughter Laura Kinney/X-23 (Dafne Keen).

It’s possible that the Logan in Deadpool & Wolverine is from one of the X-Men timelines that ended tragically for Xavier’s team of mutants, and that Jackman is playing the same Logan from the Fox movies — just up until a certain point. Take for example Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who died in Avengers: Infinity War. When Earth’s mightiest heroes time-traveled from 2023 to 2012 in Avengers: Endgame, 2012 Loki escaped from the Sacred Timeline into a branched timeline and was pursued by the TVA, who labeled him Variant L1130. This Loki is a variant, but his timeline and experiences match up with the Loki from 2011’s Thor and 2012’s The Avengers, at which point he splinters off into the Loki TV show.

In 2022, Jackman said his return in the third Deadpool wouldn’t “screw with” his X-Men swan song in Logan, which ended with Wolverine’s death.

“All because of this device they have in the Marvel world of movingaround timelines,” Jackman explained on The Jess Cagle Show. “Now we can go back because, you know, it’s science, soI don’t have to screw with the Logan timeline, which was important to me. And I think probably to the fans, too.”

Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine slices into theaters July 26.