We just got our first look at Deadpool 3, which gives something Marvel fans have wanted to see for over 20 years.
The sneak peek comes from Ryan Reynolds, who shared the photo on his Instagram Stories (and possibly to get ahead of set photos leaking the photo. The photo features Reynolds as Wade Wilson/Deadpool walking beside Hugh Jackman’s Logan/Wolverine. Deadpool more or less looks the same, although there are likely several minor adjustments with the start of a new Deadpool movie and the first one made by Disney and Marvel Studios.
But it’s Jackman’s costume—a yellow suit with blue-colored shoulder pads, gloves, boots, and markings along the sides—that’s drawing the most attention.
“Don’t blink,” Reynolds wrote above the photo. A dancing Deadpool GIF appears at the bottom of the post.
Apart from Jackman wearing a much different costume than we’ve seen him in the X-Men movies, those Wolverine spinoffs, and 2017’s Logan (when Jackman hung up Wolverine’s claws), his new outfit is reminiscent of the uniforms that the X-Men wear in the Marvel comics.
Even without the helmet, fans who’ve been waiting for Jackman to put on a version of that costume for over 20 years are finally vindicated.
“FINALLY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS WE GOT COMIC ACCURATE WOLVERINE,” @ComicLoverMari tweeted.
Some even speculated (with others giving us a glimpse of what it would look like) the possibility of X-Men meme culture coming to life.
For those with criticisms, they’re ebbing on the minor side, as some wished that the costume had a little less spandex on it.
The journey to get Jackman into Wolverine’s comics costume is long. Some movies have contained visual nods to Wolverine’s suit, although he never donned it himself. But his view on that costume has changed over the years, going from visible relief over not having to wear yellow spandex to expressing regret over never being able to make it happen.
It’s far from the first comics-accurate costume to make its way into a Marvel property (e.g. Wanda Maximoff and Vision donned comics-accurate outfits as Halloween costumes in WandaVision). But given Deadpool’s inclination to lean into the character’s fourth-wall-breaking tendencies, there’s almost no chance the outfit isn’t part of some major meta joke or bit.
Deadpool 3, which Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige has had to assure fans multiple times will be an R-rated movie like its predecessors, has been under scrutiny for years—and will continue to be as it starts filming amid the writers’ strike. But at least in one regard, Deadpool 3 has already won its critics over.
