Rumours are abound that none other than Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and Tobey Maguire’s
Spider-Man will meet in 2026’s Avengers: Secret Wars.
My hope is that it’s not just a small scene where the two meet and exchange a couple of
words.
I want at least the same level of interactions as what the Spider-Men enjoyed in No Way home;
ideally, I’d like to see them get a full subplot in the movie, I mean why not?
If you’re doing a marvel movie multiverse storyline, outside of the MCU leads, both
these guys are the candidates that make the most sense.
Their movies and the worlds that they inhabited set the standard for so much of the MCU, they
were each iconic in their own way and fans are still chomping at the bit to see them
again, as evident by that juicy Deadpool announcement video and the release of No Way Home.
One thing I’ve criticised about the so-called Multiverse saga is how disjointed it has been
so far, but this little crossover team up has actually been well seeded.
We’ve already reintroduced Tugboat in Spider-Man No Way Home, and Wolverine is making his unexpected
return in Deadpool 3, invading the movie so hard that it’s probably going to have his
name in the title.
I can’t wait for the title to be revealed as “Deadpool and Hawkeye” and people come
back to this video to comment “This didn’t age well!
Ha!
You couldn’t predict the nature of time itself you freaking idiot!
Everything you speculate, no matter how small, has to be right or you will be shamed!
Ha!
Basically, by the time we come to Secret Wars, Spidey and Wolverine will have each had a
multiverse team up movie to reacquaint the audience, going into Secret Wars they are
the pairing that would make sense to lead that contingent of the plot.
And then from these guys, you could bring in a whole host of other Marvel characters…
but more on that in a bit…
Their personalities would make for some hilarious exchanges, their powers would perfectly compliment
each other in a collaborative fight against Kang’s forces.
Seeing 2000s Spider-Man with, well, the one and only Wolverine since the 2000s would be
nothing short of epic.
[Art]
If secret wars is going to be a huge event involving close to three decades of marvel
movies, then i think giving Wolverine and Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man the spotlight
for one of the many plot strands feels so right.
Would you be hyped to see this classic marvel duo on screen?
Who else would you like to see Tobey and Hugh interact with?
TITLE
These two teaming up has been on the cards for way longer than you might have realised.
Spider-Man pops up in a DVD easter egg from the original X-Men movie.
Then, in 2002’s Spider-Man, Jackman was actually set for a small cameo appearance
but, get this, the filmmakers couldn’t wrangle his costume and so it was scrapped.
What a different world we’d be in had that come to pass; whilst the cameo wasn’t part
of any meaningful plan, I’m sure the fans would have no doubt pushed for a proper crossover
down the line if they had seen these giants share the screen all the way back in 2002.
Fox did collaborate with Sony very lightly in 2014 with a Spider-man / X-men crossover,
actually having a post credit scene in the amazing spider man 2 being a scene from the
upcoming days of future past.
Weird right?
Gotta be one of the strangest post credits scenes that never gets talked about…
There’s one key thing I want from this duo, I think people are going to disagree on this
but hear me out.
They should have met before Secret Wars, and have a longstanding rapport.
[I don’t believe you]
I always love the storytelling convention of having two characters meet for the first
time in the audience’s memory, yet the pair have a long storied history.
It’s a trick franchises like Indiana Jones and John Wick pull all the time; rarely do
these heroes meet characters for the first time; often the banter and the interplay between
them and the other respective character is rooted in all the encounters they had before.
It can be a really fun tool to get the audience up to speed and it allows the scene to focus
on the preeminent threat rather than worrying about establishing who they are to each other.
These two characters are comic book movie legends, so I think it would feel appropriate
to give them adventures and myths that we can only imagine in our heads.
I don’t want this to overshadow the story, it should just inform the dynamic that they
have and play into the fun.
Think the way Black Widow and Hawkeye shine a light on previous off-screen adventures.
[You and I remember Budapest very differently] It also allows the writer to bump the audience
up to speed; Hawkeye and Black Widow don’t get a whole lot of screen time together before
the third act of the Avengers, but we immediately get their relationship because they are depicted
as long-time firm friends.
I think by having some Budapest-esque mentions you define something between these characters
you can dig right into what would make the two interesting together.
Sure, it would be fun to have Tobey question Wolverine’s claws, or for Jackman to assume
Spider-Man is some kind of mutant, or for the pair to come to blows, punch for a bit
and then become mates… but I think we’ve all seen that movie in some form already.
[No way home webbing bit] Go the John Wick route, allow the story to do that magical
thing where we can leave the theatre pumped up thinking about all the amazing adventures
they had together in their marvel universe.
Metatextually, it would be a nice pay off to all the times the pair nearly crossed over
in the first place.
It would be saying to the audience that those comic book movies we got long before the concept
of a cinematic universe were a flourishing marvel world all their own.
What if Spider-Man and Wolverine find themselves chucked into a confusing and unreal splintered
reality thanks to Kang.
The two end up facing each other, the audience has never seen this before and is waiting
with baited breath to find out what they’re going to say to each other…
only for the pair to be relieved to see each other.
They’re friends who have had past adventures together and they bicker in a friendly, glib
way.
Logan of course thinks Spider-Man is a massive dork and Spidey could find a lot of amusement
in the fact that even far from home Logan is still just as gruff as ever.
Their sarcasm and witticisms from the previous movies show that this would be so much fun
to see.
I also think if you’re going to have both of these characters meet all kinds of MCU
characters in secret wars then it would be a nice way to ground them.
All these MCU characters are the strange multiverse weirdos - Spider-Man?
Oh me and Spider-Man go way back…. unfortunately.
It disappointed me somewhat to hear Tobey ask who the Avengers were because it confirms
that, in his world, they never existed.
So I think it would be cool to instead suggest that Tobey’s Marvel world featured the characters
that the MCU hasn’t dug into just yet; in place of the Avengers, Tobey met and battled
with the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Hulk and Daredevil.
If Tobey and Hugh bump into original recipe Captain America they should totally mistake
him for Johnny Storm, a nice little set up for a portals style scene later on in the
movie wherein the 2000s FF come through.
This duo could spearhead all of those characters folding in, and having them all know each
other would make it easier to draw a line between the MCU Phase 6 roster and the legacy
roster.
The director for Secret Wars has not yet been announced but whoever it ends up being I hope
they really channel the styles of these older characters rather than just having them pop
up.
One of my gripes with No Way Home is that the film never evoked the cinematography or
editing styles of either Tobey or Andrew’s movies.
Now I know people will comment to tell me that it’s because it was Tom Holland’s
world but I think that’s a lazy excuse.
Fans loved the fight scenes and swinging scenes from both those examples, why couldn’t we
get little snippets of those styles interspersed amongst the Holland aesthetic?
I don’t think bringing back these characters should be just about the story and the dialogue,
it should be a celebration of the movies that got us to the MCU in the first place.
Imagine if we get the visceral thrills of seeing Spider-Man and Wolverine fighting like
this again.
[Deathstrike / Spidey] The Raimi Spider-Man films nailed Spider-Man’s fighting style
and packed a punch from the very beginning.
Wolverine has passed through several directors and his fight scenes have never been as consistent
- sometimes he kicks ass and other times he’s felt quite immobile and stilted compared to
his comic book counterpart.
It will be interesting to see how Shaun Levy depicts Wolverine in Deadpool 3.
My biggest hope is we lean more into his leaps and acrobatics, things that we got a little
bit more of towards the end of his original fox tenure.
One of the things I think sucked about bringing all the heroes together in Endgame is they
all collectively face Thanos… plus… his random grey alien chitauri enemies.
I hope Secret Wars brings back villains too.
Imagine a tag team battle with these guys vs Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin and Liev
Schrieber’s Sabertooth?!
Now THAT would be a battle for the ages.
Imagine Tobey ending up in his trademark battered suit because Sabertooth tears it to shreds.
Imagine seeing Wolverine take one of those pumpkin bombs that erodes you to nothing but
a skeleton and seeing Gobby shocked as the mutant regrows his entire body back!
Of course, whilst Tobey’s iconic costume needs no tweaks whatsoever, Wolverine has
been edging us with a truly accurate comic book style outfit for years.
[What would you prefer, yellow spandex?]
Yes actually.
I would be shocked if we don’t see him in the Yellow outfit in Deadpool 3, meaning when
these two meet they will be in both of their iconic looks.
That will be incredibly surreal but also incredibly awesome.
And imagine, just imagine, if we actually get to hear their respective scores used properly
in the movie.
The Danny Elfman theme needs no introduction, but the John Ottman X-Men theme is sorely
underrated.
I’d love to hear a medley of the two when these guys throw down.
The lack of Raimi’s score in No Way Home was a real shame - yes I know it played in
a couple of tiny instances but I’m talking about a proper rousing moment!
I feel like it’s a no-brainer.
Utilising their themes is just as important as having them saying one-liners.
If Marvel are going to try and top Infinity War and Endgame, not necessarily in terms
of scale but storytelling quality, then I want to see this long held pipe dream come
to fruition.
[so this is what it feels like]
Of course there is one more pivotal early Marvel superhero that deserves to join this
duo, but with a reboot stuck in development hell it seems unlikely he’ll make this a
perfect Marvel trinity…
[BLADE!!!!]