People need to give up on the Deadpool films being a part of the MCU timeline

After the release of Deadpool many people have been hoping that the film and it’s sequel could be retroactively retconned as a part of the MCU canon. As it had no blatant connections to the X-Men and Wolverine films besides the X-Mansion being the same and a reference to the mansion blowing up in the past like in X-Men: Apocalypse. It had a recasted Colossus and the film seemly takes place within modern times despite Wade appearing as an adult during the 1970s in X-Men Origins: Wolverine(though Deadpool noted that the timeline was confusing).

Maybe it could have been retconned to have taken place in the future of MCU timeline where mutants have already been revealed to the public. There was a Helicarrier Easter Egg in the first film. But Deadpool 2 came out and crashed that possibility by having cameos and major plot points that blatantly connected to the X-Men and Wolverine films. At this point, making the Deadpool films apart of the MCU timeline would just make it ridiculously convoluted and confusing, more so than the X-Men timeline. To understand why you have to rewatch the post-credit scene of the first Iron Man film and listen to what Nick Fury said.

Nick Fury: “I am Iron Man”. You think you’re the only superhero in the world? Mr. Stark, you’ve become part of a bigger universe. You just don’t know it yet.

This means that Tony Stark is the first superhero known to the public in the MCU timeline. Captain America doesn’t count as he wasn’t really a superhero in The First Avenger but an enhanced soldier serving his country. And this notion that superheroes are a very recent phenomenon in the MCU goes beyond this post credit scene and is actually a major plot point in several films. Such as in the Avengers where SHEILD used the Tesseract to create weapons in response to the appearance of Thor because they realized that the world is bigger than they know and they are outgunned. Tony’s character arc in Iron Man 3 is that he has anxiety attacks due to the realization of Gods, Aliens, and other things that threaten the world that he couldn’t protect it from and it’s this fear that caused him to create Ultron in the second Avengers film. And during Civil War one of the arguments for the Accords is that that the number of superpowered people have risen and as a result the world has become more dangerous.

In contrast, superheroes and superpowered beings have been known for decades in the X-Men universe and that’s even established in Deadpool 2 with Dominio growing up in the Essex home for mutants. Deadpool 2 also shows that aliens casually live on Earth and Dark Phoenix is apparently going to show aliens being revealed to the public during 1991 and feature the X-Men as an government sanctioned team similar to the Avengers.

What would be the point of SHEILD even forming the Avengers when the government already have the X-Men fighting the battles they never could since the 80s? Why is Tony and the rest of world flipping out over stuff that has been known for decades? These two franchises just don’t work together at all. To retcon them as one of the same would ruin the MCU’s overarching storyline of a people panicking over their world becoming a superhero comic. So it’s not just nonsensical but just straight up bad storytelling.

Most fans have given up supporting this retcon. But of course there are still those that hold on to this idea and try to argue that Deadpool is still not connected to the X-Men films and is in its own universe. Such arguments being that there are timeline inconsistencies in the Deadpool films between the X-Men films. But this isn’t hard evidence at all considering that timeline errors are common in the X-Men franchise and the film makers have explained that they have a very loose approach to the continuity of these films.

Examples:

-Moria MacTaggert appears in X3 which is set in 2006 and she is a Scottish women in her 30s. Yet she appears in X-Men: First Class which is set in the 1963 as an American woman in her 30s.

-Angel appears in X3 during the mid-2000s as man in his 20s, also appears as man in his 20s in X-Men: Apocalypse which is set in 1983.



-The First Class cast doesn’t seem to age much between the decade long time skips. The only character that is stated to have the ability to age slower is Mystique.

So the Deadpool films are just playing fast and loose with the continuity just like other films in the X-Men franchise before and after it. The only difference is that Deadpool points out how confusing it all is. Which brings me to the other argument that many people use to justify a retcon, which that Marvel Studios could just have Deadpool make a meta joke about how none of this makes sense so people can laugh it off. Problem that didn’t stop people from complaining the X-Men timeline being messing after he said it was confusing in his first film. So why would this work with the MCU timeline being an even bigger mess? Especially when such a franchise has the mantra that is “it’s all connected” and have this rigid continuity which is the complete opposite of the X-Men franchise’s approach to its canon. Afterall these are the same guys that went out of their way to retcon the “blink or you miss it” easter egg of the Infinity Gauntlet in the first Thor and made a scene in Thor 3 to establish it as fake.

Yes, Marvel Studio can just say “fuck it”, adopt a loose canon approach like the X-Men films anyway, and tell it’s critics to go fuck themselves. But I don’t think they would due to how touchy they have been with details and it’s just unnecessary. When they could just go down the multiverse crossover route as they already confirmed that exists in Doctor Strange, but outside of that I don’t see them keeping the current Deadpool franchise around. They would at best have Ryan Reynolds play a different version of the character like the Bond reboot did by keeping Judi Dench as M and reference the old franchise. But retrospectively setting the events of Deadpool in the MCU seems unlikely at this point.